Father removes son from school over prayers

[Yellow_Belle]

Why send your child to a catholic school if you are anti-catholic or anti-prayer? You can not reasonably send your child to a catholic school, request that he be sheilded and excluded from religious ed and prayer, and then get upset when the child begins to pray.

Send him to a public school or to a private non-religious school.

The Father made a bad choice in enrolling his child in a school whose teaching he does not agree with and now wants to hold the school accountable. At the same time, the school should NEVER have agreed to he Father’s request that his child not be educated about religion.

It is a state-run ‘public’ school under the patronage of the Catholic Church - it is NOT a Catholic school in the way you seem to imagine it: please read the rest of the thread. It was also the school nearest to him and he was perfectly entitled, in fact expected, to enrol his child there. It is not as if he had a range of schools to choose from; Irish demographics are certainly changing but the number of alternative schools to the existing national school model is small and largely confined to cities and large towns. Rural national schools in Ireland, whether under the patronage of the Catholic Church or the Church of Ireland, cater for all religions and none.The school was perfectly correct and is in fact required to make provision for parents’ wishes with regard to the religious education of their children.

 

[Hopemercy]

politics.ie/education-science/148131-amount-religion-taught-primary-school.html

Interesting thread showing the wide diversity in primary schools.

I stand by what I have written.

 

[Yellow_Belle]

politics.ie/education-science/148131-amount-religion-taught-primary-school.html

Interesting thread showing the wide diversity in primary schools.

I stand by what I have written.

Is it not true, Hopemercy, that the vast majority of primary schools in Ireland, especially in rural areas, are run on the state-run national school model, under the patronage of either the Church of Ireland or the Catholic Church? Is it not true that that is how the system has evolved historically? Is it not true that quite recently the Catholic Church was asked to (and did) take over patronage of a new school in Dublin that was to be run on a new secular model? Is it not true that the Church has indicated that it is going to divest itself of several state-run schools under its patronage because the demography has changed and parents want no Church involvement at all, even as patron?

I agree with you, Hopemercy, that it is difficult for anyone who doesn’t live in Ireland to understand how the system works - this thread gives ample testimony to that. The situation is complex and I think that many posters imagine that because a national school is under the patronage of the Catholic Church, is located within the Catholic parish system, and the vast majority of its pupils are Catholic that it is de facto a Catholic school on the American style. It is not. It is a state-run (the hint is in ‘national’ in its title) school that is obliged to make provision for the religious education (or none) of all its pupils.

As I said earlier in the thread, I attended a primary school run by a religious order in the 1960s, but even then we had protestant pupils from time to time because they had no school within the area they could attend. The sisters ALWAYS made provision for them, they were never obliged to join in our prayers or even to be present for them, and, of course, they were excused RE classes.

 

[Hopemercy]

YB; not wuite sure what you are trying to argue here. If it is that there is little overt prayer etc in a National School here then you are totally wrong, in Dromahair at least; did you read the thread from politics ie I posted?

The man argued that the child was reciting prayers several times a day after all; streaming out one child in that situation is not possible. And this is not a school run by a religious order where there are always “spare” folk around.

Nor is it a secular school in the way that you are portaying. This is a small backwater village, a one- horse town.

Everything in the school echoes the Catholic Year; artwork, literature, etc. To single a child out is not possible… he would be like a yo-yo!

Whatever your experience is, it does not cover or apply to this case.

The parallels you draw are simply not valid here.

And Sligo, with the “Educate Together” school is within very easy reach of Dromahair; I lived almost in Dromahair many years.

There was and is choice.

The threat to take this to the Ombudsman is sheerly ridiculous; imagining the reaction in the village to this! A huge fuss over a very small thing… But then many Europeans come here with no intention of living within the culture and this is a prime example of this.

Poor wee child in all this.

 

[Hopemercy]

Why send your child to a catholic school if you are anti-catholic or anti-prayer? You can not reasonably send your child to a catholic school, request that he be sheilded and excluded from religious ed and prayer, and then get upset when the child begins to pray.

Send him to a public school or to a private non-religious school.

The Father made a bad choice in enrolling his child in a school whose teaching he does not agree with and now wants to hold the school accountable. At the same time, the school should NEVER have agreed to he Father’s request that his child not be educated about religion.

Exactly so; but as you will see from YB;s posts, even folk here get it wrong. Small validity implying that the smaller rural schools are not Catholic schools when almost every child is from a Catholic home and the walls are full of religious art work and symbols. Where the prevailing culture - and here it IS culture and not separate “religion”, which YB seems not to realise, is Catholic and where the teachers training is heavily Catholic and where the village schools are preparing for First Communion etc, the whole ethos is Catholic. Heaven preserve us from losing this, as we are now, by seeing “RE” as a separate issue that a child can be removed from for a spell every day. The Anglicans manage to do that sadly. With the present great decline of the priesthood and religious life here, more and more will devolve on the schools.

Probably the school misunderstood; the man’sEnglish is very poor. Not his first language and he is dealing with the Irish accent. probably they thought he was meaning eg preparation classes for eg First Communion etc? Which of course is a very different matter.Which the school would see as teaching religion.

it is at base a culture clash…blown out of all propertion by some stringer for a newspaper.

 

[LittleSoldier]

It is a state-run ‘public’ school under the patronage of the Catholic Church - it is NOT a Catholic school in the way you seem to imagine it: please read the rest of the thread. It was also the school nearest to him and he was perfectly entitled, in fact expected, to enrol his child there. It is not as if he had a range of schools to choose from; Irish demographics are certainly changing but the number of alternative schools to the existing national school model is small and largely confined to cities and large towns. Rural national schools in Ireland, whether under the patronage of the Catholic Church or the Church of Ireland, cater for all religions and none.The school was perfectly correct and is in fact required to make provision for parents’ wishes with regard to the religious education of their children.

Wow, you are surely right about one thing: it’s very difficult for those who live in the U.S. to understand the Irish school system. In the U.S. the separation of Church and State is emphasized. It would be quite peculiar for anyone to send his/her child to a Catholic school and expect that child to be removed from all religious instruction, prayer, etc.

I attended several years of traditional Catholic school - the same school my Dad attended when he was a child (we even had the same fourth-grade teacher). It would be almost impossible to keep any child away from religion. But there are always secular, public schools available and also home-schooling in many areas. I have the impression that Church and State are mingled in Ireland and that the Catholic schools are secular in some respects. I don’t pretend to understand that.

Is there home-schooling in Ireland?

 

[Yellow_Belle]

Exactly so; but as you will see from YB;s posts, even folk here get it wrong. Small validity implying that the smaller rural schools are not Catholic schools when almost every child is from a Catholic home and the walls are full of religious art work and symbols. Where the prevailing culture - and here it IS culture and not separate “religion”, which YB seems not to realise, is Catholic and where the teachers training is heavily Catholic and where the village schools are preparing for First Communion etc, the whole ethos is Catholic. Heaven preserve us from losing this, as we are now, by seeing “RE” as a separate issue that a child can be removed from for a spell every day. The Anglicans manage to do that sadly. With the present great decline of the priesthood and religious life here, more and more will devolve on the schools.

Probably the school misunderstood; the man’sEnglish is very poor. Not his first language and he is dealing with the Irish accent. probably they thought he was meaning eg preparation classes for eg First Communion etc? Which of course is a very different matter.Which the school would see as teaching religion.

it is at base a culture clash…blown out of all propertion by some stringer for a newspaper.

I did not get it wrong, Hopemercy - you did. I have worked in the past for the Department of Education in Ireland and I do know how schools are set up and run in Ireland - something which you seem to have only a superficial knowledge of. That the vast majority of schools in rural Ireland have a majority Catholic population is not in question. Neither is it in question, as both I and other Irish posters have noted, that Irish rural schools have a Catholic ethos by virtue of demographics. Nevertheless, they are state-run schools and cannot be considered Catholic schools in the same way that Americans here understand that term. And regardless of the overall ethos of a school, whether that is Catholic or Church of Ireland, a rural school is required to make provision for the wishes of parents with regard to the religious education (or none) of their children. That it is difficult to escape the Catholic ethos of a school in which the vast majority of the pupils and teachers are Catholic goes without saying. But the father wasn’t complaining about that - he was complaining that the school, in his opinion, had not lived up to its agreement with him that his son not be included in any form of religious education or prayers. You may think that it is reprehensible that RE is a separate issue that children can be removed from, but RE IS a separate part of the curriculum and preparing children for First Communion and Confirmation is not even part of the curriculum, and the Church herself teaches very clearly that the parent’s rights in this regard are inviolable.

 

[Yellow_Belle]

Wow, you are surely right about one thing: it’s very difficult for those who live in the U.S. to understand the Irish school system. In the U.S. the separation of Church and State is emphasized. It would be quite peculiar for anyone to send his/her child to a Catholic school and expect that child to be removed from all religious instruction, prayer, etc. I think the problem is that Americans have a particular understanding of the term ‘Catholic school’ and an Irish rural school, despite having an overwhelming Catholic student and teacher population, and being under the patronage of the local bishop, is NOT a Catholic school in the same sense. Moreover, as it is provided by the state and the teachers are paid by the state, and it is probably the only school in the area, it is required to take all pupils regardless of denomination and to make provision for their separate religious education (or none).

I attended several years of traditional Catholic school - the same school my Dad attended when he was a child (we even had the same fourth-grade teacher). It would be almost impossible to keep any child away from religion. But there are always secular, public schools available and also home-schooling in many areas. I have the impression that Church and State are mingled in Ireland and that the Catholic schools are secular in some respects. I don’t pretend to understand that. It is certainly true that it is difficult to avoid the Catholic ethos in an Irish rural school but it is not impossible to remove a child from RE class. As I have said previously, I lived for a while in an area where the nearest local school was Church of Ireland (Anglican). My daughter attended that school for several years, they made provision for her separate religious education and I could have had her opted out of morning and evening prayers if I wished. Yes, the ethos was protestant, the teachers were protestant, the patron of the school was the local Church of Ireland rector. But they respected my wishes with regard to my daughter’s religious upbringing and, in fact, went out of their way on several occasions to do so.

Is there home-schooling in Ireland? Yes, there is but only about 3000 children are currently being home schooled. See this homeschool-ireland.com/ireland.php

 

[JaredM]

Irish American here

Baptized Roman Catholic, raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Don’t know anything about Catholic schools. I’m a product of the American public educational system.