Religious Education

[Proinsias]

Curious as to how others here approach, or would like to approach, the religious education of their children. And also opinions on the level of state involvement there should be in regards to the religious education of children. Listening to a Daniel Dennett youtube vid from a few years back chimed in with thoughts I've had in regard to religious eduction. It's not often I agree with Daniel Dennett. He's of the opinion religion should be as much a part of the curriculum as maths, science, language and art. Kids should be taught about the variety of religion as it has played as much a part in the shaping of humanity as maths and language. Where I disagree with him is where he starts to become insistent upon religions being presented to children as merely collections of facts regarding the different religions. One wouldn't teach art, science or language without getting the kids to participate in those disciplines, why single out religion.

Would there be any benefit in children experiencing different religions as part of the curriculum?

[narnia4]

Frankly it does make me a little uncomfortable if you tried to go beyond facts and figures, heck even facts and figures could be hard... think of a hardened atheist teaching students what he thinks the "facts" about Christianity are. I think a sufficiently neutral curriculum could probably be applied, but that would be near impossible if you really try to get involved with it. And yet I agree its something that should be taught... so its an interesting issue. From what I've seen even most Christians in the United States are content to "leave it alone". I think an outline of the major world religions with maybe a representative of each religion giving the talk, that'd make a fine class if it were done right.

[Reactionary]

In my country, there is a subject taught in elementary and high schools, which could literally be translated something like "Doctrine of Faith", while de facto it actually teaches Catholic catechesis (as nearly 9/10 citizens are Catholic), and it also briefly covers the basics of other religions. The subject is taught by Christian theologians.

It is, of course, optional, and in high schools, a student may choose to attend secular ethics instead, if he/she is not a Christian, or simply decides so. I find this system fair and square.

[Proinsias]

Thanks for the input. I've long thought there should be, tempered and thorough, religious teaching in schools but the writing of Wilfred Cantwell Smith caught my eye recently. I've not yet read any of his works beyond brief summaries and skims and intend to remedy that soon but the notion that caught my attention was that he encouraged his pupils in their study of comparative religion to actually practice the religions they were studying. With something as personal as religion it's hard to gain an understanding of it without some experiential element, being the essence of that idea.

I suppose much of my issue is that the situation here is rather similar to that which Reactionary describes, schools tend to pick a particular flavour of Christianity and that's what the kids get in abundance and to some extent live it, they will chuck in a brief run down of other religion now and then. It seems a little like sending my daughter to a school where she will play football at every physical education lesson and maybe once or twice a year sit in a room and have someone briefly run over the basics of tennis, netball and swimming.

[Proinsias]

I think an outline of the major world religions with maybe a representative of each religion giving the talk, that'd make a fine class if it were done right.

That would be a fine class. My study of world religions in school amounted to little more than an hour or so every few years detailing the absurdities of religions other than the one we were practicing, and taught by someone well versed in Christianity and rather poorly versed in anything else.

[Murray]

Well my normal public school teaches briefly about every major world religion in world history 2 (which I got an A+ in and scored a perfect score on the state exam may I add ).

Honestly I think my teacher (who is also my Sunday school teacher) did a great job of covering all religions fairly, and personally I hope that all schools have that kind of "world religion" topic mixed into her curriculum