Religion and Schools: Should they be together?

[God]

Well after reading an article about a Bill that was passed into Law in Tennessee, USA.


“The bill states ‘a student may express beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. A student would not be penalized or rewarded on account of the religious content of the student’s work."

Meaning a student could write "God" as an answer for a question like "How do thunderstorms happen"
This also means a Student could present an Anti Gay presentation and be protected under this Law.


The bill also provides for a student speaker program, in which students of faith are chosen by local school boards to address their classmates in what the ACLU called “a variety of inappropriate settings, from the classroom to school-day assemblies and school events.”
As a result, “students with a range of religious beliefs, as well as non-believers, would likely routinely be required to listen to religious messages or participate in religious exercises that conflict with their own beliefs.”



Should Religion and schools be allowed to be together?

"This is Public School, not Sunday School"

https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1.0-9/1970377_10100405692939901_2092620249_n.jpg

[Kyle]

thought this would be a good debate and then you ruined it with the bigoted image
Don't think anti gay presentations would be protected under law considering there are other laws in place that prevent hate speech

yes, education should be freely accessible and not discriminated against in schools

[FlyingJesus]

Oh no, having to listen to people with other beliefs! The horror!

And no, saying "God" as an answer to a question about thunderstorms would not be accepted, this is clearly a ruling about ethical content not science

[Yawn]

i went to a religious primary school

stop religion bashing im sick of u

[Kardan]

I'm going to ignore your post Dragga and just reply to the thread title.

My views are that religion should be taught in schools, but not practised (unless the school is clearly stated as a religious school). So no more hymns at assembly etc.

[iBlueBox]

Yes they should, but there are clearly options for non religious schools in the UK, So I think it's down to the individual if they want to attend a religious school.

I went to a Catholic primary school, Catholic secondary and stayed on into the sixth form and I loved the sense of community in my secondary school and the sixth form, I'm no way deeply religious as In I go to mass every sunday. But I did love the school and Religious Education in secondary was one of my favourite subjects. I loved the aspect of debating different issues with different religious views on them. It was one of the main reasons I decided I wanted to study Philosophy and Ethics at A-Level that I deeply enjoyed.

[GommeInc]

Science should take precedence over religious theory in schools. Beliefs can remain, but having children leave school thinking God is in charge of thunderstorms rather than the theory behind it would be unacceptable and cruel.

[Lewis]

I don't think schools should be like proper religious. Teaching it is absolutely fine though.

I remember being in some sort of religious primary school years ago and we had to pray before going out for break, lunch, home or whatever. We were pretty much forced! I don't know if normal religious schools do that, but that was just weird. And sometimes it was more than three times a day lol. Overall, I don't really know what religious schools are like. But I don't think it's right that education should be merged with religion so much, unless it's just being taught like any other lesson.

And I somewhat believe in God myself, so in no way am I trying to be against any religious people.

Oh and definitely the post above, science should be considered much more important than religion in schools.

[Inseriousity.]

how's it weird lol
my primary school was the same but I never thought it was weird, tbh didn't really think about it much at all, too young to really care about God and faith and religion but it never felt weird.

In the UK at least, religion was the primary provider of education before a state education system was introduced so in that sense, religion and the state will always have a dual-role in education here. I do not believe the hype about them brainwashing children, in fact, in secondary school the only compulsory church day was 1st march, everything else was voluntary and in primary I think these things are just too young for it to really stick and more of a ritual than a deep meaningful conversion.

I don't really see anything wrong with the first one. I doubt just writing one word would get you very far but saying some people believe x, some people believe y is pretty much the standard template of those sort of essays. The 2nd one could be tricky if it excluded students to a particular faith. It's the US so that's possible lol they're crazy about religion over there sorry rosy ;)

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah unless you get educated in an actual nunnery then "religious" schools (here at least) are simply fashioned around church values and may include a couple of hymns in assembly services, nothing intrusive and far less in-your-face than any hardcore atheist I've ever known, who tend to be the most dogmatic of the lot

[Charz777]

Not read the whole article before someone jumps down my throat about not knowing what I'm talking about.

But, based on the simple question 'should religion be allowed in schools;'

The primary school I went to had us saying prayers and singing hymns and was a Christian school. We went to church at Christmas with our class group and so on. It never did me any harm. I don't have religion now, and so it clearly wasn't forced down my throat, nor was I brainwashed. I simply understood the freedom of choice about religion even at a young age.

At a quick glance, I don't agree that the question "How do thunderstorms happen" can be answered by 'God' and that if that was in a test it should be marked wrong, because we know scientifically how thunderstorms happen.

Also, religion should not be an excuse for people to get away with being prejudiced towards other ie; gays.

I think it's important for religious studies to be taught in school, so we know about the different religions and are ignorant to others' beliefs, but I don't think it needs to be practiced. (It was practiced in my school it did me no harm, but it also didn't influence me to be religious). I think it's unnecessary to practice it in schools because of there being so many different religions within one school environment these days.

I am also a believer that a person's religion is a private thing and should be a part of their inner feelings. Not shared with the world, and henceforth should be practiced at home or in the appropriate place of worship.

[Inseriousity.]

Yes and the values are so vague ("love", "forgiveness", "charity" yada yada) that it's not really religious at all. Although my nana was taught in a nunnery and she has nothing but bad things to say about religion now. Those places sound nasty and I have heard stories of downstairs anatomy and any mention of condoms being ripped out of textbooks in the US so yeah religion does have a lot to answer for if it stifles education.

[FlyingJesus]

We had a chapel at my high school but I'm pretty sure it was never used even once in the 4 years I spent there. We even had this bishop bloke turn up a few times but he spoke to us in the gym for some reason

He was pretty cool I wanted his robes and he went around blessing people

[-:Undertaker:-]

Religious schools should not be banned no, they do a far better job than the appalling comprehensives the majority of the population have to put up with. That's why you'll find that a lot of leading politicians, especially in the pro-comprehensive school Labour Party will get theit children into Catholic schools because they know what we know which is that many state comprehensives are frankly: ****.

It's the same with leading Tories: pro-comprehensive education yet they'll get their children into private, remaining grammar or CoE schools.


I'm going to ignore your post Dragga and just reply to the thread title.

My views are that religion should be taught in schools, but not practised (unless the school is clearly stated as a religious school). So no more hymns at assembly etc.

Why would you wish to ban beautiful classical songs that children will take away with them for life? Cultural trashing at it's worst.

[Kardan]

Religious schools should not be banned no, they do a far better job than the appalling comprehensives the majority of the population have to put up with. That's why you'll find that a lot of leading politicians, especially in the pro-comprehensive school Labour Party will get theit children into Catholic schools because they know what we know which is that many state comprehensives are frankly: ****.

It's the same with leading Tories: pro-comprehensive education yet they'll get their children into private, remaining grammar or CoE schools.



Why would you wish to ban beautiful classical songs that children will take away with them for life? Cultural trashing at it's worst.

Because I don't think it's suitable for all schools.

[GommeInc]

I have no idea what the current system is like but my school was a religious one and we all didn't take the hymns or assemblies serious anyway. "Give Me Hope, Johanna" became "Give Me Dope, Johanna". Provided the school actually teaches appropriately and allows for open ideas I don't really see how the religious aspect is a problem. If teacher impede on the freedom of thought children may have then it's a problem with the school rather than the religion. If evolution is not being taught then you have a problem as it is an important scientific area which needs to be looked into.

Save creationism for RSS/RE as the only source for that is the Bible, a religious text that naturally needs to be kept in RE, unless of course debate breaks out in Science where evolution is taught, then the children will make up their own minds.

[Ardemax]

Oh would you look at that a few Christian hymns in assembly and suddenly the church is 'brainwashing' children. Sigh.

[FlyingJesus]

Hymns are fab *+*+* but Dan most CoE schools are still state ones

[LiquidLuck.]

Well after reading an article about a Bill that was passed into Law in Tennessee, USA.

Meaning a student could write "God" as an answer for a question like "How do thunderstorms happen"
This also means a Student could present an Anti Gay presentation and be protected under this Law.

Should Religion and schools be allowed to be together?

"This is Public School, not Sunday School"

First of all, no it doesn't mean the answer ''God'' would be correct, don't think you quite understand what the bill states but it has been explained above so I am not going to bother again.

Also last year one of my colleagues did a presentation about gay rights, and from what he was saying it was very obvious he was against it even though he kept saying he was there as someone without an opinion, just as a third party type of way. What happened was a big discussion in the classroom with everyone defending their beliefs which for everyone was pro gay rights. This was actually quite surprising because with teens among which ''gay'' is used as an insult, they all still agreed that they should have the same rights as everyone else and even though I had heard them use it as an insult numerous times, it was also obvious they didn't actually mean it with all the connotations it had 50 years ago.

I do not think that religion and schools should be together because it would be that the school would have to choose its religion. I believe in God, and I believe in Science, and mostly I believe there are a lot of things that we haven't quite understood yet. For this reason I am not against other religious beliefs as long as they are moderate. For example, our God can be a different God, your God can even tell you that cows are sacred, that is fine by me. But if you God forbids you to eat Hellman mayonnaise because he thinks that the devil will get into your body, then sorry but no. That is taking it WAY too far.

But yeah to summarize, the reason that both of them should not be related is because people from different religions should be allowed to go to the same school as it also helps to ''unify'' the world educating children to believe that it's okay for people to be different.

[Naturlee]

Religious Education is a fairly important subject. As a trainee teacher, (here we go...) I do fully support the teaching of it in schools. It has real benefit to the individual pupil when taught right (but that is another debate). It teaches them "life lessons" and how to treat others, for example, the good Samaritan story in the Bible could be used a stimulus to explore what a good human being does. Okay, priority in schools should definitely been on reading, writing, speaking, listening and numeracy - but who's to say R.E won't help these subjects? If a particular pupil doesn't wish to take part in R.E, they are legally allowed to be withdrawn from the subject with parental consent; some parents may wish to withdraw their children from R.E lessons. In my opinion, I don't see anything wrong with the two being together. Religion gives good values and morals; I see no reason why. I was replying definitely to the thread title here (and I also apologise for one big paragraph - I can't seem to make my enter key work on this website :S).

[Happy-Tomato]

Why should they teach religion, when they only teach the 'important' religions, that in itself is blasphemy, nobody chooses what religion is the most important, because everybody has their own opinion. I might say that Scientology is the most important religion, whereas somebody else might argue that Judaism is the most important. So, if you cannot teach students about every religion in the whole planet, then I'm sorry, you shouldn't teach it.

[Kuybii]

Learning about religion in school works both ways, it either establishes to yourself that religion is utter nonsense or a pathway to enlightenment. Utter nonsense for me personally.

I do think however it could be approached differently. You should teach the aspect of religion, not specific religions themselves. Maybe it'd be putting pressures on the teacher(s) but i think if you were to be taught aspects of religion, e.g. what is "god", why do people pray, health benefits up to say years 7/8 and you can choose it as an option in year 9 whether you want to pursue religion as a GCSE in your specific religion interest, e.g. christianity.

If this wasn't the case, i wouldn't say i'm pro-england...i'm all for ethnic diversity but lets just make things clear, christianity is the home religion therefore like it or not, it is the religion that should be taught.