...to expect students and parents to take my subject seriously?

[TeacherAnonymous123]

Issue coming from another thread I posted, so thought I would ask for people's opinions.

I teach Religious Studies at a Catholic Secondary School. As it is my subject, I am clearly biased, but I believe that students learning about other religions and cultures is extremely important for their development and attitude towards the world and other people.

As it is a Catholic school, students must take RS at GCSE. Their first exam in it is tomorrow morning and some of them are still apathetic, telling me that parents have said not to bother trying as it isn't an important subject and it doesn't matter if they fail.

Obviously this leads to a battle in lesson which I cannot win as I do not have support from parents.

So parents - do you think RS is an important and relevant subject? If not, why not?

I was a pupil in a Catholic grammar school and we had to do RE O Level. Me, an atheist, was one do the very few to pass it. Most of my friends were churchgoers and thought them would get away without revising it.

Was it worth it? I didn't mind doing it. At least I learned a bit about the Bible which is part of the culture of this country. Would I have preferred to do something else? Probably.

@AuxArmesCitoyens so your country does teach about religion then.
To be honest in many English primary schools subjects are taught in cross- curricular topic style. So history, social studies, geography, literature and RE aren't taught as "a lesson of this subject followed by a lesson of that subject" - they are combined together and you learn what's relevant to the topic.
It's only once you start secondary school that the subjects are taught separately. So before GCSE most children only get 3 years of more detailed RE - and again it's mostly facts (the same as history usually is).

@TeacherAnonymous123

I do 🤔 think it's a relevant and obviously very timely topical subject matter
for these reasons religious studies goes hand in hand with ancient history aswell as contemporary history,

Also religious values doctrine etc whether someone believes them or not as a Aithest do filter into societies make up landscape in good ways and in Controversial negative ways too,

My views on faith are i do believe in spiritual aspects
However cause people have free will unfortunately certain attitudes values are interpreted in such a way attached to religious faiths that are more often to do with egoism et, than in keeping with spiritual values,
which can contaminates religious faiths cause people are not perfect...

My answer of course its still a relevant subject

Just look at the news...

All subjects have some kind of relevance aspects attached to the essence of them in general,

Even if its just raising awareness so 🤷 people are not ignorgrant about things as such and know the background of why things are the way they are etc ...

I did GCSE RE (it wasn't a choice), and our RE teacher ONLY taught us Christianity for GCSE!
His reasoning was that there were 6 questions to choose from, we had to answer 2, so just pick the 2 that focus on Christianity!

It might have been the scheme we were on, but his tactic worked!

Obviously, that totally defeats the point of the subject.

I guess we did learn somethings about the other religions lower down the school, but I don't remember anything.
Everything I know about religion nowadays comes from my work as a primary school teacher. The curriculum is much more in-depth and engaging than it was in the mid-late 90s!

Speaking as a parent, and an atheist, I don't really care one way or the other if my kids (who are KS1 age) learn much about religion. I'm happy to chat about anything they've learnt at school, but at home we've always addressed RE as "just some nice stories that some people believe." We're trying to bring them up to be open-minded and respectful. Just because we think it's nonsense, it's very important to other people, and therefore we should be respectful.

In my current role as a primary school supply teacher, I make a personal point NOT to join in with any school prayer. I'm happy to teach RE (I tend to think atheists make the best RE teachers, as every religion gets treated the same), but I won't sit there and pretend to support it. I've "supplied" in very, VERY catholic schools, and will just stand or sit quietly whilst prayers are happening.

I mean, it gets mentioned, it's not communist Yugoslavia. I wouldn't call that teaching it per se though. Parents would complain if When Hitler stole pink rabbit was a class reader.

I did secretly wish I had taken your subject a bit more seriously in life when my DS came out of his RE exam this afternoon and said he forgot what the 7 sacraments of Catholicism were! I said if Id taken him to church more often he would know them! He thinks he did OK overall though and answered all the questions! I did not tell him RE wasnt important though as he needs all the points to get into sixth form, but he said there was a lot of messing around in RE, and the usually mild mannered teacher was in despair!

In my country we learn the basic facts about various religions as they relate to different societies. Their day to day practices, their foundation myths, and discuss how those impact the local government and culture. For example I recall learning the differences between Suni and Shia Muslim belief and how those carry over into political strife today.

We are never taught that any religion should be accepted as true and we are never expected to take part in the practices of any religion. Children engage in more secular cultural activities to experience various cultures. Those things might have ties or foundations in religion because much of modern culture can be traced back to religion at some point, but they aren’t strictly religious practices.

religion itself isn’t particularly important. We need to understand it because it influences many people and their political decision making, but it really isn’t the schools business to make it personal.

Tbf i just checked and Anne Frank is used as a class reader sometimes.

I expect my children to show everyone respect, and particularly their teachers, regardless of topic. It is completely inappropriate for a parent to undermine a teacher at home. My 6yo DD was given a 2cm-thick pack of homework to do OVER CHRISTMAS. I thought it was ridiculous. I asked a couple of my teacher friends and they agreed it was ridiculous. But with my DD: I slapped on a smile and we got on with the homework, because what sort of example would I be setting otherwise?

perhaps an example that you don’t have to blindly follow unnecessary rules and are able to challenge authority appropriately.

@AuxArmesCitoyens why on earth would people complain about When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit?
Have you read it? Do you know the author? Do you know what it's about?
I can't believe anyone would complain about it.
(It's not even a religious book......)

Do most schools have a home/school agreement? My son and I certainly signed something that said we agree to abide by the school rules/guidelines, including information on what to do when either side believes they are not being followed.

In the above scenario, the parent would need to check whether her thinking it was ridiculous was warranted i.e. not following school policy, or just something she didn't agree with.

The former then she should approach the teacher in the first instance and the follow whatever procedure the school has, and if the latter, then too bad - find a different school I suppose.

Pupils and parents can't just decide not to follow school rules they deem unnecessary.

Its interesting that people use the history of war and religion as a reason to vilify religion in general but not make the connection that due to this complex history that's one of the very reasons it's useful to become educated on the topic.

A holistic approach to war and conflict considers the multiple factors at play, religion is one of them, that in my opinion is actually one of the reasons it makes it a subject worthy of inclusion in the curriculum.

Religion also does a lot of good in the world and shouldn't be disregarded either. If the world existed without religion, humanity would still grapple with existential questions and seek spirituality. Its why we used to worship the earth and seasons, we sought meaning for the human experience in the world. The search for purpose is deeply ingrained in the human experience.

What could be interesting though is an amalgam of religion with another subject:

Philosophy and RE
Ethics and RE
History and RE

That would take a complete overhaul though but might be worth it given the general consensus here is negative but the subject remains important.

Hi OP I think the study of the different religions of the world and indeed the UK is very important to help us understand different cultures and leads to respect and understanding. I don't know how you teach it, but my own experience was that after being promised to learn about world religions hence why I chose to do the GCSE, the CofE school I went to panicked and fearing we would all convert to Buddhism maybe, decided only to teach Christianity- totally pointless for someone who had been to Sunday school, and limited amounts of Judaism. It was a very poor and dull syllabus. My own children also attend C of E and any real discussion/ learning about other world views seems to be heavily censored.

That's interesting maybe the curriculums needs looking at! I remember being taught about all different religions so it must change place to place. Still wasn't considered much of an important subject but the curriculum was at least varied!

"My own children also attend C of E and any real discussion/ learning about other world views seems to be heavily censored."

Yes this. And they make a fuss of all Christian festivals but the kids aren't allowed to even speak about Halloween celebrations in school, in case people get upset!! I mean my kids do apple bobbing and trick or treating. It's hardly devil worship is it?

I actually think this is ONE area the US does better than us. They are a (very) religious society but they have a secular school system. We have a secular society and a weirdly biased and religious school system!

Teach at a school where the students choose RS and you will have a better experience.

I'm agnostic but totally agree that learning about other religions and cultures and then respecting them is an important part of education/ life. My partner is RC, so I clearly don't have an issue with other choices regarding religion. However we did decide not to send out DC to a catholic school as I could not embrace their ethos and I think that is an important consideration when choosing the right school for your child. The parents who have chosen to send their children to a catholic school do so knowing full well RS in a mandatory GCSE so children and parents should be taking it seriously. I would be pretty pissed off too with that attitude.

@Needmorelego I'm speaking hypothetically, it's not a book that is well known at all here. We have our own classic childrens' WW2 narratives, and actually thinking about it there's a very well known one about a young Jewish boy that is (was, not sure it's so popular now[ often read in schools. I just looked up the curriculum and religion has been partially covered from a social sciences perspective in history, literature and philosophy classes for about 20 years now. Someone my age would have had next to no exposure to it at all at school.

@AuxArmesCitoyens that's understandable that in your country if it's not such a well known book your schools don't study it. (apparently it's on the German curriculum despite being a British book).
That was just one of many classic children's books set around WW2 that I thought of off the top of my head.
This is the thing - you can't study history, literature or even geography without sometimes having to bring religion into it. They are frequently connected.
It's just facts - the same as history is in the lower years of school. It doesn't get into analysis and interpretation until older.

Put it this way: a few years ago there was a primary teacher here who was disciplined by the equivalent of OFSTED for giving his class some passages from the Bible to read. The no religion in schools thing is taken very seriously. That doesn't mean history teachers never mention Judaism.

@AuxArmesCitoyens going by your user name can I ask if you are French?
I was talking to a French friend of mine about what books are usually studied for the equivalent of GCSEs. She said that Aesop's Fables were a big thing in her French education (obviously I don't know if in France the curriculum is the same all over).
I said that sounded really interesting as I had a big book of fables as a child and I loved that book (still have it somewhere).
Fables are basically stories about morals and how to behave in life - which some might say of lot of stories within different faiths and belief systems are essentially the same thing.
It's actually quite deep to think how the world is so separated about religion yet also so connected in similar ways through wise (usually handed down in oral tradition) tales.
Sorry.....I'm rambling 🙂

I think it's very relevant and an understanding of a range of faiths and perspectives on life will enhance any pupil's understanding of the world. We're agnostics but I'm thrilled my dd is taking RE for GCSE. I did (again my upbringing wasn't religious) RE and got an A for my GCSE as it genuinely interested me - our RE teacher also sold it v well as an "easy A" which probably helped the uptake!
I can see why some are arguing it doesn't need to be tested on but it teaches moral dilemmas, debating, how to argue one's point effectively and the ability to understand where people are coming from with their opinions.

My Dd loved it, not particularly religious family but we both found it fascinating, as you say it was a wide curriculum and she really enjoyed studying different customs and practices, she got a 9 at GCSE

Well most schools, including independent schools, just follow the national curriculum.

Complete and utter waste of time.