To be flabbergasted by this?

[Cloudhopping]

My dd is in year 5 of a village school, which we are really happy with. As it's small, I know most of the parents at the school. My dd is learning about Islam as part of RE and is today visiting a Mosque as part of this. Some of the parents have not consented to their children going as they don't want their children visiting a mosque. I'm not sure of the exact reasons and realise I am making some assumptions here, but am I being unreasonable to be shocked by this attitude?

Laguna, so you are into not sending them to any synagogue / church / gurdwara etc? Or is it just a "mosque" thing? How do you justify it if this decision is related to mosques only? With sexism only?

I don't allow DD on any religious school trips because:

a. I don't believe religion has a place in school life full stop
b. the school uses 'but we visit all faiths' to justify allowing them to have christianity pushed upon them via in school visits.
c. We always said trips would be ok when 'all faiths study' became all faiths and the perfectly valid viewpoint of nothing study' and that still is not happening.

FWIW: The school trips that she has missed so far has left her in a classroom with three muslim children and no other parent has given a flying fuck about any of them missing the trips to churches, synagogues or to mosques so I don't think the argument of 'if a muslim tried to skip a church there would be outrage' holds any weight.

Laguna, to clarify my comment a bit more, I meant to say the other religions have utterly terrible record of sexism too. Someone quoted from Bible here actually. So you can't explain away your decision with sexism only. You must have something else going on too. That something else is the problem OP is trying to talk about.

No I won't be sending them to any religious establishment. I don't agree with religion and I don't agree with sexism. Just so happens this is both.

Nope, mine wouldn't be going to any religious place Muslim or no that endorses sexism and homophobia.
All on the say so of some imaginary sky fairy.

Yes the something else is I don't agree with religion as I have already stated without going into identifying detail when I spoke about my husband and his religious upbringing. But hey ho that makes me a racist bigoted idiot!

Hmm. But to be fair, that still seems like a kind of isolation to me. I also question religions but I will send my kids to every one of those. Plus introduce them to those who don't believe in any religion. It just looks more thorough to me tbh.

valentine in all those other areas you rattled off sexism is challenged. In the Muslim faith it is seen as right that women are treated unequally to men.

I'm raising my sons to believe in equality so why would I send them somewhere where half of their class will be treat differently due to their sex. It underminds everything that I teach them.

Hippa, you really do need to come out from under your beloved rock. Try and work on the statistics of all these fields that I mentioned. Or just count the number of women at important places in Cameron's cabinet may be? Jeremy Hunt is soooo stupid that I sometimes wonder what Cameron would be like. Sexism is Alive and well among us. Yes we are fighting it tooth and nail. but it's a long shot to say that a mosque is an obvious no no and the parliament is not. It's just the same evil with a different face. We need to fight it all. And by going there and doing a proper dialogue on it too.

We are different then Valentine.

Laguna you are free to do as you please. It is better to be educated about something when forming opinions, that is the principle I believe is being discussed.
I wasn't directly referring to you, but as I said bigotry and intolerance comes from ignorance.
I would like my children to learn about what drives human behaviour and not make il Informed judgments.
I don't believe in God or religion myself, though I do find aspects fascinating.

I just don't understand why people even bother judging other people for their choices - seriously get a life. What is it to you and who are you to sit there and comment on how they are not letting little johnny go on some trip. Why is it when you a child its a sudden free pass on the whole world to comment on your child and what they are doing or not doing and your parenting methods. In fact the moment you are pregnant everyone suddenly feels they have some automatic right to make comments - oh should you really be doing that, wearing those shoes etc. God makes you just want to stick up a massive big F* off sign.

valentine I can assure you that I'm well aware that sexism is still a massive issue in society. Which is why I won't be sending my sons somewhere where it is positively encouraged.

Jazz I get what you are saying but my children make their own judgements and it is not automatic they will be ill informed just because they have never visited a Mosque.

And I do think it's rather patronising to state that not visiting a Mosque is not being educated about something.

I haven't read the whole thread but thought I'd throw in my two penneth...I am not surprised by this. 10 years ago my then 8 year old DD went to visit a local Mosque. I had no issue with this whatsoever, why would I? One would have thought that learning about other faiths was productive and encouraged tolerance. No, I was alone on that one. So many of the children were not "allowed" to go. I still don't get it to this day.

I went to a private Catholic school, a Convent no less. Because it was private and fee paying, anybody could be educated there. We had a huge mix of races and religious backgrounds and a lot of overseas boarders. Indeed one girl in my class, at 14, came back from the summer hols married! She was from the Lebanon. However, not one of my school friends were excused from the Catholic teaching. They just had to get on with it. I should say I am nearly 47 so this was a long time ago and I know from my own children that various religions are taught at school now and rightly so in my opinion. I can't abide intolerance and I personally feel that learning about other religions and cultures is a very good thing for our children. Why would it not be?

Laguna, may be it does sound like that to you. But how would you feel if religious people forbade their children to ever visit a place where people who don't believe in religion go to meet? I think a big reason that crime rates are falling (I hope it means world is becoming a better place !?) because we are having a dialogue on things that matter. So to me, visiting you would be very very important if not essential.

Its a real shame when parents pass their prejudices onto their children. This is an educational visit as part of a broad curriculum learning about history and many religions.
A child is much more likely to get radicalised if they dont' understand something (ie islam vs islamic state). Education is essential. You are not protecting them but potentially exposing them, as by not understanding the ridiculous and radical interpretation of the religion by IS, they may think that it has more followers that it actually has.

We don't have a mosque anywhere local to us (only churches for miles around) so I would welcome my daughter's school taking the class on a day trip to a mosque or a synagogue in order to expose them to a bit of cultural diversity.

However, I would not allow this if, in order for my daughter to enter a place of worship, she was required to do something that was not required of her male classmates e.g. covering her hair. Or anything else that made males look somewhat superior e.g. girls being seated separately from males.

That would be my only reservations.

In my DDs' school they have done trips to a mosque, a synagogue, a buddhist temple and a church. The whole school went to the first 3 except one mum who refused to allow her sone to go. Several Muslim mums refused to allow their children to visit the church.

My view is that all religious education is good as it helps children understand the beliefs of others and helps them be more accepting.

It is sad that some parents wont let their children have this experience.

Maybe they just don't want their daughters to have to cover up when the boys don't have to. It doesn't have to be vile stereotyping and bigotry.

Visiting a mosque or other place of worship is not a "cultural experience" as some PP have said. If you wanted to learn more about the culture of English people you wouldn't choose a visit to the CofE as your starting point. Visiting a mosque just legitimises the place of a medieval religion in UK society.

As to why some parents don't want their children to visit a mosque? Who knows. Whatever the reasons I'm sure the families involved are happy with their choice

Apple - my parents never took me to any religious building where I had to abide by any dress code, in fact they only took us to Spain and France, but I do have a degree in Ancient History including Latin and Greek. So your bitchy comment is a load of bollocks.

And I had no problems finding employment, cheeky.

I wouldn't object personally nor would I label parents who refuse as bigots. They may have reasons and for many kids they already know Muslims which is a far more powerful insight than a visit to a building. I do hate sexism and homophobia, I'm Christian but a very liberal CoE, I am not convinced Paul's letters are reflective of Jesus' views and don't see men and women as particularly different, aside from basic biology. All religion can go to an extreme sadly and I do find it a tad worrying that religious freedom trumps women's rights in terms of being able to criticise without being labelled a bigot. I am already talking to my 6 yr old DD about sexism and sexuality so she'll know I don't agree with certain religious views, including those held by some members of our own church and that's actually harder to combat than a one off visit to a religious building.

Again, I don't get the whole thing about not respecting the rules of another religion ie : head covering etc. No, it may not be to your taste, but it's a small dose of experience for your child and I can't see what the harm is, I really can't. My parents had a broad circle of friends, this necessitated going to Indian weddings, Jewish weddings etc. My Catholic father always wore a "cupple" at Jewish weddings and indeed my mother wore a sari on more than one occasion. It was respectful, that's all. I can't for the life of me see why this would have a negative impact on a child. I am absolutely sure that if via education tolerance was taught, the world wouldn't be in the state it is today.