To think RE is a big waste of time

[Himalaya]

I don't mean that kids shouldn't come out of school with a basic knowledge of the world's religions and some skills in philosophy and critical thinking, but to have to take RE classes every week for 12+ years seems like overkill, and a waste of their time.

They certainly don't come out at the end of it with twelve years worth of knowledge, so you have to wonder what is the point. The only point seems to me to be to instill in them strongly the idea that religions deserve a special kind of RESPECT.

Most of the stuff in primary and early secondary is just mush content-wise (but with a heavy undertone of respect).

I think the facts on religion they need to know could be covered in a couple of modules of general studies, or under humanities at KS3 and KS4. It would free up time that could be used for critical thinking, philosophy, study skills, economics, public speaking, sport, creative writing etc....

Himalaya - that just shows an ignorance, on your part, with how RE teaching happens. You are assuming ways of teaching which just don't happen.

Yes, when religion is discussed along with abortion, lessons look at the idea of 'sanctity of life' - who has the right to start and end life, where life begins and ends, how much do we value a life. The lesson is not just 'Catholics are against abortion because the Pope says so'. Religion can be a good starting point for broadening out the issue. It's not the only starting point, but religions have considered these ideas for thousands of years so it is important to have an idea of where they are coming from.

-If you do no RE in primary you will be at a disadvantage of secondary - there is so much to learn about all the world religions. You cannot compact it into 100 lessons or so.

• You need RE knowledge for everyday life and work: why those people on the street dress as they do, what does Easter mean. Sure, there are people who don't know anything about those things - but they look pretty stupid TBH.

• what is more important than discussing and having a knowledge of issues of life and death?

-Vectors and indices and trigonometry etc are not used everyday by most people. Most people get by on the maths they learnt at primary school. THere's as much argument to stop Maths at 12yrs old as there is to not learn anything about religions until they are 12.

The skills in RE you can also get in English and Humanities. Education at school is not just about parceling things into neat chunks. It's about visiting and reaffirming and developing knowledge and skills over a number of years.

CB - my point is that moral arguments on an issue are either comprehensible in secular terms - when is it alright to end a life etc... Or they don't 'the sanctity of life' - what does term mean? If it means something like 'loved by god' then it is meaningless outside of that particular conception of god. If it means something more like 'the right of a person to autonomy' then it is a secular concept.

Questions like 'who has the right to start a life' don't even make sense if you don't share a common viewpoint that apparently natural processes are in fact orchestrated by a supernatural being. It is like asking who has the right to start a sneeze?

Not that religious people don't hold moral views for rational reasons. Of course they do, it is just that the religious layer doesn't add anything to the discussion unless you are all starting with the same metaphysical assumptions.

Do mist people try and get through life using only the maths they learnt in primary school? No wonder people there are so many car crashes, if most of the population can't understand the relationship between speed, time and distance.

'Most people' even, although perhaps it is suitably supernatural to discuss the behaviour of mist people.

Himalaya the moral arguments that you're interested in simply don't get discussed if we remove RE/RME/RS or whatever we're calling it. If RE is cut from the timetable it won't be replaced by some new ethics course, it will simply vanish - along with the main opportunity young people get to discuss/investigate/debate human rights, homophobia etc. Who will that benefit? Will any RE teachers in England correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the normal format be "we're looking at euthanasia, here's what it is, here is the legal position, here are arguments for & against, this is what religions might say, and now what do you think?" (IE, it isn't all about ethics in a religious framework.

iggi999 - I thoroughly agree. And yes, lessons can run like that. Do you think me standing up infront of 30 15year olds and beginning a lesson with 'In Leviticus is says....' is going to get their attention? No. We start with stuff they know about or are interested in, and branch out from there.

Himalaya - you are showing me why RE lessons are necessary through not understanding simple terms like 'sanctity of life'. You might know it as inviolability. Or the concept that life is of such value that it cannot be violated. Extended to religion, we look at the idea that human life is sacred and god given. But it can also be applied to humanist pro-lifers, for instance, who believe it is wrong to end the life of another, whether born or not.

I haven't said anything about 'who has the right to start a life' - surely that's looking at sterilization and eugenics? It's a whole different question, although an interesting one.

Life and death, conflict and resolution in a multicultural society, when is the right or wrong time to go to war - these issues will not be tackled elsewhere on the curriculum. And religious teachings and philosophers have pondered them for hundreds of years. You cannot teach ethics or philosophy in a vacuum without religious knowledge. Nor should you.

There is only a negative duty concerning sexuality, but issues like race, disability and gender have a positive duty attached. So I don't see how schools could legally choose not to teach these issues simply because RE wasn't compulsory.

How can they 'teach' issues of race, disability and gender? Just saying 'discrimination is wrong'? You cannot just 'teach' those concepts. You have to put them in a context. That might be a particular work of literature, or a specific historical occasion, or a law which citizens have to follow. But the only subject which looks at the bigger picture is RE.

CB, there are lots of ways you can teach them. Of course RE can be one way of teaching them, but there are ways they can be taught in other subjects.

You could disability them quite directly by getting pupils to study the experiences of disabled people in contemporary society, the range of disabilities, common misconceptions, understanding the difference between a person's impairment and their disability and so on.

All concepts are taught in a context, including both religion and disability. It would be no more difficult to teach a subject called 'disability education' than it would be to teach 'religious education.'

And of course being able bodied is a temporary experience for almost everyone, so understanding disability in its own right is a very good preparation for adult life.

I also think it is untrue that the only subject that puts these issues in a bigger picture is RE. DS has just done a whole term on race, national identity and ethnicity in English.

On your other points-

You need RE on primary school? But kids who come from other school systems - e.g. Faith schools that only teach one religion, countries where they dont teach RE - don't need catch-up lessons when they start RE. If you've had no maths till starting secondary you would need catch up lessons.

• You need RE knowledge for everyday life and work? I know that those people on the street wearing orange saris are followers of Hare Krishna. Why do they wear orange? Because it's their religion. Do I understand the significance of orange to them? No I am ignorant (but I do know how to use wikipedia so I'm sure I could find out if I needed to). If I knew would I act differently to them? Respect them more or less? No. Do they have heated theological debates about whether to wear blue or green? Quite possibly? Does it matter to anyone else? No (see see can women be priests, what are the rules of kosher about, do babies go to limbo, was Ali or Abu Bakr the rightful follower of Muhammed, does the wafer turn into the body of Christ or represent the body of Christ.)

• what is more important than discussing and having a knowledge of issues of life and death? But the question still remains what claims do religions have to special knowledge of the issues of life and death?

Most people get by on the maths they learnt at primary school - i dont think my DS in year 7 can do a tax return, calculate a mortgage, work out the winnings from a bet, understand all the statistics in the news, manage a budget, work out a tip, understand medical risks etc.. He might also want to go to university one day, or have a managerial role so he should keep up the maths.

Yes, Milly - but that's not written down that he has to study those things in English. That's up to the school, isn't it, to have that focus? That's brilliant that your DSs school has that focus. But it's too hapdash to move things around in a nonspecific curriculum like that.

Disability isn't a huge part of religious teachings, apart from god loves everyone, so it's not a good example of something which RE teaches 'the best'.

I think to rewrite the RE curriculum you have to look at what stuff (apart from the traditional academic subjects) do you want your kids to learn, and where is the 'best' place to learn it. Giving english teachers or history teachers sole responsibility for such issues will saturate their teaching time.

CB and I9 you now seem to be saying that we need so much RE because there is no other practical way to discuss moral issues in schools. That seems awfully unimaginative.

Why not teach ethics and philosophy in the same timetable slot? Or let kids or schools have a free choice to follow one or the other approach.

Himalaya:

• But kids who come from other school systems - e.g. Faith schools that only teach one religion, countries where they dont teach RE - don't need catch-up lessons when they start RE

That's because RE is a subject open to all. It is accessible on many levels. On the whole, it is differentiated by outcome rather than task.

• RE knowledge is not important for everyday life and work because it has a monopoly on teaching respect. It does have a monopoly on 'curing' cultural and religious ignorance, however. I would be embarrassed to not understand someone's else's background. But I understand that's probably a personal thing.

• But the question still remains what claims do religions have to special knowledge of the issues of life and death?

They don't. But they have something very important to say and have been saying it for thousands of years. You ignore what Thomas Aquinas said about evil or Martin Luther King said about race or Gandhi said about tolerance, and you throw out a whole load of great teachings.

• i dont think my DS in year 7 can do a tax return, calculate a mortgage, work out the winnings from a bet, understand all the statistics in the news, manage a budget, work out a tip, understand medical risks etc..

Neither can most adults! Not a great situation for us to be in as a nation. And neither should we aspire to allowing our children to have a second rate RE knowledge.

• He might also want to go to university one day, or have a managerial role so he should keep up the maths

Of course he should. And some kids in RE lessons might choose to study philosophy or politics or teaching or nursing or a whole other range of professions where an RE knowledge is invaluable.

CB, I'm not sure if the RE curriculum needs to be rewritten. The original argument was that it should not be compulsory. If it wasn't compulsory and some of the ethical issue elements of it were taught elsewhere, then that would presumably change the content of RE for those that choose it as an option.

I think it might be possible for schools to meet their duty to promote equality by deciding individually how they wanted to cover the topics, and if they wanted to teach them as discrete topics or cover them in different subjects.

I don't know much about the teaching of English, but from what I can tell from the KS3 revision guide, they have to cover issues like dialect and related uses of language in English. Dialect and use of language is a major component of ethnicity, so English would seem like an appropriate area to cover some elements of ethnicity.

English literature also covers a lot of topical issues at school level - To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet and so on.

Why not teach ethics and philosophy in the same timetable slot? Or let kids or schools have a free choice to follow one or the other approach.

This would probably end up being just a renaming of RE lessons. Sure, if that makes people feel better - to remarket RE lessons - then by all means it's a goer. But the content currently covered in RE would probably still need to be covered.

I couldn't support an education for my children which made no reference to different religions, their teachings, their leaders. It would leave a massive hole in their foundation knowledge. And to do it properly and with depth, you cannot get by on a few dozen lessons.

I don't think people are suggesting that no religion is covered at all - that wasn't what was said in the original post.

Maths, science, English, PE, citizenship - and now (with the baccaleureate) possibly humanities and modern languages are compulsory in schools. Why not RE? What is so abhorrent about lessons in the different religions?

I think it might be possible for schools to meet their duty to promote equality by deciding individually how they wanted to cover the topics, and if they wanted to teach them as discrete topics or cover them in different subjects.

That would be a logistical nightmare. Schools tried to introduce citizenship across all subjects - and quickly cottoned on that it was not an effective way to do this. To get all Heads of Dept together and co-ordinate how they include issues of religion, race, gender, life and death in their curriculum would be very annoying for them. It wouldn't work. English teachers should teach english, historians should teach history ... to lumber them with other, crucial issues would be unfair and a mess.

CB, I think that RE should be counted as a humanity under the EB, and anyone who had done a full GCSE in RE should have that counted as their humanity component.

I am not saying that schools should cover the main equality issues across a range of subjects. I am saying that schools should decide for themselves how they cover it.

I don't know how RE is taught in other schools, but DS isn't doing RE in the way that has been described in this thread. Possibly that is because he is in KS3. He is simply learning about religion, not a range of ethical issues. He did Hinduism and Sikhism is year 7, is doing Islam and Judaism in year 8, and will do Christianity and Buddhism in year 9. For the GCSE short course, they only cover Christianity and Buddhism, so even if he does cover a range of ethical issues for GCSE, it will not incorporate the teachings of all 6 religions.

He is taught about ethical issues and equality in PSHEE, which has the same amount of time allocated to it as RE.

Agree with OP, RE is a complete waste of time and i resent the fact that my (non-religous) DC have to learn so much about all these religions rather than spending the time learning useful life subjects!

Milly - yes I am sure your DS will be doing more ehtical/philosophical issues in KS4. In fact I am pretty sure which exam board he's doing from your description of 2 faiths and he will look deeper. The reason they only do two faiths is due to time restrictions - you cannot study the 6 main religions (nevermind all the others) in only 50 hours in a proper depth.

Is PSHE recognised by the pupils as having academic importance? Probably not. They probably aren't stretched academically in studying ethical issues in that way. It's not a disciplined subject.

There is a pressure group to get RE recognised as one of the Humanities in the EB - and I can understand that. But I think it would be deterimental for pupils to opt out of RE at 14 before they've even got onto the juicy, ethical, key life issues! But then I value all the humanities and didn't drop any of those 3 when I was at school.

CB - I think the core problem that bedevils school teaching of RE as a framework for discussing morally contentious issues is that you have to sacrifice rigorous thought in the name of cohesion and tolerance.

Education should be both about enabling kids to think clearly and treating others with respect, but RE doesn't enable to square this circle.

So you end up skimming over differences. For example you say that 'sanctity of life' is a simple term covering both the value of life which humans place on it and the idea that it is sacred and god given. These are quite different ideas and making them equivilent is just mushy. I can understand them both as concepts, but only the first one has any moral significance outside of a religious belief system.

Similarly I can understand (on some level) what it means to say that an animal that has been stunned before killing is 'haram', that circumcision is a covenant between jews and god, that marriage is a sacrement etc... but those are not useful concepts in thinking about the ethics of animal welfare, people's rights over their own bodies or relationships.

Can you see the distinction?

You did talk about the right to start and end life. I was thinking more of IVF actually.

CB, I dropped Geography and kept up the other two. I wish that I had kept up all 3. DS is intending to drop History.

I am glad that Buddhism is one of the two religions being studied, because I think it offers a good contrast to the Abrahamic religions. I also think Buddhism and Christianity together give a good introduction to Gnosticism, which is having a bit of a revival and fits well with some aspects of contemporary culture.

PSHEE isn't an examined subject, but the school sets an hour and a half homework a night. There is as much homework for PSHEE as the other one hour subjects, so DS has had to complete academic pieces of work on it. The last one he did was on eating disorders. They also did a 3 day away day which was mostly PSHEE but also some stuff on intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for working towards goals.

Himalaya - you are demanding 16yr olds to make value judgements on what is 'true'. This is not what RE does - it might be the pursuit of philosophy but even then most scholars over many year do not arrive at a definite conclusion.

RE is not just about treating others with respect - without RE knowledge you can respect another person's culture or faith. But that would be mindless. That would just be to be polite rather than having a grasp of where they are coming from.

Sanctity of life is about the importance of life - that it has value. Yes, religions might place this value with the idea that life is god given. Atheists might look at the value that humans place on life. You cannot make them equivalent. You can know what they think and why they think it - and you can then come up with your own personal opinion based upon this knowledge and understanding. But to have a personal opinion, don't you need the knowledge and understanding of both points of view? That certainly is how essay writing works in english and history: looking at differing opinions, why they hold those opinions before you come to your own conclusions. RE just asks for the same.

Why is circumcision not relevant to a discussion about people's rights over their own bodies? Or religion's emphasis on marriage to a discussion on relationships? Of course they are useful concepts. To negate discussion on them is limiting.

MillyR - I am pleased to read the emphasis your school places on PSHEE. Good stuff.

CB -

What i mean is that the contents of a religion's teaching on a subject, has not relevance to understaning whether it is right or wrong, true or false in a secular context.

Similarly the secular question of whether it is right or wrong, true or false has no relevance to whether you accept the religious teaching 'you just have to have faith'.

Circumcision is the act of cutting off the foreskin.
The ethical question is whether it is right for parents to do this to their children without medical reason.

The real world evidence is about health risk, impact on sex, the principle of autonomy, whether they will be ostracised by their commmunity for being different etc.. you weigh them up and you make a value judgement about what is right.

Judaism says it is a covenant with god. If you believe that it trumps everything. If you don't it is irrelevant.

You can learn all you want about he religious teachings, theological discussions etc..but there is no way to factor that into the rational debate. In the end you have to choose one way or the other, faith or rationality.

I don't see how RE can help children even see this distinction when it gets to ethical debates at KS3, 4, when it has spent so long getting them to practices respect, mushy thinking and relativism.