To remove dd from RS

[MossandRoy]

The lack of balance is annoying. There is an assumption that there is a god. There is an assumption that everyone believes in that god. I can remove her. Has anyone done this successfully? I'm concerned she'll be given a hard time...

@Siepie

So atheists can't be forced to go to assemblies with people who don't want to, but people who want to aren't allowed them because of people who don't want them?

You can send your child to as many religious events as you want in your free time. It shouldn't be compulsory for other children.

I expect there are parents at your children's school who would like there to be Islamic Friday prayers or Buddhist meditation or whatever lines up with their faith. Would you be happy for your children to be forced to take part in that? Or do you only agree with compulsory worship when it's for your religion?

My religion? Which is?

Show me proof any god exists.

Show me proof that God doesn’t exist.

Why ask people to prove a negative?
Logical fallacy. Used by religious types who don't have proof.

Mine all did RS gcse, two did at A level and one is going to uni to study philosophy and theology. None of them believe in God.

@caligulascatharsis

Because the laws of mathematics govern everything around us, we use mathematical concepts every day, it's a universal language, we use it for problem solving, finances, shopping, building, practically every career uses maths in some way, it helps us tell the time. Etc ad infinitum.

And singing hymns in the morning achieves nothing.

Even if we take out the "singing hymns in the morning" assemblies,

As pointed out by PP, teaching RE helps us to understand a massive part of culture and history in context.

Omitting it from the curriculum would produce a generation of children unable to understand culture and religion from any perspective other than "it doesnt exist". And interestingly enough, it was you who spoke ofcritical thought. Knowledge and evaluation skills, being able to debate both sides of the argument critically, analysing, are all crucial skills in RE that are taught that can be applied to many other areas and subjects.

@TeenMinusTests

But doing RE helps you to understand where people of faith are coming from. It also develops into discussing issues such as euthanasia, war, etc and understanding different points of view and formulating your own opinions.

If this is how RE was taught in my school I would have found it very interesting, but alas it was just preaching and shoving the bible down our throats. Our teacher very much had an agenda of embedding her own faith into us, in a completely horrid way involving damming anyone who didn't believe the same as her, and telling a classmate his soul would burn in hell because his brother was gay.

I have never said it should be omitted from the curriculum. I said that no child should have to take part in compulsory worship

Meant to add they have all been fascinated by RS as a subject, or philosophy and ethics as it tends to be called at A level.

My kids have loved RS throughout school and are both doing it for GCSE.
lots of ethics , learning about different religions, philosophy..... It's a fabulous subject

@HeidiHaughton

I doubt your child was taught that homophobia was right, in class.

But sadly it does exist.

Pretending it doesn't and not teaching it will not help anyone.

Part of learning these things and feeling that this is wrong and angry about it is all part of life.

It's interesting that people are on board with someone feeling angry or disagree that we should teach RE because god doesn't exist but it's not OK for children to learn about homophobia and racism and learn to debate and work with that. RE is a place where these issues can be explored in a way that can't be done elsewhere.

I presume your child would have had similar feelings when they learned about the Holocaust in History, or racism in Modern Studies, or the awful experiments in Psychology, or many of the other things that are part of history.

I don’t understand why studying and learning about religions (including Buddhism, Sikhism etc) is the equivalent to being forced to worship a god you don’t believe in. As many many posters have pointed out, the modern RS curriculum (outside of faith schools) is more about ‘this is what the major religions are about, here’s what the followers believe, here’s how worshippers structure their lives around it.

It’s not about forcing kids to believe in anything, religion is important historically, culturally and sociologically - even if you don’t personally have faith, you can acknowledge that it’s a big aspect of humanity. Even if you are horrified by the atrocities committed in the name of Gods across the dawn of civilisation (as many are!), surely it’s important to learn about such a significant area and attempt to understand that motivation?

@caligulascatharsis

I have never said it should be omitted from the curriculum. I said that no child should have to take part in compulsory worship

But that isn't what the OP was talking about (we have digressed, slightly).

Ds had to leave class when the RS teacher refused to discuss why religions are homophobic. It was a hugely detrimental experience for him.

My kids have had terrible RE teaching too but they've gone through it for social reasons
Atheism wasn't treated like religion and there was a major bias towards Christianity.

Imho it's pointless teaching it in primary. My kids are above average in intelligence and found that their understanding and learning was blurred because they adored their teachers so saw her religion as more fact than a more detached "Miss X believes"

Ime they have learned more from general life and real people rather than RE teaching. For instance they've seen Muslim friends fast for Ramadan and asked them about it or the supermarket Eid offerings and wanted to have a nosy at the sort of food that they'd celebrate with.

The GCSE syllabus looks much better than the classes that my kids sat through until it could be dropped but the teaching they had killed the possibility of them giving it a go. Considering how many adults don't even know that the men in turbans are Sikh rather Muslim, I suspect that my kids experiences are more common than not.

@HeidiHaughton

Ds had to leave class when the RS teacher refused to discuss why religions are homophobic. It was a hugely detrimental experience for him.

But it's very easy to make a statement like that.

Was the discussion managed? Was it an appropriate time?

Or was it DS asking WHY IS RELIGION HOMOPHOBIC and the teacher attempting to retain control of the class?

Interestingly enough, I know quite a few RE teachers, and not many ones who are religious.

The digression spanning numerous posts related to compulsory worship. @RootyT00t your argument was that atheist children should have to take part. My argument was that no child should be forced to worship a god that they don't believe in. Compulsory worship is in no way comparable to a Maths lesson.

I do support RE being part of the curriculum so long as it actually is delivered in an impartial way, as a way of learning about the religions and cultures of others. But lots of PP, including me during my secondary school years, did not have that experience of RE. Lots of us felt indoctrinated, and that is the issue.

@caligulascatharsis

The digression spanning numerous posts related to compulsory worship. *@RootyT00t* your argument was that atheist children should have to take part. My argument was that no child should be forced to worship a god that they don't believe in. Compulsory worship is in no way comparable to a Maths lesson.

I do support RE being part of the curriculum so long as it actually is delivered in an impartial way, as a way of learning about the religions and cultures of others. But lots of PP, including me during my secondary school years, did not have that experience of RE. Lots of us felt indoctrinated, and that is the issue.

I don't necessarily agree, but i do see your point on the first bit there.

Yeah, I can understand that too. I am younger (and am somewhat biased, given that RE is one of my subjects) and had a fantastic relationship with RE at school, and given my experience know many RE teachers who are teaching it in the 'modern' way, if you will, despite not being religious.

As I've said, I'm atheist (maybe specifically agnostic) and I can absolutely work with things I don't believe in, it's part of the job.

What do you say when students ask why religions are homophobic?

@HeidiHaughton

What do you say when students ask why religions are homophobic?

I see we are determined to keep with this agenda, so I'll respond.

It would depend on the context, the time, how it was asked, where iwas asked, and in relation to what.

The fact is, some elements of religion are homophobic. That's a fact. In the same way that much of history and current politics is racist, sexist or homophobic. Also a fact.

My response would be, if it was asked in the right way, at the right time, that some elements of religion are homophobic. Why? That's not my question to answer, really , is it. It's my job to teach the content and allow pupils to make up their own minds.

You seem to be advocating that we remove an entire subject based on homophobic elements in religion. Why? DOes that remove homophobia from society? Of course it doesn't. Children need to be able to learn that these awful things happen and form their own opinions on it, not be hidden from it until they are 18 and thrown out into the world and discover they can't "walk out of things" they don't agree with.

Every RE curriciulum I have known also has a section on LGBT in relation to religion, but we can't win that one, because there's as many threads on us "promoting being gay and trans" in schools.

If you apply your logic to everything, there's not many subjects left we would teach. We would have to do away with Modern Studies for a start, because why would I want to promote governments who are guilty of homophobia, sexism and racism?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a student of my high school (Lurgan college) - if you don't know who she is, Google her. A truly fascinating woman, who overcame tremendous sexism in her field, and was injustly robbed of a nobel prize, and she still responded with dignity.

She was invited to make a speech at our end of year speech day of my upper 6th year. She was summarising the work she did and began with a brief summary including the big bang... she continued on with an inspirational speech about how women belong I'm science and how we shouldn't be afraid of the hurdles we face etc.

The board of governors followed her speech, asking us all to discount everything she said because she referred to the big bang, and there nothing she said was valid.

Our headmaster finished the ceremony with a prayer asking God to forgive her, and to cleanse our ears from the blasphemy we heard.

Religion should not be in schools in this way. See also my pp regarding our RE teacher.

I went on to study theology and philosophy, and find religions fascinating and fantastic wealth of arts, culture and ethical debate. But they should not be taught as fact.

@PADH

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a student of my high school (Lurgan college) - if you don't know who she is, Google her. A truly fascinating woman, who overcame tremendous sexism in her field, and was injustly robbed of a nobel prize, and she still responded with dignity.

She was invited to make a speech at our end of year speech day of my upper 6th year. She was summarising the work she did and began with a brief summary including the big bang... she continued on with an inspirational speech about how women belong I'm science and how we shouldn't be afraid of the hurdles we face etc.

The board of governors followed her speech, asking us all to discount everything she said because she referred to the big bang, and there nothing she said was valid.

Our headmaster finished the ceremony with a prayer asking God to forgive her, and to cleanse our ears from the blasphemy we heard.

Religion should not be in schools in this way. See also my pp regarding our RE teacher.

I went on to study theology and philosophy, and find religions fascinating and fantastic wealth of arts, culture and ethical debate. But they should not be taught as fact.

Yep, I saw your PP.

I am assuming (hoping not to be offensive) that times have changed since then.

We don't teach religions as fact.

For reference,

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell

@RootyT00t

Only 10 years ago. My sister now goes to the school and nothing has changed. Granted we are in Northern ireland and we are severely messed up when it comes to religion, so I'm aware of my bias.

I'm all for RS that includes multiple religions, cultures and ethics, as long as it isn't taught as fact.

As a former RS teacher (with no faith) it is very important to understand the positives and negatives of the various faiths. To recognise the need for cultural sensitivity, to learn to reflect on ethics and laws and understand the religious bias they come out of. Basically as a human but mainly add a woman: know your enemy.