Should Religion be taught in school?

[Nick]

Hi everybody!

I am reminded of the example of when two American Christian parents were living in Japan and sending their childen to public school in Japan. One day the school had a assembly for a Buddhist national holiday occuring that day. The American parents became very angry, because the assembly was very supportive of Buddhism. All of the Japanese people at the school were completely baffled by the American parents' protests.

I agree that we cannot have activities in public schools in America that are supportive of one particular religion. The study of comparitive religions in school is the way to go, as long as the classes do not end up supporting one particular religion. Unfortunately, such classes can cause students in the class to start proselytizing other students in the class, whether or not the teacher intended for such proselytizing to occur. A Hindu child, Buddhist child, etc., should never be put into a position of having to put up with proselytizing at school, especially as the result of official classroom activity.

[Scott]

I'd like to point what I feel is a problem for education not just in regards to this issues addressed in this thread. That problem is the lack of choice. I think students do not have enough choice over their classes. For instance, in high school I had to take earth science was a required course in my school. The need to understand the basic concepts of science and to practice applying them made sense to me, but the same goal could have been achieved from any type of science--biology, astronomy, etc.--so why would I have to take a class the bores me rather than get to chose which type of science to learn. I had no desire nor need to practice the scientific method on random rocks from the school's backyard. Similarly, children who want to learn about the scientific history of religion could take that class, while kids who wanted to focus on other aspects of history or social science could do that. There is a few general classes and general topics that all students would need to learn, but the vast majority of the particular focus of any class is irrelevant. The idea is to teach kids how to learn, to study, to work, to think critically and to know and use the scientific method. Let the kids and the parents choose the subjects and focuses that most interest or least offend them.
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[Nick_A]

[Belinda]

[Nick]

Belinda, you said,

"...there is no such being as a Hindu child...."

--> I disagree.

"Isn't the proper aim of education to prepare the child for independent freedom of thought?"

--> The aim of education is to protect children from propoganda, much less instigate propoganda against those children.

Nick A., you said,

"Modern public education is sadly lacking any awareness of [earthly, societal, and higher conscious influences] and only concerned with parroting head knowledge...."

--> I am reminded of a true story in an American public school. One child had not bathed in quite some time, and the smell got so bad that the other children started complaining. The teacher finally sent a note home to the parent addressing the issue. Insensed (pun intended), the parent came running angrily to the teacher and basically said, don't smell my child just teach him. People refuse to let our schools teach values to childen in school, while refusing to teach those same values to their own children.

[Scott]

[Nick_A]

Plato wrote that he highest goal of all education is knowledge of the good. Does are increasingly secularized society remember what this means? No

The lowest level of understanding is the classification of shadows on the wall of the cave and furthers our imagination.

Above that is the classification of things of the visible realm and taken together form our beliefs.

Moving further upward we become aware of simple forms such as numbers and shapes.

Above that we become open to the higher forms such as equality in context, beauty, truth, and of course the "good" itself which can be apprehended by ones intuition where objective knowledge resides in Man.

Education then should be structured as to further this structure of understanding which can lead to direct knowledge of the "good." The trouble is that the secular experts in education have denied this opportunity for the young and glorified cave life. It is continued by a societal process described by Simone Weil:

[Palimere]