Religious Education - do you do it at school?

[SleepyWitch]

hiya, everyone, I dunno if this thread goes in here, coz it's not exactly related to Religious Texts...

I was wondering if there are (compulsory) RE lessons at schools in your country and what they are like?

Imm a filthy heathen myself :) but attended Protestant RE lessons for 12 out of 13 years.
RE is compulsory in my country... most Germans are either Roman Catholic or Protestant (among the immigrant population you'll find mainly Muslims and Orthodox Christians). In my state RE is compulsory and you can chose Catholic or Protestant RE or "Ethics". I did "Ethics" for a year but found it quite boring because we never really discusses ethics.
In Protestant RE we talked about all the major religions (mainly Judaism!), philosophy, history, current events... we never had to pray or sing or read the Bible :)
Catholic RE is more traditional, they pray a lot and learn Catholic stuff.
our teacher never tried to convert me :) I don't think the Catholic teacher would have been that tolerant.. (no offence to any Catholics in here, I'm just referring to this particular teacher).
--> so, do you have RE lessons in your country, are they compulsory and what are they like?

[mingdamerciless]

Well to be honest they're pretty similar. RS (protestant) is meant to be compulsory although i managed to usually get out of it by learning latin instead. The school chaplain though, who took the lessons, was appaling, being quite capable of changing a christians mind about their beliefs rather than making non believers believe. I myself am a christain but some of his lessons i found very difficult to cope with. One particularly - i remember walking into the classroom and he began shouting at us about all the disasters and dreadful things happening in the world and blaming it on God. We then had to come up with our own version of 'All things bright and beautiful' but about the bad things. I'm sure he did have a very good point to make about this but it never came. The lesson finished first so we were left thinking about all the wrongs that God has allowed to happen and I know for a fact that that lesson was what made many of my friends reject the existance of God.

It has also been only in the last year or so that RS has been about christianity. Before it has always been Judaism or Islam etc I agreee with this to a point because it obviously necessary to understand the beliefs of people around you, but surely you should understand the religion you have been brought up to believe. Otherwise you will never understand what you are being taught and cannot either follow it and adapt your life to the teachings to that or of another religion if you find that you do not believe in it.

[SleepyWitch]

hehe, maybe the point of this lessons was to strengthen your faith in God in the face of all the horrible things that happen on this planet :) like you had to doubt first and then find arguments why there is a God anyway and thus restore your faith in him???? hehe, I can see how that drove you mad

[mingdamerciless]

heh yeer might well have been, it certaintly worked anyhoo. lol

[beer good]

In Swedish public schools we have (or at least had, when I was in school) a subject called "Religion" which is simply a part of social studies. You learn about different religions and beliefs, their histories and their implications on society. It's supposedly unbiased - just teaching what others believe, not what you should believe.

Private religious schools are allowed to teach their religion to students, but are required to give some sort of insight into other religions as well (I think).

[Stanislaw]

I am attending a luthern university, and tey require that students take atleast 3 credits of religion every year.

But they don't really force Luthern doctrine, I am a catholic, so I primarily just take the courses on world religion or the history of the old testament. They're pretty neat classes.

So to answer the question, in this particular institute religion is manditory (but you have a choice as to which classes you would like to take) but for the rest of Canada it is not encouraged, and in some schools, banned.

[Whifflingpin]

Stanislaw: "I am a catholic"
That statement surprised me. When you were talking about the sacrament of confession, you stated “in catholicism, people confess to a priest, who prays for your forgiveness and instructs you how to ask God for forgiveness.”

Has the doctrine changed? The priest used to give absolution in the name of the Trinity, not pray for it. His authority for forgiving sins was derived from the words in John, giving this authority to the Church. “Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John chapter 20 verse23) Does the priest no longer say “I absolve you …?”



Back to topic - I think religious instruction is still required in state schools in England. My daughter got thrown out of hers, when she was 14 or so, because she said that she followed the way of witchcraft.

[emily655321]

Hehe, Whifflingpin, that's funny. That's the best get-out-of-class excuse I've ever heard.

I only had an RE class once, for the year I was in a Catholic school in Scotland. We studied Christianity almost exclusively, except for the day or two we spent on Judaism. For the rest of my scholastic career, in American public school, we learned about "world religions" in Social Studies classes. Most of the time was given to "other" religions, since most of the students were familiar with Christianity already. (A great deal of it also probably had to do with the teachers' fear of accusations of evangelism.) My Christian religious education came from CCD classes at the church.

[~Lady Callisto~]

Hello everyone,

I go to a Catholic university, I've been taking up Catholicism since highschool. Though we have never had any insights about other religions except this one. Perhaps it's because almost my whole country is Catholic. :)

[Matilda]

In Swedish schools, we're supposed to study the main religions of the world objectively. You never pray in school, at least not in the public ones. The end of term before summer is traditionally celebrated in a church, but many/most schools have changed this, mainly to not exclude immigrant children who are muslims.
My teacher from year 1 to 3 was quite old-fashioned, and ignored these rules to teach us only the Old Testament. On the other hand, we only had time for one religion in high-school, and my teacher chose islam, so in the end it evened out.

(sorry if that last sentence was terribly ideomatically incorrect, especially the evened out part, can't remember if you can actually say that in english or if I made it up myself :rolleyes: )

often religion, history, geography and social studies are integrated like one subject.
for example you can read about islam at the same time as you read about the middle east and the history of the arabs.

[papayahed]

I went to Catholic School all through grade school and high school. I think we had 1 religion class a semester. I do believe there were a few elective classes on world religions that we could take in high school but it certainly wasn't mandatory

[AimusSage]

When In Highschool I had religious education, but it also dealt with modern philosophy etc. The school I went to was a christian high school, in public schools, religion is not necessarely thaught. This is the only difference between public schools and non-public schools. The rest of the curriculum is exactly the same. Religious education is also not part of the official final exams.

[Mililalil XXIV]

I went to a private protestant school for a couple of years. We had no world religion course, but had some sort of "Bible class" that was supposed to be preparation for Seminary. In Social Studies, we were taught how Catholics broke into the flow of history and irritated the ancient protestants no end throughout the medieval era! What an education! How shocked I was later to find there had been no ancient protestants!

Before and efter this, though, I was in public school. In grade 7, our teacher taught us that there was no ancient Israeli history. I remember looking up at her and saying, "Then where did I come from?" Whose Law were my forefathers carrying around with such a strict Priesthood?

Schools period are funny.

[emily655321]

(sorry if that last sentence was terribly ideomatically incorrect, especially the evened out part, can't remember if you can actually say that in english or if I made it up myself :rolleyes: )
It was actually perfect, Matilda. :nod: It could have been said by a native English-speaker.

[Matilda]

Thanks Emily, I have my moments of doubt. :)
lovely picture by the way

[SleepyWitch]

I went to a private protestant school for a couple of years. We had no world religion course, but had some sort of "Bible class" that was supposed to be preparation for Seminary. In Social Studies, we were taught how Catholics broke into the flow of history and irritated the ancient protestants no end throughout the medieval era! What an education! How shocked I was later to find there had been no ancient protestants!

Before and efter this, though, I was in public school. In grade 7, our teacher taught us that there was no ancient Israeli history. I remember looking up at her and saying, "Then where did I come from?" Whose Law were my forefathers carrying around with such a strict Priesthood?

Schools period are funny.

wow, that's creepy... ancient protestants but no ancient Israeli history... how can such things happen? i mean is there no government authority or someone who checks up on schools and makes sure they don't teach cr*p like this???

[myself]

hey every one, i am a muslim, i go to a muslim school in england and we study about islam and a bit about other religions. if i go to state scholl then i would, up to GCSEs have to take RE about all religions.