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....

Imagine (I know this is hard!) that you are a Jewish teenage boy and that all your Jewish teenage friends are circumcised and you are not. It causes big issues.

Bonsoir

The issue isn't whether the operation is easy or not, it is that it is irreversable and non-trivial to later life.

In no other area do we allow community affiliation to overide human rights like this -- could hell's angels get their kids tattooed so they feel like a real part of the hell's angel community? Could deaf parents have their children's hearing impaired so they could play a full role in the deaf community?

Himilaya - I did not say 'only some Jews do it and it's mainly cultural anyway' - but not all Jews do and for some people who circumcise it can be for cultural reasons.

TBH I find in my lessons (I talk like this is the present - I haven't taught RE for 5 years so I am definitely no expert!) I was battling against anti-religious feeling the entire time. I was having to 'defend' religion so that there was some kind of balance in my class. I am sure this isn't always the case, but it probably has coloured my view of how I would teach.

The kids found it quite easy to criticism, condemn and disrespect religion without my help!

Bonsoir - I do appreciate the horrible dilemma that religious affiliation puts on Jewish parents.

But that dilemma could be taken away if their religious authorities would admit that this is a barbaric practice and do away with the obligation.

In the context of the discussion on teaching RE in schools CB and others have said that one of the key objectives is encouraging children to 'respect religious practices'. So concluding that a mainstream religion is forcing loving parents to be complicit in human rights abuse on their own children through the forces of social conformity is not even put on the table.

Instead that line of reasoning is cut off at the path by 'religion is whatever is right for you' (skating over the fact that children are not property) and 'its cultural and not everyone does it' (skating over the horrible and very real dilemma you mentioned)

I have been following this thread with interest. My own DS age 7 loves his weekly RE lessons. He has been introduced to the ideas of wisdom and dedication and he is building up a picture of world religions that will enable him to interpret the world in which he lives to take account of and even celebrate diversity. He has already identified himself with a particular religion but realises that he has much to learn before deciding whether or not to 'practise'. That said, he has already prayed to Ganesh to make him wise .

The study of RE has allowed my child to ask and maybe even answer the 'big' questions about himself. Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? These analytical life skills can be taught from a perspective of empowering the child to consider the idea of faith and whether or not it has something to offer them. There is scientific evidence that young minds have a 'place' for 'god'.

I don't want to sidetrack things, but this country does grant extensive rights to parents to seek optional surgery. The decision faced by parents of deaf children, especially if they themselves are deaf, can be agonising because there is a deaf community (especially if the operation comes late in life). And courts can and do override religious opinion-for instance non-intervention on religious grounds-when life is at stake.

But, to return to RE, this is in many ways the difficulty of the framework. Consideration of 'rights of people-little and big-over their own bodies' is something you would want learners to think on at all levels (form whether you hug someone to why abortion should be a right). But if you tack onto that a content-driven necessity to understand religious motivations especially, you distort and limit that debate, as well as over-simplifying religion.

One of the things that this focus does is exactly what Himalaya says, it puts 'some people believe' as a fact (which it is). We don't do this elsewhere-we don't say 'some people think the Norman conquest happened in 1066, some that it began in 1066, others that it wasn't really a conquest, discuss why they think this and then reach no conclusion as to what actually happened'. Ultimately, whatever other frameworks are there, this means according respect to religious belief very differently to other beliefs. We wouldn't do this if we handled the ethical issues in different frameworks.

The other real concern which strikes me is just how divorced RE in schools is from its academic incarnation-RE is very comparative, very issue driven, whereas RS is either deeply interdisciplinary history or sociology with a religious focus, or confessional theological thought. It's hard to think of another subject where that gap is so big (not just simplification but absolutely different approach), and hard not to think the reason is because RE has been lumbered with delivering ethics teaching.

It really is time to separate the two, then perhaps consider the merits of the 'core knowledge' of RE against other knowledge.

I don't think that the deaf parents analogy is a good one. Circumcision does not impair penis function (rather the opposite) or sexual performance or pleasure (contrary to what many on MN like to claim). And it is also aesthetically discreet, unlike tatooing.

I agree that it would be better if the Jewish religious authorities could agree that the practice should be banned. But, in the absence of such a ban, it is a real issue that Jewish parents have to contend with and, IME, most prefer to err on the side of caution from a psychological standpoint.

Bonsoir

Maybe the other question is, how might you address such an issue? Is the starting point 'what rights should parents have over their children's bodies' (which may or may not include male circumcision) or is it 'what religious practices should be allowed to influence those rights'. Because, for all that people here claim otherwise, it's hard to see any RE course managing to work through all this paying 'lip service' to some religious reasoning when it crops up.

The other problem, of course, is precisely that mentioned earlier-that communal us-ness and religious affiliation are interlinked but different things. To teach the practice as 'religious' unhelpfully obscures the dilemma faced by Jewish parents or Muslims wishing to wear the veil. And leaves no real space at all for the many non-faith communities that exist in our schools (so I need an external speaker on Islam to encourage thought and knowledge, but can't find time for someone from the Polish community to come despite having 9 Poles in my class).

On circumcision, I think I would always address the historical facts first and foremost - in which cultures, where, when and why has circumcision been practiced? I think I would want children to understand that circumcision has been culturally normative in many times and places, simultaneously with it being non-existent in other cultures/communities.

I think then that scientific facts should be introduced - hygiene issues in less hygienic times and places, and issues with sexual function and pleasure.

All those issues are relatively easy for children to grasp.

Then the issue of human rights and the rights of parents over their children might be raised. I think this is quite hard for children to grasp - children mostly grossly underestimate the impact of their parents on their lives.

The issue of cultural affiliation, and how that might override all other indications to the contrary, is, to my mind, the most difficult issue here (and one that we have difficulty with on this thread, despite a generally high level of debate).

Adela - I like your example of Islam/Polishness. I find it very helpful to think of religion as a cultural manifestation, like "Polishness" or "Frenchness".

Adela an Bonsoir, what does Polishness have to do with spirituality?

I don't think there is any such thing as spirituality. I think there is culture, which is basically a set of beliefs and behaviours shared by a given group.

DP and I have spent millions of hours dissecting French culture, Jewish culture, Catholic culture, English culture... to work out where our beliefs and behaviours come from, whether there is any rational basis to any of them and whether we should keep or discard them.

The neurotheolgians would beg to differ Bonsoir .

The globalisation of people gradually puts pay to religious rites and rituals (other people's religious rites and rituals are generally pretty hard to participate in when you discover them as adults), which give people their so-called collective spiritual experiences.

Pickledsiblings - what does spirituality have to do with anything?

All the reasons for RE given so far - understanding different cultures and belief systems, respect for others, cultural literacy, discussing big issues and morality don't touch on spirituality.

I think I want RE/RS replaced with a subject called "Consciousness".

pickledsiblings

As far as I understand the neuroscience, children are inclined to seek causes for things, and so likely to invent prime movers. Of course this makes them inclined to see 'God', but it also makes them believe it's windy because trees wave or it rains so flowers grow (Aristotle would be delighted).

Neither is anyone saying 'spirituality' or 'big questions' shouldn't be taught in school. The question is rather whether the historical accident of this, and much more, being delivered by RE makes sense. What I was saying about Polishness is important not because Polishness is about spirituality (although like most nationalisms it does have roots in an imagined 'genius' and very strong links to certain catholic practice), but because it highlights how selecting a certain number of groups for study pushes out other groups which are in many ways more relevant. There seems to me something very flawed about a system where ethics, communal understanding, questions about morality and being, are linked to learning set facts about particular groups and privileging those groups, about a world where Polishness is not worthy of study because it's not religious enough , and where university undergrads can write essays which show good understandings of Reformation religion picked up at school, but also phrases like 'before women were equal as they are now'.

These are the costs of RE, and go against some of what is claimed for it (understanding others etc.).

Neither is what bonsoir is saying necessarily unspiritual-she will appreciate its resonances with Wyclif's thought as well as anyone here.

Himalaya, my post on Mon 14-Mar-11 10:03:32 is all about spirituality.

pickledsiblings - I don't think that it is helpful to get small children to think about "big questions" in a religious framework when they are still too young to understand most of the scientific facts that it is absolutely essential to include in any rational debate of those questions.

A study of world religions offers children a global non egocentric view of the world that does not put any country or belief in a central position but instead opens the world up to them and can offer explainations for diversity (or the lack of it).

Why is it appropriate to study world religions and draw conclusions without studying other cultural groupings?

In the modern world, it is possible and probable to have several cultural affiliations: my DP, for example, feels Jewish, and French, and Capitalist, and he is highly defined by the combination but not by any single cultural affiliation.

So what does studying religions without other belief systems/cultural groupings tell us about people?

Sorry, last post was to Adela.

Bonsoir, which scientific facts do you mean? Are you speaking about life and death/reproduction and genetics? IME, children do not find the concept of mortality difficult. It's the adults around them that do.

"The study of RE has allowed my child to ask and maybe even answer the 'big' questions about himself. Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?"

There are a host of established scientific facts about the world, not just at the human reproduction-life-death cycle level, that inform the answers to those questions.

I don't personally know any adults who find the concept of mortality difficult. Though I can accept the idea that there are some.

Children do find it a bit hard, IME, especially when misguided adults tell them about heaven and hell!