Religious Education

[thesnitch_and_you]

My last post on another thread in this forum made me wonder about how other religions do their education. I went to public schools because I was poor, and went to my roman catholic church once a week for an hour long REP --religious education program. Most of my friends went to catholic elementary schools, and catholic high schools. my neighborhood also had a mosque (sp?) nearby which had a high school, but the muslim kids went to elementary school with me. I think there were also greek elementary schools also. Where I go to college, there are two christian elementary schools and one lutheran. I also belive that the amish in the area have a small school too, that doesnt meet very oftern.This is the extent of my knowledge of religious education.
What I am wondering about is, do other religions have their own schools? do other countries do things differently? I am from the midwest of the United states. Do people on the coasts do things differently? Mostly I am wondering if you recieve your regular and religous education in the same place, or if you have to go to your place of worship, like I did, to learn things. thank you.

[Hermiony]

Hi,
I though your question was very insightful. I have never thought about how other religions educate their people. Well I am a Christian, to be specific Nazarene, which is a denomination that follows the Westlian teaching. I dont know if that blew you away or not, but what that basically means is that I interpriet the Bible a certian way. The way that i have been educated was through sunday school in my church in which we meet every sunday night for about an hour, and when i was younger through children's church, where we learned all of the bible stories. I was blessed wiht the oppertunity to go to a Christian highschool, but i am sad to say that they teach a vague overview of the bible. How I have learned is by asking question and then searchingthe bible for my self. I think that you really need to search the bible for your self and not let other tell you what to believe. I dont know if that helps you are not, but good luck on finding out what you what to know

[Gabi Potter]

In my city, there is one or two Christian schools but no other religions. I know of a lot of people who do religious education every Wednesday. It's even some sort of law that teachers cannot give too much work on Wednesdays because the kids need to be able to attend religious education. Strange, if you ask me.

[Wab]

We have the whole gamut of private religious schools in Aus: Catholic, C of E, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist and assorted Protestant.

[PhoenixUK]

Our R.E. eductation was mainly Christianity, with a few token bit's of 'other' religions... though our R.E. teacher seemed to view these with deep suspicion, as though any religion without a 'Bible' must not be a religion at all.

In short, it was shockingly biased and I don't know how they got away with it. Luckily, thanks to a well stocked library, I was able to discover about other religions anyway, and so, much to my benefit, I became better informed.

[Mandella Moonbeam]

I don't think we have any special schools for certain religions here and I think all our schools offer a pretty broad view on most bigger religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the religions of China and Japan...) and some new-age movements and neo-paganism.

I've had two rel.ed teachers, one in junior high, one in highschool and the first one was atheist and the present one is married to a priest but she's really professional and has never tried to impose her faith on us.

[HarrysPatronus]

I go to an Episcopal school (but it's not limited to Episcopalians). I'm moving off to a public school for high school though. I've never heard of a school for Jews or Hindus. That'd be cool if there were some though. :)

[tizzy weasley]

In my town, we have a public high school, in which I attend, and a Catholic High School. We also have a couple of churches around town, of different religions. I only really know of two Catholic Churches in my town tho. I teach 2nd grade one.
I am sure other religions have elementary schools for the smaller kids at their church here, but as for high school levels, they go to the public high school, or the Catholic High school.

[Jenni The Hurja]

In Finland, Religion is a subject they teach at school. Most Finns study Evangelical Lutheran religion, but if you belong to another church -Orthodox etc.- you'll have to attend classes of your own religion. Then, if you don't belong to any church or if you just don't want to study your religion, you'll have to study this subject called (a very rough translation!): "Philosophy of life knowledge."

The idea of having to study religion isn't just that you'll know your own religion, in fact, we study mostly the religions of others. Islam, Hinduism, Taoism... then off course the variations of Christian faith, the history off religion etc. -everything and anything. I attend the classes of Evangelical Lutheran religion, and I have found studying the religion of others very enlightening.

[HogwartsChaplain]

Welcome to the Chapel, Jenni! Just thought I'd mention that I live in the US, am half-Finn (on my dad's side-- my maiden name was "Panula"), and am Lutheran. It's nice to meet you. :)

[Perdita]

I was raised a Buddhist, but I was not taught what is contained within Buddhist scripture. I lived in a neighborhood where most were Buddhists (most of us are Chinese). Unfortunately, all of these kids were raised in a similar fashion. We were told to practice Buddhist rites and follow tradition. We did.

As we grew older, some of us started to question this. I did. What I found was that even the older generation of grandparents don’t really know what is within Buddhist scriptures. They know the basic story, but that’s it. As I did my research, I came to discover just how things came to be like so.

I found such a huge difference between how Buddhism is taught in Chinese societies, when compared to Catholicism. Then I found out that eslewhere in the world, children are actually taught the Buddhist religion and these people have a very good understanding.

[Jenni The Hurja]

Welcome to the Chapel, Jenni! Just thought I'd mention that I live in the US, am half-Finn (on my dad's side-- my maiden name was "Panula"), and am Lutheran. It's nice to meet you. :)
Kiitos, so nice of you :). Panula, huh? I actually have never heard of that surname before. Unfortunately my surname isn't all that unique (on a Finnish scale, that is). It's one of the most common in here.

Nice to meet you too!

[Calzi]

Hey, I am a Mormon and we are educated many different ways...I will tell you about some of them =)

Sundays - On Sundays church is 3 hours long (yes, it is very long). First hour everyone meets in the chapel, theres singing, prayer and usually 2 speakers, they speak on a topic given to them and if you're listening you can learn stuff. Second hour is Sunday School, most everyone goes to Sunday school, everyone is grouped by age. Third hour is a variety of differnt things...Personally, I go to Young Womens. Young Womens is a class of all the girls ages 12 - 18, sometimes they have lessons planned for us and sometimes they have activites...it all depends.

Seminary - Seminary is for High School aged kids. It starts before normal school, so you have to get up early(except in Utah...where I think it is offered as an actual class in some places). Every year they focus on a different part of the scriptures (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants etc.).

[dumbleedore]

My best friend went to the catholic college here in town and I almost transferred halfway through year 9. As catholic schools go it was not a very religious school. Being the only one in a smallish town, they had to cater for all religions, but catholic was the main faith. They had two religion lessons a week during school time and all school events were arranged around a catholic mass. The class of 2003 graduation mass was actually my first experience of a full catholic non-funeral mass.

[SPARTAN]

hey im mormon too, im in the teachers (alomst priests) quorum. we have seminary in school but i dont live in utah, i live in washington.

[Sherlock Holmes]

:welcome: SPARTAN, to CoS and to the Spirit Division. :)

Since you're Mormon, you may find the Church of Latter-Day Saints (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=4089) thread interesting. It's been dormant for awhile, but feel free to add to it if you have something to contribute.

[Dru Malfoy]

I grew up in Austria, which is mainly a Roman-Catholic country.

We get Religious Instruction in school. We've got two classes a week. Regularly it is RI for Roman-Catholics but schools also have to offer classes for Protestants and Moslems and - depending on if there is the need - also for other religions. But they have to be accepted as religions by the government (as opposed to sects) and sometimes it is not done because there are no teachers for that around.

When I went to school, there was also the possibility of not doing RI at school. You had to hand in an official note from your parents at the beginning of each school year if you didn't want to participate. The funny thing about this was, however, that schools were forbidden to inform you of possibility to drop out. So unless you asked of your own accord if you could be excused from that subject teachers weren't allowed to tell you that you could. Now they've changed this system and if you don't want to do RI you have to take Ethics instead. But you have to apply for that option at the start of the school year. You can't drop out later on during the year.

What we actually did in class was hear/read stories from the bible, we learned songs for services, learned about services and what the parts meant, and also studied other religions. In addition, we would discuss ethical and moral issues, like what we thought about abortion or cloning and stuff like that. (I don't really know if there is something special you have to learn if you want to do your A-levels in that subject because I dropped out of RI 2 years before my graduation.)

At the time when you go in for your First Communion or Confirmation you also get additional classes which are organized by the vicarage and during that time you have to go to church. You get a card or something where you get marks (or stamps or pictures or whatever) each time you go to church. Without them you can't complete your course and you are not accepted to the First Communion or Confirmation.

There are also youth groups like the "Jungschar", who meet once a week for religious education or just for a social gathering. Some of them really have a big focus on the religious aspect and really do religious education in the narrow sense (praying and discussion the bible) and some just meet to have fun, playing games where you train your social abilities and your moral thinking.

[Kirsten]

I went to school in England, and I left in 1987! so I don't know how relevant my experience is. My primary school (age 5-7) was a Church of England (that's Anglican) school. We had an assembly every day, where the whole school met, with a hymn and prayers. Once a week the local vicar came in to tell us Bible stories and pray with us. We used the local church for our Christmas nativity play and carol concerts. Children from non-Christian religions could be excused from the Christian parts of assembly. The junior school I went to was not a church school, but still had a religious assembly with hymns and prayers every day.

At secondary school - 12-16, we had assembly once a week with hymns and prayers. The school was legally obliged to have it every day, but that would have disrupted the curriculum too much. We had Religious Education lessons once a week until the end of third year, when we could drop it or continue it in years 4 & 5 for O level exams at the end of fifth year.

My RE teacher was a born again Christian and would not teach us anything other than Christianity. She concentrated on the Synoptic Gospels. I went to school in Yorkshire, which has a large Asian population, and possibly a third of our school were Hindu, Sikh or Muslim kids. This teacher actually told the class that if the Muslims didn't repent and turn to Christ they'd go to hell! I doubt she's be allowed to say that now, but she got away with it then. I think there's a problem when overtly religious people teach RE. I see the purpose of RE as being to teach kids about all the religions of the world. The responsiblity for bringing kids up to follow a particular religion should be with the parents, not the school.

In Britain many Catholic kids go to separate Catholic schools, who employ practising Catholic teachers and teach a faith based syllabus. Muslim kids often go to the Mosque at weekends for Arabic and to study the Koran. I'm very interested in learning Urdu, but I think I'd have to go to the Mosque to do it, and I don't know if they'd let me, given that I'm not Muslim!

We had one Mormon family in our school. I think there was a kid from that family in every school year; there were loads of them. They took part in all the RE lessons and religious bits with no exceptions.

[MSLupin]

Being an Orthodox Jew, I attend a Jewish school. We have hebrew subjects in the morning, and secular subjects in the afternoon. We also pray at the appropriate times, and wear uniforms.
Very novel, I know :).

[Erundur]

My RE teacher was a born again Christian and would not teach us anything other than Christianity. She concentrated on the Synoptic Gospels. I went to school in Yorkshire, which has a large Asian population, and possibly a third of our school were Hindu, Sikh or Muslim kids. This teacher actually told the class that if the Muslim's didn't repent and turn to Christ they'd go to hell! I doubt she's be allowed to say that now, but she got away with it then. I think there's a problem when overtly religious people teach RE. I see the purpose of RE as being to teach kids about all the religions of the world. The responsiblity for bringing kids up to follow a particular religion should be with the parents, not the school.

In Britain many Catholic kids go to separate Catholic schools, who employ practising Catholic teachers and teach a faith based syllabus. Muslim kids often go to the Mosque at weekends for Arabic and to study the Koran. I'm very interested in learning Urdu, but I think I'd have to go to the Mosque to do it, and I don't know if they'd let me, given that I'm not Muslim!

We had one Mormon family in our school. I think there was a kid from that family in every school year; there were loads of them. They took part in all the RE lessons and religious bits with no exceptions.

This teacher actually told the class that if the Muslim's didn't repent and turn to Christ they'd go to hell!

Oh my god she actually said that?, that's just wrong, not even my Local Imam would say such a thing (I'm a muslim). Everytime I would go to Islamic School (Saturday and Sundays), we would just normally learn about our faith, how to pray properly and practice on learning on how to read the Qur'an.


I'm very interested in learning Urdu, but I think I'd have to go to the Mosque to do it, and I don't know if they'd let me, given that I'm not Muslim!
By all means you can go to a Mosque even though you are not a Muslim (just make sure you wear something appropriate) It doesn't matter of what faith you are if you have any questions, anyone inside of the Mosque will most certainly help you with whatever questions you have. But you do mean the language right? Urdu. Mostly Pakistanis and Indians speak it, some people from Bangladesh also speak it.


What I am wondering about is, do other religions have their own schools? do other countries do things differently? I am from the midwest of the United states. Do people on the coasts do things differently? Mostly I am wondering if you recieve your regular and religous education in the same place, or if you have to go to your place of worship, like I did, to learn things. thank you.

do other religions have their own schools?
Yes, yes they do, I know Christians, Jews and Muslims have there own religious schools, I currently go to a public school while my cousin goes to a full time Islamic School in Maryland. One of my Indian friends goes to a Hindu school during the weekdays afterschool so yes, yes they do. (that I know of)


do other countries do things differently?
Most likely, I've never really left the states.

Mostly I am wondering if you recieve your regular and religous education in the same place, or if you have to go to your place of worship, like I did, to learn things. thank you.

I do both, I got to a place of worship to study my faith, while I get a few extra practices at home, it's all good :tu:

[GryffindorGr]

Nice thread to read. :)
I think as far as having a religion-educated background, it really helps to learn a lot on morality but it doesn't always produce positive effects to everyone. But for the most part, it's generally very positive and not only does it give enlightenmight but if one feels down and depressed, there's that spiritual side they can adhere to because it's familiar.
I believe that even stories that come out of the bible for instance can spark imagination like fairy tales do. Fairy tales often have a message and though it's not religious based, there's always a moral. In Buddhist stories, I find a lot of morals and sacrifices that are made to keep all living creatures alive. That is important. It's more complicated in the bible because of it's different interpretations but they all generally speak the same volume; to give a lesson.

[mrsmichael6300]

I'm an American, but I grew up in Germany (my parents are active duty military, as is my husband now). Miltary dependents attend Department of Defense schools (which are considered public because they are funded by tax dollars, but are only open to the dependents of military/government services personnel assigned to the area). Our schools are entirely devoid of religion (at least taught as a doctrine), and I like it that way. No prayers, no religious clubs, and only overviews of every major world religion in the history classes (we had to learn the major beliefs of each equally, and in the literature classes religion popped up only as it related to the writings of a particular author).

I am also a secondary school teacher, and every school I have ever taught in besides one was devoid of religion. In the exception, there was an assembly that we teachers were told was "motivational." Well, it turned out that the motivation was to become Christian! I nearly lost my job over it, but I walked out of the assembly and refused to return. It was a public school, the students and parents were not informed that this was a religious gathering (and therefore not given the choice to not attend), and it was against American law!

My husband is championing for a return to the Catholic faith in this household right now (and he's losing :p ). I did attend church as a teenager, but it was protestant. I also graduated from a private methodist university (but we had religions of all kinds, and students from nearly every country in the world -- so the religious affiliation was just a formality). I was married by a methodist pastor.

It is interesting to read all of the different methods of religious education!

[daniel4hp]

I am also a secondary school teacher, and every school I have ever taught in besides one was devoid of religion. In the exception, there was an assembly that we teachers were told was "motivational." Well, it turned out that the motivation was to become Christian! I nearly lost my job over it, but I walked out of the assembly and refused to return. It was a public school, the students and parents were not informed that this was a religious gathering (and therefore not given the choice to not attend), and it was against American law!
That's terrible. Religious schools often have assemblies of this sort, but to have one in a puglic school is, as you say, unnacceptable. Students in a public school should not be encouraged to join any religion or told what it's "right" to believe. If private schools wish to do that, that's fine -- I don't have a problem with it -- but I do have a problem with it in a public school.

[Padfoot23]

I'm new the this board...so I would first like to say hello !

I went to Catholic school for 8 years, and while I think that the background
I received in the religion was very useful it was also complimented by my
father who was always encouraging me to explore other religions. So, I got a
foundation in one religion, but educated myself on other religions as well,
like Buddhism, Islam, Paganism and many more. The problem I saw with some of
the other students in my school was that they either took the religion very
seriously and became prejudiced towards other beliefs, or they rejected
religion all together and became atheists or joined another religion with
anger in their hearts towards Christianity.

So...I think that it is ok for folks to learn about all religions (and I do
mean *all* religions and spiritual traditions) in school (public or private)
as long as the goal is to educate and bring people together. The problem is
when a school pushes one religion over another....that I think is the root
of so many people's issues with religion. It just produces anger and
hostility all around.

[SilentEcho]

There are some Christain schools where I am, but there are only two Catholic schools that I know of, and they're not even in the same county as me.

I just went to CCD classes (no clue what that stands for) for one hour every Sunday morning at my church during the regular school year. 8th grade was my last year.

[HogwartsChaplain]

I just went to CCD classes (no clue what that stands for) for one hour every Sunday morning at my church during the regular school year. 8th grade was my last year.
According to the web, CCD stands for "Confraternity of Christian Doctrine." It's the Catholic equivalent of Sunday School, for kids who don't attend Catholic parochial school.

[Padfoot23]

According to the web, CCD stands for "Confraternity of Christian Doctrine." It's the Catholic equivalent of Sunday School, for kids who don't attend Catholic parochial school.

The kids at my school that went to CCD used to call it Catholic City Dump...because it was really boring and most of them hated it. Alot of it is just prepping you for sacraments like communion and confirmation...most people stop going to CCD after confirmation even though they offer classes up until 12th grade.

[Mercedes]

I live in Central Florida, & there are private schools that can be faith-based. In my sixth year, I went to a Baptist (Christian: Protestant), & they had this mass-type thing every Friday. Since it was a private school, they wore uniforms. There was a Bible class, & they integrated some Christian beliefs & things in classes here & there. Other similar schools, I'm sure, run in a quite similar fashion. I haven't been to any others, nor have I ever visited, however.

As for the public high school I now attend, we only take a semester (aka a term/half a school year) of World Religions in the ninth year. That's pretty much the most religion we ever get. We learn the five major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam), & if we have time, we learn about 'minor' ones. Public elementary & middle schools hardly teach religion here, though.

[Bouncing_Ferret]

Even though I'm not of any particular religion - Church of England if I had to choose one - I've been to lots of different religious schools. The state schools that I've gone to have often had religious education as an option, which most students attend with permission from their parents. I didn't have the required permission from my parents for the first school that I went to, so instead of going to RE, I sat in the library for an hour a week, which was, in my opinion, far more interesting.

Then I went to an exclusive Anglican girls school, where chapel services were held every week, as well as religion classes. However, the religion at this school was taught very much on a traditional and historical basis, rather than spiritual (and they just wanted to show off the school chapel!), which I really enjoyed. We learnt a little bit about other religions, but not very much.

After this, I went to another state school, where basically no religion was taught at all - the religious programme had been abandoned a few weeks after the new school year because the school didn't actually have a teacher of religion, and the video about Noah's Ark could only be shown to students so many times. :)

Then I went to an RC school - eek! At this stage, my knowledge of religion was phenomenonally bad, and I was so surprised that all the other students seemed to know so much. We had as many RE classes as Maths or English per week, and I was basically a little snot for the year and argued with my teachers constantly about religion. One fail grade later...

I went to another comprehensive - not very much religion there, either, so that's about where my religious education stops! Basically all my religious knowledge stems from Ballykissangel, so... yeah, I'm pretty ignorant! :D

I'd just like to know, has anyone out there ever been to a Quaker school? I've seen a few around the place - I know there's one in York in a really pretty building - and my mum thinks they look like excellent schools to teach at, so I'd just like to know what sort of religious education goes on there and so forth?

[rvnclwprft]

I go to a really small Christian Private school here in Texas. It's all denominations, meaning that you can be any form of Christian. It's mainly Baptist, but all kinds turn up. I'm Presbyterian, but a lot of my friends are Baptist and Lutheran. I like the school, it has chapel every Wednesday, and things like that. We also have Bible class every other day.

[Freak of nature]

I am a Lutheran. And in our school we learn about our religion and others. But not about wiccas or anything like that.

[Chrysalis]

I go to a Roman Catholic school. It's not overtly religious, one wouldn't notice it was christian at all. It's actually named after some cardinal. But my school does place a great emphasis on religious education. All religions are taught and we are motivated to think more deeply about life and matters such as God and Evil.

[Athina]

i'm half finnish half greek but i think technically i'm lutheran, but it doesn't really matter most versions of christianity are the same to me. i did go to a catholic high school and there are a few around here. They're basically the same as public school's but smaller and we have religion class (just watch movies usually, its a fun class).

[no1wiccan]

i am jewish so i have to go to hebrew school moday and wednesday NIGHTS (like i have enough homework to do already), and it starts this wednesday! ugh! any jew in miami knows the JCC. well, there is a jewish school next to there called greenfield. also there is yeshiva, in other places (my cousin went there, im not sure if they have yeshiva in florida) man, i hope hurricane francis does not hit! the nearest shelter is my school (Southwood Middle) reminds me of like 2 weeks after i was born, when hurricane andrew came. :upset:

[busy91]

I too was poor and went to a public school. My kids go to Catholic school. They are Catholic but I wouldn't send them to a public school in NYC ever, not now a days. If they did go to public school I would NOT send them to instruction btw.

Here we have schools of different Christian faiths. Lutheran, Baptist. I haven't seen a Muslim school, although I would think the Hassidic community has specialized grammar schools for their children.

[Adalbert Waffling]

Let me clarify one thing. Around my area, private schools are for people living outside of the school district. The public schools in my town are very good, but the private schools are terrible.