Would you say something to the RE teacher about this comment?

Sounds like a joke to me.

FGS I'm pretty sure it was just a flippant jokey off the cuff remark. Not the actual view of the teacher.

This.

But Christians do not believe what the teacher said. Or any religion afaik. So it's not the teacher being biased toward their religion.
It really sounds like a sort of eyebrow-raised conspiratorial comment to me - no way could anyone believe it for real.

It's my understanding that RE these days is not allowed to blatantly present such nonsense as fact. Are you sure the teacher wasn't just trying to play devils advocate and stimulate debate? Perhaps it was too subtle for even the children to realise? Or perhaps your DC attends a faith based school, in which case the teacher was probably deadly serious!

In my DS's school it's not even called RE anymore. It's now called Philosophy and Beliefs and the old "RE" element is simply presented as things that some groups of people believe. It remains a compulsory subject to age 16 but it's more now about presenting moral and ethical scenarios as debates - all of which have a for, an against and a religious view. It adds far more balance and my DS enjoys it.

I'd be faster to complain that they are being left to work unsupervised, if that does indeed happen. What kind of school is this?

By the way OP - should have said, the reason it would be good to pass your anecdote on to Accord is that they compile evidence, and present it in reports. They have influential supporters in Parliament, and their reports are taken seriously, so it wouldn't be a wasted effort to contact them.

It probably would be a wasted effort to speak to the teacher but, if you do, please report back what she says!

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if I'm saying something that's been discussed but I am a Christian... I also believe that the the moon is visible due to the light of the sun. My Cof E church celebrated Darwin's birthday and the vicar did an amazing talk on how science and Christianity can go together. The vague premise being that it's like a cake, science tells you the recipe and Christianity tells you why the cake was made. (It was better than that but I can't remember with my baby brain).

I probably wouldn't complain I'd just tell dd that RE teacher is clearly nuts and maybe suggest she doesn't do RE GCSE if that's the teacher.

you ve been quoted.
plus it doenst means she doesnt also believe it

might have been said with a smile and a wink

or with annoying iverted comma hands

p.s. When my 5 year-old DS told his Reception teacher that numbers go on to infinity, she replied that "only God is infinite".

So, unfortunately, I had to tell him early on in his school career that his teachers don't always know the right answers.

OP, I suggest you contact Accord and tell them your anecdote. They campaign for better RE teaching in schools, because at present the quality is very varied.

There is a national framework for RE, which includes exploring the relationship between religion and science, but its not compulsory.

I hope the teacher was joking. If not, she sounds a bit loopy.

There is no inherent contradiction between science and religion. The Catholic Church accepts the theory of evolution. The concept of God is creator is not that he engineers every little thing ('God lights up the moon? Come on), but that he is the ultimate cause of everything. Google 'Cosmological Argument' - in a nutshell, it argues that something must have ultimately caused everything to exist, a cause without a cause.

Plenty of scientists are Christian, it doesn't bother them at all.

What patriciaholm said:

"Religious Education" is about teaching kids about religions, about what people all over the world believe, enabling them to have the critical tools and knowledge to make up their own minds. It's not "Religious Indoctrination", in which the teacher tells children that what religions say Is True and that science is just a theory. That is a very important difference.

FGS I'm pretty sure it was just a flippant jokey off the cuff remark. Not the actual view of the teacher.

In our (mostly Muslim) area, they would have a very high failure of RE if 'being Christian enough' was the criteria. Are you sure it wasn't 'well argued enough'.

Oh I wouldn't worry, you do half expect an RE teacher to say that, and kids have to learn to engage with the science versus religion debate sometime. Save your energy for when a teacher really goes unhinged.

If the teacher was joking, it is in fact a funny joke.

No faith that I know of requires you to believe that the moon emits light: she is misrepresenting Christianity as well as science.

OP - I wouldn't say anything personally, but I might encourage my DC and friends to tell their science teachers. As a former physics teacher, if I had found out one of the RE teachers at my school was deliberately trying to undermine my subject to the students I would have a few words with them.

But how does a scientist, who is also religious and believes in God, explain the creation of man?

(Simple explanation please!)

Not a simple explanation but - evolution. It's the same explanation that the non-religious make do with. I do believe we are more than the sum of our genes though.

Science isn't directly opposed to RE at all. Plenty of scientist are religious (I'm one of them), plenty of Religious are scientists.

What faith is she that compels her to believe that the moon emits light? It's just bollocks and she wants pulling up for that alone.