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AIBU?

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Original poster

School and religion

316 replies

ThisLittleKitty · 28/11/2017 23:06

Is it normal for a school (not a faith school) to teach children about Jesus? My son came home today telling me he had been told about "baby Jesus" and how he was "born on Christmas Day" I'm a little surprised by this as didn't realise the school would be saying this kind of thing. It's a very diverse school in south east london so many religions and we are not a religious family. Aibu to think this is not right?

OP posts:
grannytomine · 10/12/2017 12:07

Why the Christian ones? Well as I said maybe there is a cultural thing going on, I am sure the children who don't get religion at home don't celebrate Eid or Diwali but they may well celebrate Christmas so even though home doesn't do the religious side of Christmas the child feels the Christmas story is more accessible or believable or something. I have to say the Muslim child I am talking about was born into a Muslim family but they aren't practicing, they eat pork, parents drink alcohol, and hasn't been in a Mosque for years.

Obviously I don't know how it works but I don't think it is simply the teacher pushing the message so something else is going on.

LoniceraJaponica · 10/12/2017 12:18

"Why the Christian ones? Well as I said maybe there is a cultural thing going on, I am sure the children who don't get religion at home don't celebrate Eid or Diwali but they may well celebrate Christmas so even though home doesn't do the religious side of Christmas the child feels the Christmas story is more accessible or believable"

I would think that this is usually the case as well. After all we have the Christmas holidays and Easter holidays. Culturally the school year revolves around the Christian calendar whether you agree with it or not.

grannytomine · 10/12/2017 12:22

Lonicera, it is all I can think of. With the Muslim child his family aren't religious but they do celebrate Eid, use Muslim names so a bit like lots of families are with Christianity. It must have an effect musn't it?

BertrandRussell · 10/12/2017 14:32

No chance that schools are doing "some people believe" with all faiths except Christianity then? Grin Thought not!

LoniceraJaponica · 10/12/2017 14:59

Well, they should.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 15:09

Bert,

In all the schools I have taught in - even the nominally C of E village school - 'some people believe' was what was said for all faiths (though, as I say, that was also the school where as an NQT with young chil;dren of my own I innocently did the 'some people believe' about Father Christmas, which for some reason caused offence / consternation while the Christmas story didn't)

As Granny and Lonicera have said, though, the fact that many things in this country are still 'culturally Christian' - we refer to the Christmas and Easter holidays, Easter eggs and hot cross buns are sold, celebrations are held on 25th December etc etc is likely to reinforce a 'Christianity is more real than other religions, because look at all these Christian things we do / names we use' attitude - so for 'some people believe' message to 'work' for the christian stories would require much more effort. 'This is a Hindu story', because it may seem 'alien' to the children rather than 'matching things that are anyway subliminally familiar', is perhaps more easily attached to the 'Some [other] people believe' label.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 15:22

I suppose what I mean is that when you say 'Some people believe that a baby called Jesus Christ was born in a stable in Bethlehem, and they celebrate this on 25th December, which they call Christmas. The baby had some visitors called the three kings / wise men, and that's why they give presents at Christmas', then a typical young British child's mind goes 'Ah, yes, I know about Christmas, we have a tree and give presents on 25th December, and I've seen pictures of a stable with a baby in it on Christmas cards from Granny' - so it seems more 'real' to them, whatever the teacher says, than when they say 'Some people celebrate a festival called Eid-al-Fitr, which is at the end of a period called Ramadan when many of them don't eat between dawn and sunset', because the latter may have no specific personal links for that child.

Gwenhwyfar · 10/12/2017 15:26

The Uk isn't a secular country like France and some others. We don't have a strict separation of church and state. Where did you grow up This LittleKitty?

Ta1kinPeace · 10/12/2017 15:33

cantkeep
At DCs CofE junior school, the Christmas assemblies were led by the vicar
there was no "some people" at all
and one of the teachers had an altar set up by her desk year round
they were expected to thank God for good things rather than the actual donor
by year 3 both my kids were rock solid atheists

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 15:37

Assembly is a difficult one - as distinct from RE, which is where information about all religions is taught. The law says that there must be a daily act of worship which "must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character"

I have less difficulty with a faith leader taking an assembly 'overtly' of their own religion - because it is so obvious that it is a personal view related to their job - than I have with a teacher in an RE class treating Christianity and other faiths differently in terms of 'some people believe'.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 15:40

The 'Christian' status of a vicar - like the Jewish status of a rabbi - is overt and obvious, so if they say 'Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus' / 'Shabbat is when we remember that God rested on the seventh day of creation, so we rest too', then that is different from a teacher in an RE lesson stating the same without caveat.

Ta1kinPeace · 10/12/2017 15:41

Oh he also took the RE lessons
and was a governor (as was one of the Church Wardens)
and was best mates with the head
we got God by the bucket load at that school

BertrandRussell · 10/12/2017 16:08

Have it your own way. The way Christians deny Christian privilege really is breath taking.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:10

Bert, but you call your own Winter celebrations 'Christmas', which contributes to the very confusion / privilege that you so deplore....

speakout · 10/12/2017 16:11

The way Christians deny Christian privilege really is breath taking.

x 100

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:14

If you yourself never use the words 'Easter' or 'Christmas', never link the family traditions that you have created around those dates to the Christian festivals - or use the words 'Hannukah' or 'Eid-al-Fitr' as often as you use the christian-related words - then you make no contribution to the greater perceived 'reality' of the Christian festivals within the UK, and you can campaign as much as you wish.

However, all those 'cultural events' that have their origins in Christianity do, I would suggest, each contribute (in an almost subliminal way) to the idea that Christianity is 'ours' and non-Christianity is 'other', however hard RE teachers work to use the same vocabulary around both.

Ta1kinPeace · 10/12/2017 16:17

"Easter" is not a Christian word.
It derives from the older Oestra fertility festival that happened in the spring

The date of Easter is Jewish (the last supper was of course the Passover meal) hence why the date moves

Christianity nicks stuff from anybody and everybody Grin

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:20

There are aspects of Christian privilege (or religious privilege) that I regard as absolutely abhorrant - schools with any form of religious criterion within their admissions criteria, for example.

There is no excuse, in this day and age, for state schools that preferentially admit children from a specific faith group.

I also do not feel that the current law on Christian assemblies is appropriate, and think it should be updated.

However, arguing that it may be that 5 year olds think Christmas - as in, the Christian festival of the birth of Christ - is more 'real' than Eid-al-Fitr because it matches their everyday experience is not 'being blind to religious privilege', more acknowledging that society has a historic, culturally Christian bias that we can only overcome if we acknowledge it.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:24

Of course, Talkin - and mnaking that explicit and overt to children by teaching it is an important part of RE.

However, when Tesco advertises 'Easter Eggs' (rather than 'citrons for Sukkot') that is part of that 'cultural bias' that we would do well to make much more visible and discuss more openly.

Equally, it is fine to say that on 25th December you are having a midwinter celebration - but by calling it 'Christmas', you are again contributing to that 'subliminal Christianisation'.

speakout · 10/12/2017 16:28

cantkeepawayforever you are seriously misguided.

Christmas was banned in Scotland for 300 years, deemed as too pagan by the church, only becoming a public holiday in the 1950s.

Do some research.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:29

I would also say that you could quite reasonably stop primary schools putting on Nativity plays (or rotate plays related to lots of different religious festivals) ... but be prepared for a significant backlash from parents, for whom the Nativity play, like Father Christmas, is sacrosanct, however non-religious they may be.

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:33

Speakout,

Do you mean 'having the 25th of December as the festival of the birth of Christ' OR do you mean 'the ways people celebrated Christmas?'

My understanding is that the Missal of Sarum and the Book of Common Prayer (1662) both had 25th December as the day of celebration of Christmas, with both having collects etc for it?

i am less familiar with the prayer books of the Scottish church, but did they have a different date for that festival (even when celebration except within church services was banned)?

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:36

I do think that you are confusing 'the DATE when the church celebrates the birth of Christ' with 'the WAY people celebrate the birth of Christ'.

I would agree that the latter is strongly pagan in many ways. It does not, however, change the fact that the church has for centuries had 25th December as the feast day of the birth of Christ (in the same way, Hallowe'en as currently celebrated is significantly non-Christian, though the date of All Souls, prior to the date of All Saints, has been 31st October for a very long time)

cantkeepawayforever · 10/12/2017 16:40

A quick Google gives 336 CE as the date when the festival of Christ's birth was first celebrated in 25th December.

HOW it is celebrated, of course, is different.

LoniceraJaponica · 10/12/2017 16:44

"Christmas was banned in Scotland for 300 years, deemed as too pagan by the church, only becoming a public holiday in the 1950s."

As recent as that? Wow. I never knew.