Religion in US Schools
December 15, 2012 6 Comments
Having religion as part of the school curriculum in the US (United States) would not work in the same way it does in the UK (United Kingdom). I took RE (Religious Education) at both the Scottish Standard Grade and Scottish Higher Level educational qualifications. The US equivalent is WR (World Religions). WR, as an educational course, is typically seen at college / university level. People enrolled at said educational level can usually “choose” to take this course if they so wish. The reason I used the word “usually” in the previous sentence is that some colleges / universities may not offer said course. I digress. Would students attending high school and lower levels of education be able to “choose” to not take said course?
What difference would having religion based course on school curriculums? We might see an increase homophobia. Some schools, specifically in the South and other predominantly right-wing states, may choose to orientate their religious based courses to only teach from one set of religious beliefs. I guess there would not be anything wrong with this if the all the students taking that particular course were of the religion being covered in said course. Problems arise when students from different religious backgrounds are in the same classroom. Which religion is covered? The UK does not have a problem here because as many religions as possible are covered in the aforementioned RE course. This is unlikely to happen here.
Would you impose one set of religious beliefs on all? I am sure there are parents out there that would not want see religion beliefs they personally do not subscribe to as being part of their children’s education. Is it not just as unacceptable to impose Judaic beliefs on Muslim children as it is to impose said same beliefs on Christian children? The same can be said of any set of religious beliefs. Is it not possible to see that, even thou the US population is predominantly Christian, the said population is made up of numerous religious backgrounds? When it comes to religion, there is no one size fits all.
About Shain Ellison Thomas
Reblogged this on turkischland.
I’m actually for making religion in schools an elective. That way students could choose to take the course rather than be forced to take the course. I don’t have proof of this, but in my experience the religion(s) taught in such courses are usually the religions of the dominant race or religious group in that school district.
I assume you are referring to private schools; however, private schools can already offer religion based courses. Public schools, on the other hand, are government funded. Government funded via monies collected through taxation. The US government is unlikely to support religious courses in public schools. I am sure there are people out there that would like to see their tax monies go towards paying for religion courses in schools; however, I am also sure the reverse is true. Then there is those people that would rather not see their tax monies paying for schools at all. It is exceedingly difficult to please everyone all the time.
Reblogged this on 3rdeyebrand's Blog and commented:
interesting.
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
We covered world religions in my high school world history II. although that was a secular private school. I was removed from public school before all this lunacy with people trying to fix the textbooks and require teachers to teach creation and stuff, so I don’t know. our world history I teacher was let go, and rumor had it that it was due to focusing too much on greece/rome/catholic europe (he was catholic). I personally think we could benefit by having some sort of meditation/creativity/health instruction, but i remember a story of a school trying that (meditation) and getting many complaints, though the rationale of the parents was not exactly what you would expect (‘we don’t want our kids to think they can control their minds,’ if i remember correctly.