Tuesday 14 March 2017

Religious Education




Here in New South Wales, the education act requires time to be allowed for all students in state schools to receive religious education. Religious education is not compulsory, parents may elect for their children to undertake ethics lessons or participate  in  "supervised activities" (otherwise known as free time) during the period allocated for religious education.

Religious education and ethics classes are provided by volunteers, not education professionals, and they follow a prescribed curriculum. The options available in any school depend on the available volunteers.

I regularly see facebook posts where parents bemoan the existence of religious education, I also see posts where parents bemoan the lack of ethics classes.

Sometimes, parents who are non-religious or atheist send their children to classes for a different religion each year.

In general I favour the separation of church and state, especially when the religious right claims to be Christian while their behaviour reveals them to be very far right, toxic-ly religious and not at all Christian but I digress....

While religious education is optional and religious people adhere to the approved curriculum I am happy to see religious education in schools but for those who don't want their children exposed to religious education, there are questions


  • If people claim to not want religion in schools, why do they take up the option? 
  • If religion in schools is inappropriate, why not take support away from the system? voting with the feet would be the most effective way to end religion in schools
  • If you send your children to classes for a different religion each year, are they methodically exposed to different religions or just denominations? and do you care which faith systems they are learning about?
  • Why are devout religious people volunteering to teach religion but devout secular people are not volunteering to teach ethics?
And my biggest question: Even if your personal belief system does not allow for religion of any kind, does anyone regard biblical stories as an important part of general knowledge? Does our culture place any value on the bible as an important part of our literary and cultural history? 

Should we change our current religious education to ethics only? comparative religion? mythology and culture?

Or should we ditch it entirely and introduce something like life skills?

16 comments:

  1. Religious Education should, in my view be changed to " life skills and news" discussion group. A facilitated look and a range of subjects including race, religion, news, etc etc

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  2. While in grad school, other students noticed my knowledge of the stories in the Bible. Authors often named characters Biblical names that gave a hint to the character of the character...lol..did not mean to be so redundant. But, I am tired.

    One guy said his parents never took him to church and now he realizes their is a gap in his education. I think the Bible should be taught as history much as we teach mythology. I am not suggesting it should be presented as mythology.

    If you don't know the bible, chances are any allusion to a "doubting Thomas" will go right over your head.

    I think students only need to take this course one year, not every year. I would be leery of volunteer teachers.

    I get your blog in my email and read it. However, I have not been able to comment! Now I can.

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    Replies
    1. A single course would be enough, yes. The volunteers here have all been required to take a small amount of training.

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  3. But life skills have to be based on some kind of ethics don't they? Whatever the ethics are that are taught in school they have to be based on some moral code. I suppose the big question is which one? Both my daughters studied RS in school and attended Sunday school too, but they both were taught about many different religions not just Christianity at school. I'm glad they did because they now have a wide selection of friends with different faiths or no faith, but they both have an understanding, therefore tolerance of different religions too.

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    1. I really didn't learn anything about other religions at school, Australia was still dominantly white and nominally Christian when I went to school so protestant or catholic were the options. Unfortunately, I think it is still possible to go through 13 years of school without any teaching on religion. Maybe a basic understanding of the major religions would be helpful to all of us

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  4. Well, as an atheist, I would agree with John that a life skills class would be more useful than learning about religion. And as Joe says, there could also be an ethics element.

    Anyone who's interested in religion can easily get information outside school - from books, from churches etc. And who really needs to know who "doubting Thomas" was? In any case, you can Google it.

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    1. Nick,
      That argument won't hold water with me. Anything at all can be googled but we still send kids to school to be given a basic grounding in a range of areas. Biblical references probably crop up in our language as often as Shakespearean ones and we most certainly give everyone at leat one exposure to a Shakespearean work

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    2. Nick, the character would be named "Thomas" but the character would have elements of doubt. So, it is important to know the allusions to the Bible as well as allusions to mythological characters. The trouble is people don't even know what they don't know, so there would be no urge to look up "doubting Thomas." Believe me, religion has no appeal or hold on me.

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  5. My personal belief is that the public education system should not offer any religious instruction whatsoever. If parents want, it should be given to the children by off school methods.

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    1. i think we are moving towards that, Ramana. The churches already feel persecuted because they are given less access than they once were.
      Of course religious schools are free to teach religion and many non-religious people send their kids to them

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  6. I grew up in schools where we read from the Bible daily (these were public schools) and it was generally a verse or two, with no additional commentary from the teachers. I do not recall it having an impact on me one way or another.
    I attended Sunday School and church regularly as a child and that is where I learned religion, though my father read bible stories to us on a regular basis at night. I was lucky since our church offered (and still does) the youth of the church options for learning about other religions.
    I personally think home and churches, temples, mosques, etc. are where religion studies should be taught and not at schools. While I am Christian, I shudder thinking that someone with a Westboro Baptist Christian ideology could volunteer teaching Christianity at a school.

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    1. Westboro would be exactly the kind of people who would be all over volunteering like a rash and imagine the damage that would do! One of the inspirations for this post was a story about religious education volunteers spouting homophobia. If we are to have any religion in schools it needs to be taught objectively.

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    2. kylie,
      That is exactly why I said volunteers should not be used. They would have an agenda.

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  7. Religious education (Christian only) was compulsory when I was at school. Which I thought and think was a mistake.
    I do like John's idea. And don't believe that ethics are dependent on any religious grounding. But then I would say that, wouldn't I? As an agnostic (atheist?) with I believe a strong ethical basis.

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    1. If I had to choose between a random ethicist or a random religious person as say, my power of attorney, I would pick the ethicist. Who knows what dogma the religious person subscribes to

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