this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Makes sense to teach the basics of most popular religions and those locally/culturally relevant. It's just useful information. Helps in understanding other people.
Here's how it goes down:
Do you want to teach various creation myths and explanatory myths? That stuff goes into cultural anthropology, or if there's enough of it, such as Hellenic mythology, then a literature class, but then it's cross referenced with the values of the age. No-one wants their modern religion taught as mythology right next to others that are regarded as ancient superstition.
Do you want to teach existential questions and morality? Awesome! We have entire school departments dedicated to philosophy. Typically 101 is an intro to existentialism and 102 is an intro into morality. And both of them move beyond religion in the very first chapter. The thing is, religions assert their positions on why are we here? and are property rights evil by mere assertion. Ministries say we have the authority, and you obey. and might even back their position up by scripture. But none of this really answers either why or how we know and even Descartes (a devout follower of the Church) couldn't find a sufficient answer to his own evil demon except to assume by God is good by default (rather than God being a construct by which a corrupt Church might manipulate their flock). Religion turns out to be a starting point for our purpose, the point of everything and right and wrong, but where we end up after the enlightenment is far beyond the apologists.
Just teach the basics about major world religions
I don't even know what the basics of christianity are anymore. Do you teach it is a monotheistic religion or a polytheistic religion that changed its mind. Do you teach it as them believing humanity stemmed from adam and eve, or adam and eve were the first christians and their 3 sons were to spread the beliefs but acknowledge that humans already existed on earth created by other gods/means. You break bread and it is literally the body of a man, or figuratively. 40,000 versions of christianity that found reasons to not be the same sects. So I suppose you teach a historical touching of how it has changed but by no means could you teach the concepts of Jesus before highschool without upsetting parents these days, even then. Imagine the response to forgiving all drug users, imprisonment being wrong, not having any spending money, etc. Angry parents pissed off claiming schools are teaching Jesus was "some sort of communist." Was banking not against christian law as well, as you could not ask for interest and such as a true christian would have given it to you without expectation?
Usually there's some watered down descriptions about different denominations you could teach. No need to get into the nitty gritty of them all, just the very basics and some stuff that makes them different.
That’s how they did it at my college in the Netherlands, which has ‘Christian’ in the name but really isn’t religious at all.
You basically got a primer on the big religions as well as some of the fringes. This was part of my journalism degree. I am fully atheist but honestly didn’t mind since it was just factual information.
They also encouraged us to at least once visit a church, synagogue, mosque, etc. The ONLY one they didn’t want us touching was Scientology after they had some negative experiences in prior years.
okay but the problem with teaching pretty much anything in schools is that the kids don't care, they don't want to be there, they don't care about the subject matter, and how are you going to fit all of the world's religions into an elementary school class? And expect the kids to care or comprehend it?
I vaguely remember the Mormons briefly being mentioned in a history textbook in high school. maybe one paragraph in the whole textbook. It barely scratched the surface and I would not have remembered it at all if the Mormons hadn't sucked me in & warped my brain for a decade in my 20s.
Kids don't want to be there or learn most of the stuff being taught. Somehow we manage
In Quebec we have a course like that in grade 4 of high school (~15 years old). I certaintly didn’t care, hated everything religious back then. But now if you ask me what the Torah is, somehow I remember it’s the Jewish bible.
It wasn’t about “all the world’s religions” really, but only the big 5, which we’d spend a fifth of the school year on each. I’d say that’s acceptable and despite being an atheist, I’m still glad I got that course. Now if we could have had an economy course instead of poetry…
I went to a Protestant school in Northern Ireland. Learning the differences between Catholic and protestant churches did more than if neither was taught.
My issue with this, is, how do you teach non-religion?
How do you approach telling the majority that their faith is just as valid as another- incliding the lack of it?
It’s better to just not even try, especially in this environment.
Comparative Religion has been an academic subject for centuries as has Religious History. It’s not hard.
Alright. Go show me how not hard it is. Teach these kids.
It’s not difficult when the kids are respectful and the parents aren’t running for the torches and pitchforks.
When the parents are actively trying to get you fired for so much as mentioning something other than their hyper-specific brand of whatever, it becomes dramatically less “not hard”.
The simple solution is to remove it all. Particularly because it’s extremely unlikely that the poorly represented faiths and religions are going to be accurately taught or understood by an elementary school teacher who may not even be able to read or write
I have. I spent two years teaching history to freshman in high school and collectively months of my lesson plan were about the historical development and path of polytheistic traditions into the early Catholic Church, the birth and spread of Islam, the reformation, the development and spread of Buddhism, and the rise of Protestant factionalism in the 19th century (it’s an American school, so that one is important). It was absolutely not hard. I didn’t experience any fallout, pushback, or controversy.
Also, your assessment of the landscape of the educational system in the US is driven by sensationalist headlines and hot takes, not a strong point of view. Hell, even the article you linked doesn’t demonstrate the point you linked it with the hopes of supporting.
So, first things first. There's actually no such thing as any single 'American educational system'. Lets be perfectly clear on that point. The control exerted by the federal government is proportionate to the amount of funding it provides- which in most states is less than ten percent of the total educational funding. Most of which comes from the states they reside in (which also exerts the most control on educational standards.) and the specific local communities (which exerts the only direct control- through the use of local school boards as oversight.)
bull. fucking. shit. It's not 'sensationalist headlines' driving the flurry of laws signed by DeSantis in Florida; many of which are predicated on protecting the feelings of mostly-white, mostly-christian ass fucks... who apparently think slavery was beneficial to slaves and really don't like being called on their bullshit. Or who think the LGBTQ+ people don't deserve the same respect everyone else has, or banning books talking about the holocaust.
It is not a "hot take" to recognize that there are places where school boards are now a battle ground of culture-war issues, that are mostly white, mostly christian assholes trying to force their beliefs on the rest of us. this shows itself up in the trans-gender bathroom debate, in the debates about racism and African-American studies, or racism and Native American history. or in STEM with the rampant bullshittery going on.
just as I don't know you... you don't know me. My views come from sitting at school board meetings listening to the debates happening- and I'm not even in a particularly contentious area. Yet in the last year, the number of numskulls asking to ban books because of what effectively comes down to it offending their beliefs across a broad spectrum of issues is up. I've spent the last few years watching (and speaking my mind,) at these events.
hell, earlier this year, one of the issues brought to my local school board was that a teacher had told a Mormon kid that Native Americans weren't actually Lamanites. a belief that (I'm pretty sure,) most Mormons don't actually hold anymore. To my understanding of that issue, all the teacher was actually saying was that genetic and archeological evidence did not support that belief. which is a fairly bland and reasonable statement to make.
which brings me back to the point at hand: in the current political atmosphere, it is extremely difficult to balance the presentation of modern religious world views in a manner which is not going to offend somebody. After all, an evangelical christian is very unlikely to be happy if their creation myth were treated with the same derision they treat the Hellenistic creation myths or the Buddhist's nominally lack-of-creation in their beliefs; and the fight over Intelligent Design in biology class is a decades-old battle that is, was and remains at issue.
As for directly addressing the faiths of everyone in the school system, broadly speaking, the demographics of my particular school district includes.... Christians (the majority here, by percentage- mainline protestant, evangelical protestant and catholic), atheists (and all the other 'religious nones'... lumped in with agnostics and people who 'don't know'), Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist; along with about half a dozen or so 'other faiths' that are basically everything left over. (Humanism, deists, Unitarians, eclectics, etc.)
remember, if you accommodate one, you have to accommodate all. or you run the risk of spawning a shitload of lawsuits. lawsuits that have to be defended, and payments that take money away from already cash-strapped schools. It's simply not worth it.