Religion or Worldview Knowledge in schools?

[history_geek]

If I put this in the wrong thread, sorry, and hopefully mods will move it to a more appropriate place 

I had a short but interesting discussion in a chat room (voxli.com/pointmanzero), about religion in Finland. Nowdays I call our State Church as the "social club", as we are not required to go to church on any basis, other then it's the traditional thing to do. Especially Xmas church and Confirmation are occasions when churches are in active use, as well as batptizing of a new born child, weddings and funerals. And that's pretty much it.

We talked about this and then I mentioned that we are taught religion in school, as a subject. For the most part it's about the church history in general and the apostoles and later on the focus is shifted to the branches of christianity that are influancing Finland today. This starts at around 3rd grade of elementary school or so. We don't really hear about other religions (apart from the brief footnotes about the greek and roman ones in history books) until 8th grade. That was the system I went through.

I was then asked if we were taught that these things were true or just stories or what. I can't remember them being told as absolutely true facts, but not as stories either (though personally they meant the same to me as the tales of brothers Grimm). Here in Finland we have a strong sense that if you believe in the teatchings of Christianity or in some other religion, that is your personal thing, nothing more, nothing less. Still we are taught the same Lutherian doctrine in schools (though not enforced), but there is an alternative. It's called Worldview knowledge (Elämänkatsomustieto), and from what I've read it is far more broad in teatching about things like morals, cultural identity, philosphy and if I undertood correctly does give an overview of the major religions.

I remember reading an article about this, infact it was the first time I heard about an alternative to our current State Church dogma. The problem is, the artcile was about people not liking the idea of kids choosing a this new less-then-religious system. Basicly one would replace religion as a subject to this Worldview Knowledge. I suppose some more religious folk see this as a breach of their freedom to believe whatever they want, by not teatching their religions history in school.

But I was wondering, if your school had a choise between teacthing your kids the basic history and stories of the major religion in your country and this more secular look into worldviews, which one would you be more intrested in? Of course, in US religion is not taught in public schools, but what if it was? Would it be more beneficial for the kids to be taught more about the religion most of the populations bows to, or leave it as it is and teach them just driplets of religions with more emphasis on things like morality and such?

[Asmodean]

I've been through religion twice during my school life. The second of which was in high school, and that was well-balanced enough to suit even me. Mostly a factual course about history, spread and doctrines of major religions plus whatever you picked for your project.

However, I would be much more satisfied with a course combining for example philosophy, social interactions and perhaps even public speaking. I think a lot of kids (and adults, for that matter) would benefit much more from something like that than from learning about religions.

[Tank]

I think a lessons in Worldview and ethics/morality would be an excellent idea.

In the UK there are Religious Education (RE) classes. Now I went through these in secondary school (12 to 15, 1972 to 75) so my understanding of current practice is zero. I had a Bible Bashing arsehole evolution denier as an RE teacher and I'm sure he is one of the people who confirmed my atheistic worldview.

[Ildiko]

Hi HistoryGeek. The Finnish state church sounds very similar to what I remember of the Church of England. Christenings, weddings and funerals followed by tea and cake with the vicar.

Here in Finland we have a strong sense that if you believe in the teatchings of Christianity or in some other religion, that is your personal thing, nothing more, nothing less.

Sounds like my kind of place.

Like Tank, I went through the UK secondary school system, though about 10 years earlier. I have absolutely no memory of what we were taught between the ages of 11 and 16: RE classes were time for daydreaming. The state exam in RE was optional and the vast majority of us opted out.

I do remember very clearly RE in the sixth form (aged 16 to 18) where the course was supposed to be Comparative Religion. The teacher was an Ulster Protestant of the most extreme sort, like Dr Ian Paisley on speed, and his classes consisted of a lot of shouting about why Papists, Buddhists, Moslems, Jews, etc. were WRONG and going to HELL. This was all the funnier because it was a Quaker school.

I like the idea of Worldview lessons, though you'd have to keep an eye on the teachers to avoid them pushing their own agenda.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I moved to Newfoundland in 1998, just after the church stopped running the public schools. That's when they started an "ethical issues" class, though it was pretty much a "religions of the world", kind of thing. I don't remember ever being told that Christianity was the "right" religion, though it was pretty obvious that most of the people in the class came from a christian background.

Our teacher's sister was also a nun, and I remember one of our field trips for this class was to go and see some of the disabled people that she worked with - not so bad, as it was more about helping people than the religion itself. 

[Stevil]

We never had any religious classes at school.
Although I do remember very vaguely having a woman come into a primary class once, maybe twice with a fluff board and some Jesus based shady characters that she stuck on the board.

[Ildiko]

We never had any religious classes at school.
Although I do remember very vaguely having a woman come into a primary class once, maybe twice with a fluff board and some Jesus based shady characters that she stuck on the board.

What the devil is a fluff board? Is this an NZ word (like jandles) or is it just something that appeared in schools post-1960s? 

[Stevil]

We never had any religious classes at school.
Although I do remember very vaguely having a woman come into a primary class once, maybe twice with a fluff board and some Jesus based shady characters that she stuck on the board.

What the devil is a fluff board? Is this an NZ word (like jandles) or is it just something that appeared in schools post-1960s? 

I don't know the proper word for it.
It is a board made of material, not sticky at all but if you put other bits of material shaped like jesus or his mum or sheep on it they stay put. Black magic I feel, some kind of ancient evil.

[Tank]

^^^ Felt board.

[Ildiko]

^^^ Thanks Tank

It is a board made of material, not sticky at all but if you put other bits of material shaped like jesus or his mum or sheep on it they stay put. Black magic I feel, some kind of ancient evil.

But if you put bits shaped like Science on it, they fall off!

When I was about 5 at a school for army brats in Germany, we used to get weekly visits from a sinister bloke in black who told us unlikely stories. My parents were mystified at my tales of Marjorie Clark and the stories "he" told us, which got even more unlikely in the re-telling. It was about 6 months before they realised it was Padre Clark.

[Stevil]

^^^ Thanks Tank

It is a board made of material, not sticky at all but if you put other bits of material shaped like jesus or his mum or sheep on it they stay put. Black magic I feel, some kind of ancient evil.

But if you put bits shaped like Science on it, they fall off!

I don't know what would have happened, noone was brave enough to try.
Quite possibly the world would have collapsed upon itself.

[Crow]

I like the idea though I am more inclined to what Asmodean proposed, but only if they have teachers that know their subject. My experience of RE in secondary school was a joke, it wasn't called RE it was called PSRE (practical, social and religious education) with teachers that had never left the education system and had no knowledge of any of the subjects. All we did was watch a film like The Shureshank Redemption whilst the teacher would catch up with work for other classes.

[xSilverPhinx]

Even though I went to a Catholic High School, with a class called Religious Studies, they were more like personal development classes. Religions weren't even mentioned, not Christianity or any other. It was still kind of boring though, and not a class anyone really took seriously, since there were no tests.

Would've probably have been better if it were a Comparative Religions class. 

[Stev13jay]

Well to me it seems fine to teach history of religion not force feed kids religious views. I want to note that I'm referring to public schools in the united states. With that said private schools are a different story they can teach whatever they wantbpeople pay for that butbit public schools they should only tell kids that religions exist and that's it. When I was in school (public school) they taught me about jesus christ as if he was really alive without any scientific proof. Also I don't think in science class they should teach creationism there is no scientific proof, we know the earth is over a couple of thousand years old so how can you teach it? Anyways I've ranted on enough thank you all for your time.