Religious education in the USA

[QwertyGirl]

Birth control is important information for young adults to have. To know it exists, how it works, how it doesn’t work. I want my kid to learn this as part of a biology class. I wouldn’t want a value system to be applied to what was taught because…

That is my job! I get to discuss with my kid what I think about birth control. I get to teach values associated with it.

Same way with nutrition. Teach my kid the different philosophies around nutrition approaches. Let me work with my kid to figure out what is the best approach for them to take in their own life.

Teach all the theories based in science as to how we got here. I can teach my kid which one I believe is true and which one our religion accepts (if I have a religion).

Sex education should be taught as part of a biology class. Having sex and reproduction is a function of biology. I don’t want schools teaching my kids what their value system should be with regards to it. Teach “this is what it is”. Same thing with LGBTQ issues. "This is what it is. This is what we know about it from a scientific standpoint. This is what we still don’t know about it.

If parent’s are involved with their kids’ education, they know the curriculum. They should be talking to their kids on a daily and weekly basis about what they are learning. They should be supplementing it in whatever way they see fit.

 

[phil19034]

Birth control is important information for young adults to have. To know it exists, how it works, how it doesn’t work. I want my kid to learn this as part of a biology class. I wouldn’t want a value system to be applied to what was taught because…

That is my job! I get to discuss with my kid what I think about birth control. I get to teach values associated with it.

Yeah, I respectfully disagree. I also disagreed with it when I was in 9th grade.

I think it’s totally acceptable to teach how the reproductive system works. But I don’t think it’s acceptable to teach kids how to have sex. It’s also not acceptable to encourage kids to try homosexual acts, oral sex, etc

There are ways to stay neutral - which is what the 1st Amendment is designed to do.

If parents want to teach kids how to put on a condom, then the PARENT should teach that. Not the public school.

How to use birth control is not biology.

Teaching kids about how to use birth control is technically CHOOSING one set of religious/moral/ethical values over another.

So in my humble opinion, the public schools should remain neutral when it comes to teaching about things that are considered morals/ethics/values.

NOW, if they made Sex Education an elective that would be different. Then parents who don’t feel comfortable teaching their kids about sex and accept the secular view can allow the school to handle it. While other parents can allow their kids to learn about it at home.

But here’s the thing about sex education. The human race survived all this time without sex education in school - it’s not like we can’t survive without it. The only reasons for it are:

1. push the sexual revolution agenda
2. to promote the birth control mentality
3. to undermine traditional religious values.

If it was anything other than that, sex education classes would be doing their best to scare kids away from sex instead of teaching them how to fornicate.

 

[QwertyGirl]

But I don’t think it’s acceptable to teach kids how to have sex. It’s also not acceptable to encourage kids to try homosexual acts, oral sex, etc

I certainly didn’t suggest that in my post.

Teaching kids what sex is and the basic mechanics of what happens isn’t the same as teaching them about how to do it, or the other things you mentioned.

Again, I believe in teaching factually correct information.

If you want public schools to only teach things for which religious/ moral, ethical values never be considered, then there is whole lot of stuff that won’t be taught. I don’t want the school necessarily teaching kids values. Let the parents do that. But nutrition, home economics, business practices, broad areas of the law, and interpretation of written works are all examples of what would be off the curriculum if they are to be excluded just because morals and values and religious beliefs should be considered when deciding how these topics will be perceived on a personal level.

Again, private or religious school is a perfect option for parents who don’t want their kids to learn about the important things in life that add up to being well-educated. If the parent only wants to teach these things at home, then send the kids to a school who respects that. I say this as a person who received an excellent education in a private, Catholic school. My parents didn’t shy away from filling in the gaps with regards to many of the concerns you articulated. Unfortunately, other kids weren’t so lucky. They arrived at adulthood lacking information they should have had, and it wasn’t a good thing.

And finally, you can completely skip sex education if you want. But the thing about it is that kids still learn all about it. They just learn a lot of incorrect information. Which, in my opinion, is a terrible thing.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

There are some in the United States that want to do everything in their power to eliminate religious schools and homeschooling.

I really don’t see that happening any time soon, given that the public school system is such a mess most places and the government likes to encourage reasonable private alternatives just to take some of the burden off themselves if nothing else.

 

[phil19034]

I really don’t see that happening any time soon, given that the public school system is such a mess most places and the government likes to encourage reasonable private alternatives just to take some of the burden off themselves if nothing else.

Yeah, I didn’t mean that it was going to happen soon. But there are forces who are playing the long game to get rid of them or at least greatly limit/undermine their influence.

 

[phil19034]

And finally, you can completely skip sex education if you want.

yes, but there are some school districts and states that are trying to pass laws/regulations to eliminate a parent’s right to exempt kids from sex ed.

Personally, I would just rather see it as an elective instead of a situation where you pull the kid out of class.

It wouldn’t be hard to do. Simply make it the last X weeks of is current the health class. The standard health class ends when the Sex Ed class begins. Then, kids who are signed up for Sex Ed take it and those who are not signed up go to study hall or something.

Pretty similar to how my school did driver’s ed.

 

[phil19034]

I certainly didn’t suggest that in my post.

Teaching kids what sex is and the basic mechanics of what happens isn’t the same as teaching them about how to do it, or the other things you mentioned.

Yes, but that’s what’s happening in some schools. For example: the teachers have the kids put condoms on bananas or cucumbers. Teachers explaining what oral sex is, etc. Teachers answering questions from kids that they really shouldn’t about sex details.

And unfortunately, not everyone can afford religious schools and not everyone can afford to homeschool either. Some people really depend on the public school system and we shouldn’t have to worry that our kids (regardless of our religion, non-religion, or moral system) are going to be taught something that goes against our values.

Public schools don’t have to teach everything. Just like they shouldn’t teach theist morality in public schools, I think they shouldn’t teach secular or atheist morality in public schools either.

Again: when they do that, they are promoting one set of morality over another.

 

[dconklin]

So it’s protestant in nature, then?

Yes. No direct references to Catholicism or any other ism.

 

[dconklin]

is still a Christian rather than Jewish perspective with regards to the OT?

No, I am pretty sure the Jewish bible, not having been written by Christians, is looked at with a Jewish perspective. These classes are part of the Social Studies curriculum.

 

[_Ruby]

Chiming in as a UK resident, I had the standard curriculum Religious Education teaching, then chose it as one of my subjects for GCSE (the round of exams/qualifications you take at 15/16) and then opted for it again as an AS level (Round of exams/qualifications at 16/17).

The standard curriculum stuff was what you would expect - what are the main world religions, what do they believe, what are their main festivals, what is their specific religious dress etc.

The coverage at secondary school was more in depth, especially in the lead up to GCSE - creation stories, divine figures, beliefs on death, marriage, leading a ‘good life’, life after death, euthanasia, abortion.

Once we got to AS/A Level, the content changed to a more ‘philosophy and ethics’ based discussion - so the teachings of Plato and other philosophers, concepts like ‘good’ and ‘evil’ etc.

Here are some links to some past GCSE & A Level papers if people want to get a feel for the type of teaching and questions:

Assessment resources

www.aqa.org.uk

https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2018/june/AQA-PHLS1-QP-JUN18.PDF

 

[QwertyGirl]

I can see where learning this information would be quite beneficial. I think a world religions class, or comparitive religions class should certainly be offered in public schools. Knowledge is power, and learning about what other people believe is a powerful way to lead to better understanding of each other in this wide world of ours.

 

[Pattylt]

Thanks. I’ve seen a few classes where they teach the Jewish bible as the fore runner to Christianity…which is a Christian perspective. I’m glad yours keeps to the social aspect.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Stuff like that still happens from time to time today. Many Fundamentalist public school teachers in USA don’t see this as doing anything wrong. They tend to not be the sharpest knives in the drawer and the vast majority of people they meet share their Christian faith.

 

[GiftofMercy]

The Jewish meanings, wordplay and subtleties can be lost in translation in the Hebrew Bible Old Testament. There are a few differences due to translation, beginning with the second verse in Genesis. This is a source of great debate amongst scholars.
A Biblical Hebrew reading of the Old Testament enhances Christian understanding of those days.
Christians and Jews both share the Old Testament and Abraham as our earthly ancestor - adopted for non israelites.

 

[Pattylt]

Now a days, that is an outrageous thought, isn’t it! But in 1962 it wasn’t an uncommon event. Our country has become much more consistent in its views of the separation of church and state.

Catholics and Jews fought hard together to eliminate school prayer back then. One of the biggest reasons there are many catholic schools is due to the Protestant mindset that their prayers are the not only correct prayer but since their version of the faith was so mainstream and pervasive, why shouldn’t the schools reflect that!

I often cringe when some usually evangelical group starts pushing for a return to prayer in schools, prayer before secular events, etc. is because they are assuming it will the Protestant version.

Everyone was in an uproar when some civil council was forced to allow the church of Satan to give the opening prayer. The church of Satan could care less about prayers, the point was there shouldn’t be ANY prayer before a secular meeting. They knew that by being forced to allow them(the Satanists) a voice, what they should do is end the practice. Prayer to any faith has no business in a secular government. Private prayer is, of course, completely legal. It’s just that some groups don’t like that. They feel their own faith should be promoted and others suppressed. And many agree with them.

 

[Londoner]

There are a lot of replies here that I have bee reading but haven’t found a moment to reply to. In particular, @PeterT, @Tis_Bearself, @joyfulandactive, @QwertyGirl, @phil19034, @_Ruby and with apologies to anyone whose posts I fail to address directly.

Once again this thread bears out the thesis often presented in the UK (I don’t know whether it is presented in the US) that while the UK is constitutionally one of the most religious countries in the world (rivalled only by the Vatican and Iran), it is in practice one of the most secular, where the US is constitutionally one of the most secular, while in practice one of the most religious. Our monarch reigns by God’s Grace, is anointed in the manner of King Solomon, and is head of our established Church, while a quota of seats in the upper house of Parliament is reserved for bishops and archbishops. Publicly-funded universities such as Oxbridge and Durham have professorships and even the headship of an Oxford college that must be held by Anglican clergy and are in many cases actually appointed by the Queen on advice from the prime minister. And yet in practice Britain is a secular and multifaith society where religion is almost entirely absent from public life except as a ceremonial focus such as on Remembrance Sunday. Arguably it is actually because of our notional rejection of secularism and the establishment of a moderate form of Reformed Protestantism as the religion of England (not the rest of the UK) that the secularist/multifaith culture thrives.

This situation also reinforces my view that the UK benefits from parliamentary sovereignty and not having a written constitution. It seems that a written constitution is at once fairly inflexible but also susceptible to interpretation and reinterpretation by judges. It seems very peculiar to me that school prayer was tolerated for over 170 years after the adoption of the First Amendment before being found to be unconstitutional in the early 1960s. (Likewise the idea that in 1896 the Fourteenth Amendment was used to confirm the constitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine, while in 1954 it was used to refute it.) In Britain an aspect of the religious education curriculum could in theory be argued to be unlawful (although I cannot imagine how), and it would be for a court to interpret the will of Parliament, but there is no risk of its being found to be unconstitutional. There are no fundamental constitutional values involved, only laws that Parliament is free to change as and when it wishes.

@TheLittleLady I don’t know how Pew selects the people it interviews for their research. I’d hope that they have scientific criteria for selecting a representative sample. I have to say, I always think it would be quite interesting to be selected for this kind of polling. I just looked up how the most important such survey in the UK, called British Social Attitudes, is polled, and apparently they just invite people by selecting thousands of random postcodes.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It seems that a written constitution is at once fairly inflexible but also susceptible to interpretation and reinterpretation by judges. It seems very peculiar to me that school prayer was tolerated for over 170 years after the adoption of the First Amendment before being found to be unconstitutional in the early 1960s.

Actually the Constitution does not change that much in USA. Since about the 1970s which were an era of judicial activism that probably got a bit out of hand and wasn’t good for the country, the US news media has focused on the Supreme Court in a manner it usually didn’t in past US history. That means that when there is a change in interpretation, we hear about it from the rooftops and people get the impression the Court is changing stuff right and left all the time, which is NOT the case. The Court tries to keep the Constitution fairly stable and indeed I think that is the reasoning behind a lot of rulings, many of which the general public barely hears about because the general public wouldn’t understand them or would think them boring.

I would NOT want to live in a society with a government similar to that of UK. I know I’m biased because half of my ancestors fled British oppression but I have indeed tried to give the place a fair shake given that I did the summer Oxford thing and also joined the solicitors’ bar but I just don’t see it being that great. I can see where it laid the foundation for US government and it is certainly better than how they do things in France for example, but UK government has also shown us a lot of “What Not to Do”. As for why “school prayer was tolerated” for all those years, anti-immigrant sentiment had a lot to do with that, and the Catholics certainly didn’t tolerate it when they defected en masse to Catholic schools which in the old days a Catholic parent was expected to send their kid to, or they would hear about it from the pastor. My grandmother pulled my mom out of Catholic school in the 1930s because she was getting bullied by a nun, which was a rather gutsy and maverick thing for my grandma to do given that she was well known in her parish as a good Catholic lady with a whole bunch of kids and good marriage/ family life etc.

I will be leaving the thread now as I am afraid if I continue on it I will end up saying something that offends somebody (not necessarily the UK contingent) but let’s just say I’m very glad I live where I do, and that I didn’t have to take a “world religions” course in school but instead was free to simply learn about world religions by reading encyclopedias, getting books on Zen Buddhism out of the library, and similar stuff. I do believe I learned better from acting on my own interest than I would have from any teacher trying to teach it.

 

[Londoner]

A couple of other things:

With regard to sex education, which is admittedly straying a little from the original topic, not that I think anyone minds, I think in the UK at any rate the fundamental thing at the moment is using sex education to reduce risk of child sexual abuse and exploitation. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with UK current affairs will know that we have recently been coming to terms with sexual abuse and exploitation of our children that we now realise has been endemic for generations. There is an enormous inquiry currently ongoing into CSA in England and Wales, a similar inquiry recently concluded in Northern Ireland, and another inquiry, more limited in scope, is ongoing in Scotland. There have also been numerous cases of large-scale organised child sexual exploitation of which the appalling case in Rotherham is merely the best known. Members of both houses of Parliament, a former high commissioner to Canada, and a senior member of the Royal Household have all been identified as paedophiles. Many people are surprised that former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has not been prosecuted for misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. In light of this situation, it is unsurprising that schools are now doing everything that they can to try to prevent this from happening to more children. There is no point saying that it is the responsibility of parents because most sexual abuse of children takes place within the family. Also, most parents are not capable of providing this kind of education, are unwilling to do so, or do not understand its importance, meaning that it is necessary for schools to step in to ensure that this kind of education is given to every child.

On another point, this has been a very interesting recent story:

Parents launch court action over Christian school assemblies

Couple say their children are being indoctrinated and school did not provide good alternative

www.theguardian.com

The issue here is not religious education but the largely neglected requirement that schools hold an act of worship broadly Christian in character. It’s an interesting case with some subtleties in that: (1) the school the parents chose to send their children to was originally secular, but was later taken over by the Church of England. They feel, not without justification, that if you choose to send your child to a secular school you do not expect it to be taken over by a religious organisation and apparently an unusually evangelical one at that. Note that Burford is a very small town where there is no choice in education, so if the local school becomes an evangelical Anglican school there are no alternatives. (2) They are not arguing that religious assemblies should be outlawed, only that parents should have two equal alternatives, an act of worship or a secular assembly. They object to the fact that children who are withdrawn from the act of worship are not offered a meaningful alternative, which, to be honest, it would not be hard to provide.