Atheist Mum - fed up with Christian Teaching in school

[Yb23487643]

Any other atheist Mums fed up with kids being taught about & subsequently believing in God & Jesus because they take everything teacher says as gospel (excuse the pun!).

I’d like my child to learn about religions but to be taught that Christians believe so&so & Hindus believe so&so etc. Even to have Passover & pagan goddess Eostre (or other Spring goddesses) at this time of year to give a rounded education. He did learn about Ramadan but thought it unbelievable. Christianity seems to have been taught with more credibility. He think god will drown bad people - like Noah’s ark & that we came from Adam & Eve.
I’ve tried explaining that there’s lots of inequality in the world & that I don’t think God - if he existed - would punish the poor & disabled & poorly.

And that Jesus doesn’t have much to do with eggs & lambs & the Easter is more about Spring-related rebirth - leaves on trees, flowers out, fertility & baby animals etc.

Explained that lots of stories similar to & predating Christianity like Krishna/Jesus comparisons & that major Christian religious festivals coincide with preexisting equinox traditions.

Not sure whether to complain to school?

WWYD?

I'm always surprised there isn't much more of a movement to de-religious our schools in the UK.

All schools in the uk are directed to have a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature - obviously this is interpreted quite widely but the directive is pretty narrow so you can pick a non faith school and still end up with the vicar coming in each week to do an assembly (I'm looking at your DS's junior school)

the RE syllabus is devolved to be locally agreed, but the locally agreed one here is Christianity central - probably about 2/3rds of the syllabus.

Add to that that over a third of state schools are faith based and some areas its a choice of Catholic or Church of England - In order of distance from my home the first 4 schools are faith based.

I just don't get it, in modern England that this is the situation.

This one just runs and runs.

You cannot 'catch' religion. I think it is really important to teach children that schools are package deals and that you cannot opt out of things that you don't fancy.

I really struggle to see atheist children becoming religious because of an RE lesson or a school service, assuming that they are teaching a normal curriculum. I would not like RE lessons being exclusively christian (or any other religion) and nor would I like religion creeping into the rest of the curriculum.

Just teach your children to respect the school traditions but that they have every right to believe whatever they like (or nothing at all).

Larry the main problem is that most 4-6 year olds struggle to compartmentalise. They often struggle with a teacher telling them something is true, when their parents have told them it isn't. They struggle with the idea people can hold opposite beliefs without one of them lying. The difference between truth and belief is a bit sophisticated. It's infinitely compounded when the teacher is saying Christianity is "true" and "we believe" encompassing the whole class, implicitly making parents out to be liers, while the parents try to be diplomatic and say that the teacher believes that what she is saying is true but they don't...

Some 4-6 year olds can handle the quite complex idea that the teacher isn't lying because she believes what she says is true, and the parents aren't lying either even though they don't believe that what the teacher says is true... and that both parties can still be trusted.

It can be really upsetting to thoughtful small children who's thinking isn't yet sophisticated enough to cope, to be given opposite messages by trusted authority figures. One of my kids spent evenings crying because he couldn't reconcile the conflicting messages without "picking sides" and wanted to believe both beloved teacher and parents. It's too much for some very young kids.

Presenting unproven and unprovable personal faith as truth is really irresponsible and thoughtless when done by a teacher of infant aged schoolchildren imo. Later, fine, as long as you encourage argument and debate and genuine (not stage managed) independent thought.

Children figure it out in the end, but the conflicting truths so early on are unnecessarily difficult for very young children.

By all means teach about religious holidays, feast days and stories as cultural information from early on, but do not say one set of beliefs is truth when talking to very little children from a position of trust. Tell the stories as stories and let the children experience some of the celebrations without claiming that any are celebrating a true religion. Scepticism, logic and rigorous analytical thinking should be taught and given enough time to develop before anyone claiming one belief system is "true" is allowed classroom time.

*liars

humanism.org.uk/campaigns/schools-and-education/collective-worship/

Grasspigeons there have been significant attempts to remove the collective worship rule in non faith schools. Even some high ups in the church of England are against it. Have a look at the link.

The fact is it suits a lot of interests with very significant amounts of influence. Apart from anything the establishment love the barrier to entry that participation in the established C of E forms. If you want to be PM better go to church. Once you've bought in you can't see why those who aren't towing the line should be allowed influence.

The main problem though is that most people don't think much about anything.

You won’t get religion removed from schools - they founded them and they are going to hang on to them. In fact, with the current funding regime, there will be more of them! The government is already watering down the admission arrangements for new RC schools because the RC church won’t fund them if the government doesn’t agree to their demands on the percentage of RC children who are admitted.

I don’t know a single child who remained confused about their beliefs and education! They may question a few things as small children, but most don’t. Later on, they take it or leave it! Mine did a chapel service every day but are not interested. Others were chapel stewards at school and their parents were the religious ones who wanted this.

The atheist parents generally end up with atheist children and religious ones have religious children. Parental influence is the greatest influence. Some children question their parents, but many will just trot along to church or Temple if their parents require it.

RE should be being taught as 'Christians believe...' 'Muslim's believe...' not just because beliefs shouldn't be being presented as absolute truth but because otherwise how are the children going to know which religion believes which thing? I know a few teachers who will say 'I believe...' and follow it up with 'what do you think...' to another adult in the room, which I really like, because it shows the children it's ok to believe different things.

There are children at the school I work at who are withdrawn from everything religion related, including the Christmas party, Easter egg hunts etc, that is an option, it's not one I would choose for my DC (I think making them miss out on things is cruel) but it is an option. I was withdrawn from RE because my parents didn't want me learning about non-Catholic beliefs, it really annoyed me.

'Larry the main problem is that most 4-6 year olds struggle to compartmentalise. They often struggle with a teacher telling them something is true, when their parents have told them it isn't. They struggle with the idea people can hold opposite beliefs without one of them lying. The difference between truth and belief is a bit sophisticated. It's infinitely compounded when the teacher is saying Christianity is "true" and "we believe" encompassing the whole class, implicitly making parents out to be liers, while the parents try to be diplomatic and say that the teacher believes that what she is saying is true but they don't...'

I don't think children, at that age separate truth from non truth that clearly. They live a lot of their life in the imagination. It is to do with neural development. Many encourage their children to believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, and that is entirely harmless. They all grow out of it and it affords them short term pleasure.

I really think that a lot of atheists get overly concerned over this. From my experience the default position of most kids is atheism. They have to really have religion pushed on all fronts at an early age to accept it. If the home is non religious, the chances are the kids will be non religious.

One thing that is an unintended excellent consequence of a religious aspect to education is that it gives knowledgeable access to literature and history - the frame of reference and allusion from earlier English texts is largely Christian and it is enormously enabling to understand the world view of the Victorians and Shakespeare et al. Later on, your DC may have the cultural knowledge that will make Eng Lit or History A-level much easier.

You could always withdraw your child from RE lessons, Easter and Christmas events at school if you feel that strongly about it. It is parental right regardless of whether it is a faith school.

Larry that's your experience, but mine is of a child who was very upset indeed that either his much loved teacher or his parents were either totally wrong or lying about something important.

He grew out of it, yes, but it took 2 years of intermittent fairly extreme upset.

He's quite a literal minded child and also very thoughtful, he thinks and worries about things which don't seem right or don't seem fair. Between 4 and 6 he couldn't reconcile the alternative truths he was being told without categorising one party as liars and one as correct, which broke his heart, or one party as wrong about something enormously important, which also deeply upset him. He tormented himself with the idea that DH, DD and I might go to hell if his teacher was right. It's far too much utter shit to dump on a tiny child!

That one of my 3 kids - his elder sister had enjoyed discussing the whole "people believe different things, we can't prove who's right and maybe the truth is something else entirely" theme. So we hadn't foreseen that that wouldn't be enough for DC2.

DC3 has also been troubled by the conflict, but less so, and is far more willing to cope with cognitive dissonance.

@bluebell1981 you can withdraw your child from RE in NI.
My child brought home one of the workbooks and after reviewing it and listening to him I felt his time was better spent doing something else.
He reads and catches up on schoolwork with a child who 'has other Gods'.
RE in NI schools is a joke. It should not be in state schools.

I should add I withdraw him simply bu sending a letter to the principal and his teacher stating that we wished to withdraw our child from RE. We didn't give a reason.

withdrew and by

Interesting that this thread comes up on the day that HRH Prince Charles talks about the persecution of Christians.

DNA the group who hold all the entrenched, established power and influence in a society and have it enshrined systemically and in tradition, laws and policy, can't be meaningfully "persecuted".

I don't think that suggesting that religion is dealt with outside of schools or that all religions are given equal coverage is suggesting 'persecution'.
Many other countries (Canada for example) manage to educate their children in a moral way without suggesting that they believe in zombies.

@BWatchWatcher - I know you can, it's just so ingrained in every element of education here though that opting out doesn't fully solve the issue. I find it infuriating - let parents teach their beliefs at home and faiths practised outside of school!

@Yb23487643 our schools are the way they are because we live in a theocracy, but it is a Church of England theocracy, so relatively mild, and passive resistance is easy. Most non-religious people have learned to live with it. But many do actively challenge it - see the websites of Humanists UK, Accord Coalition, National Secular Society etc. Humanists UK have a full-time campaigner on school faith issues whose salary is entirely funded by donations from people like you (and me) who don't like the current situation.

However don't worry about your children being indoctrinated. As others have said, provided you let them know they have the freedom to question what teachers tell them they are likely to make their own minds up when they're older and the vast majority (70%) of young people in this country are rejecting religion - see here: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/newsbeat-43485581

@DNAnotGRA Christians aren't persecuted in the UK. Their privileges in the education system are sometimes challenged but that's not the same thing.

My DD’s school takes all the pupils for a special Easter Church service. My DD, 9, asked me if I would write a letter excusing her as she’s a non believer. I said I wouldn’t and even though we don’t believe (and find all religions a bit silly) she could listen to the stories and think about what they mean to other people.

In the end she was happy to go as the teacher gave them a chocolate Easter egg afterwards.

This article gives a good overview of Collective Worship in schools- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Worship_(schools_in_England_and_Wales)

Many non-faith schools rebel against the law, but actually I think that just makes it easier for the law to persist. Few people actively challenge it.

My sons primary school was a joint Catholic and CofE primary. We live in a multicultural area and a lot of kids from other religious backgrounds , particularly Muslim, choose to send their children to the school, precisely because it is religious. When they were taught about religion, it was all religions and they tended to do half a term on each. I am C of E, my son has been christened and I regularly took him to church when he was younger because of the promises I made when he was christened. However, at 13 (& much younger) he had decided it is all a load of twaddle and is a firm non believer!
I am ok with that, he has learned about different religions and made his choice based on the knowledge he has. I am aware that he may change his mind in the future. What I really wanted him to learn above everything else is to treat other people kindly and to be tolerant of other people's views. And that teaching is at the heart of most religions once you strip away all the guff. Who wouldn't want their kids to do that? He's come to it in his own terms and doesn't need a "higher being" to point the way. I'm rather proud of him😀.

Yorkshiremum17 your school is very unusual. There are very few joint CE and RC schools.

Notonmyaccount I know it's unusual but it seems to work ok! I think there are only 2 or 3 in the country.