Oops. I forgot to respond to this bit, sorry: Very generally speaking, if a child goes into the world without learning something about religion(s) â ideally the good with all the bad (if anything good can be said of religion itself, as opposed to mere faith) â then that child will be entering the world at a baffled disadvantage and will have been systematically failed by their educators. I suppose it might just become a question of how this is taught. Stay vigilant at home, Mick, youâre letting black magic in the door.
I don't know how you define it but I include prayers and sermonising in assembly which we had in my school but only for the first 3 years. Head of Lower School was a *****phile reverend.
How I personally would define it or in general terms? Every school is going to have an ethos. Maybe a faith can provide a focus or a vehicle to present that ethos. I don't know if saying a prayer is necessarily instruction. Nor do I know what sermon was being delivered to you, so I can't really comment. I am trting to be general but of course we are all going to be shaped by our good or bad experiences of our own education.
I think I mentioned already that my oldest has come home from school spouting Creationist ideas from his bible bashing American teacher - and I've sent him to a non denominational school. I'm not actually sure if a Catholic school would be any worse than this - being educated in the 90's I only had three 30 minute periods of Religion a week in a Catholic Grammar, only ever had one Priest as a teacher (of Latin) and they never ever taught me that Creationism was a theory which should be given as much credence as Evolution. I really don't think the vicious image of Catholic education you hold rings all that true anymore. Anyway I feel dirty fighting the side of Catholic church in any capacity. Let's just agree that I'm a character of loose morals who would discard principles to gain an advantage when it suits
A person of loose morals who would discard principles to gain advantages is probably worse than a ****.
I was brought up in a catholic family, though I still am smart enough to know all religion is bollocks. The only thing good about sending your child to a catholic school, is that your child will avoid all the Muslims, Sikhs, Buhdists and Jews
Cheers, RB! (Unless your words are dripping with an acid sarcasm? That's going to eat away at me.) Yes, I remember you saying something like that. Itâs a cruncher for limp-wristed liberals like me: how, after all, can I possibly dare to interfere with the way that other people may think? Itâs almost too mental to contemplate. And in what reasonable way might it be called âliberalâ to debar a child from hearing certain ideas or to assert the primacy of science over shabbily incoherent *****-talk (to use the impartial technical term for creationism)? Reason wonât work, because youâll simply come up against âI believeâ â two of the most potentially dangerous words youâre ever likely to hear when asserted proudly as a substitution for critical thinking or evidence; the lighted pathway to the disease of certainty, fanaticism, bigotry and justified â sanctified - killing. I was going to start attempting (and probably failing) to outline the âlogicalâ procession that may soothe the conscience of liberal hand-wringers as we set about the business of keeping the religious away from our children â and their children, too â but it would simply take too long. Maybe another time. One thing, though, is to note that allowing for a place in society for faith based schools is to disallow for arguments against madrassas, say, or creationism schools, scientology schools or any old school based on any old thing â take your pick, make something up - where the divisions, however subtle, non-obtrusive or inconsequential the adherents may feel or claim these things to be, are drawn along the lines of âI believeâ. Itâs an excruciatingly difficult line to tread, in any event, and it maybe asks too much of non-believers to expect them to somehow magic away the inglorious historical efforts of the religious to get at children nice and early and condition them to feel part of the sect. Fair enough. I already mentioned that in my school we were given an intensive course (3-6 months long, I think) on the worldâs religions when we were young (9 or 10 or so) and then were left to our own devices until we turned sixteen or thereabouts, when it became optional to learn some more. Roughly 80% of us took up this option, although, oddly, this didnât lead to an exam. I had to go to a different college after school to take an exam in a subject called âDivinityâ. Well, no, I didnât have to, I chose to. (My mum was minorly freaking out, she told me later, fearing for the worst.) My âviciousâ image of Catholic education? Vicious? In your struggles to find a word to encapsulate my feelings on Catholic education, Mick, you appear to have erred on the side of wrongness. Take that back or Iâll run you off the internet. please log in to view this image
I'm not going to tell you if my words were dripping with acid sarcasm or not<stickstongueout> I am genuinely not sure the extent that shabbily incoherent ***** talk is expressed as a belief set within schools. As Michael said, it isn't a teaching he received. Nor is it something I received. That isn't to say that faith schools of some hue are not teaching it. I create an image in my mind of that idea getting promoted in Hicksville, Arkansas rather than the UK and Ireland. That image could be completely wrong. I have literally no idea to what extent creationism is taught in faith schools from a non Christian background. In my opinion I do not feel that faith schools present as much of an obstacle as you appear to think. The "i believe" argument comes into it when it comes to matters of faith, I accept that, but not necessarily faith schooling. I genuinely struggle to think of an occasion where (blind) faith compromises critical thinking in education. Accepting it is true of all topics, i think it is more true of this one that our personal experiences shape our outlook. I get the feeling that people think Catholic schools foresake maths for double God or Chemistry for Mary. There is a curriculum and I think it is a pretty good one. RE is part of that curriculum whether in a faith school or not. ..... And no. I wasn't being acidly sarcastic. I don't agree always but your approach is always measured.
Exactly right. I'd love to know the schools that some of the more negative comments here are aimed at becauise they're not experiences that i recognise from my school days. Apart from the selection policy etc. which i don't intend to get into here RC schools are by and large no different to any other schools.
The ethos promoted within the school(s). It appears to be conducive to a better learning environment.
