Teaching Religion in Public Schools
Canadian courts say school kids must learn about other religions.
Sep 9th, 2009 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Culture, Features, Politics, TheologyNext month I will be participating on a panel with a Jewish rabbi, a secular humanist, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. The event is part of the Interfaith Youth Core’s “Leadership for a Religiously Diverse World” conference. For most of my life I have been very comfortable in interfaith settings. In college I even majored in comparative religion and greatly appreciated my interactions with people holding other worldviews and theologies. In general I am very supportive of Christians learning about other faiths with the goal of fostering respect and understanding.But last week a judge in Quebec has pushed the value of interfaith education to a new degree, and I’m curious to hear what you think.
Here’s the scoop. Last year schools in Quebec introduced a new curriculum covering “a broad range of world religions, with particular emphasis on Quebec’s religious heritage — Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism and aboriginal spirituality. It is taught from Grade 1 through Grade 11.”
Many Christian parents, both Catholic and Protestant, strongly disagreed with the rule requiring all students to participate in the classes. In their view religion is something best taught at home, and younger children are still having their religious identity formed. Parents argued in the courts that introducing a 7 year old to many diverse religious teachings would only confuse and possibly derail the spiritual beliefs the child’s parents are seeking to instill.
The courts disagreed:
The Quebec government, which intervened in the case in support of the Des Chênes school board, argued that the course was objective and in no way limited parents’ ability to pass their religious beliefs on to their children. Teaching children about other religions is a way to promote “equality, respect and tolerance in the Quebec school system,” it said.
Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, a law professor at Université de Sherbrooke, said he is not surprised that the new course survived a challenge under the Charter of Rights.
“What parents were demanding was the right to ignorance, the right to protect their children from being exposed to the existence of other religions,” he said. “This right to ignorance is certainly not protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freedom of religion does not protect the right not to know what is going on in our universe.”
He said the course is aimed not at instilling religious values but at trying “to explain to these children the diversity in which we now live in Quebec.”
So, school children in Quebec will be learning about Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Native American religions starting in first grade.
Read more about the case here.
Stories like this one make me appreciate the wisdom of James Madison-the evangelical who penned the First Amendment that erected the proverbial “wall of separation” between church and state. Unlike in Canada, I highly doubt public schools in the US will be teaching religious theology anytime soon. Still, this case raises a few interesting questions.
First, how would you respond if your public school offered a class on world religions? For our purposes let’s image the class is an elective rather than mandatory. Would you want your child to enroll? Would you want them to learn about faiths and practices other than the one espoused in your home?
Secondly, the case in Quebec raises questions about some efforts among conservative Christians in the US to reintroduce prayer in public schools. Like Canada the US is a pluralistic society. Laws protecting prayer in public schools would not only permit Christian prayer, but Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and prayers from numerous other traditions as well. If these conservatives win, they may regret the victory.
In the end I agree with a Catholic theologian who testified in the Canadian school case. He argued that religious instruction is primarily the responsibility of parents, not schools. I want my kids to learn about other faiths and I envision this happening through travel, conversations with me, and most meaningfully through relationships with friends and family members who hold diverse beliefs. But I’m not sure I’d entrust this level of spiritual formation to the public schools.
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I received the impression while reading this piece that the schools are more interested in teaching religious history than religion, per se. Consider the history of the United States: can one truly have a solid understanding of the forces which shaped our own society without learning the basics of the religious atmosphere of 19th century England, or of the Puritans, or of the deism which was followed by the founding intellectuals?
In order to understand a society, you need to understand the stories it tells itself, including its religious stories. We do not object to our children learning Greek mythology, because we realize that without this foundation, they will not understand the Iliad and Odyssey, let alone much of the significant institutions of the Hellenic world.
I’m not sure what parents who object to such lessons hope to avoid– the risk that their children will abandon their own religious heritage in favor of another? If so, then it suggests that the faith in which the children are being raised cannot survive under realities of the multicultural society in which we live. Sooner or later, those kids are going to go out in the world and bump up against people who believe different things than they do. How do we want them to respond in these cases– In ignorance, or with informed understanding?
I want my children to be exposed to the fact that there are many different religions and beliefs in this world. I want them to understand that not everyone in this world holds the same beliefs. I want my children to learn the tennants of others faiths’. However, I want to be the one to guide them in that discovery. I do not want to have someone else play that roll.
I also want to introduce my children to a diverse world but I want to be there to guide them through it. I also think there is such as thing as too much, too early. Young children would have a harder time making sense of it all I think. I would rather introduce them to other religions in either Junior High or High School.
I also agree the study of religion is relevant ,but NOT an in depth indoctrinational style of teaching one religion above another. Even though I was raised Catholic, I am now an agnostic. I don’t shelter my children from understanding a culture or their religion, but am currently fighting the school (AMS, Pittstown Nj) who has already immeresed our children in 3 full chapters dedicated to the in depth study of the Islamic faith. The book is the contreversial “History Alive, the Medieval Times and Beyond” which has been banned in the past in Arizona, and ridiculed by many more. My son is 11 and unknowingly , along with the rest of the class, constructed their own Qu’ran, which the teacher called a “biography of Muhammad” They also have worked extensively in groups studying the five Pillars of Faith for in class projects, spending nearly 3 weeks studying the Islamic religion alone.
I would want my kids to learn about other religions because they will learn to accept other cultures. As far as being confused about what to believe, I don’t believe that is the case. In fact, the point to be taken is that all beliefs are correct except that for the sake of a colorful world, each culture has its color, language, and religion, but they are all equal in the bigger picture. We are all humans, we all speak, and we all believe in the same God. Now putting that aside, of course in reality there are differences such as a race believing in many Gods or Aethiests who don’t believe in God at all but it should be up to the kids to evaluate that and they should stick to their designated religion at birth.That way they won’t be confused about to believe in, instead they will learn to believe in their specific religion and accept other religious views. In other words, its like division of labor among one united company. That is where the schools should let the kids be aware and have the parents keep their children’s faith in good security.
On the contrary, parents are having a difficulty accepting this rule because they them selves are victims of one way beliefs. They can not understand that most religions appeal to the same concept, and it is the fabrications that distort each one in its own unique way. PEOPLE DESERVE TO KNOW THIS.
I am a muslim and I never felt that other religions were wrong except when I see a part within that just does not fit into the logic of the big picture. I have researched other religions and found to be comfortable in mine because their are no new testaments, and like wise, I also don’t appreciate extremists who misinterpret some of the words in the Quran, thus making muslims look bad, which seems to be the case in any religion.
Within the Book, it states that any one faithful to their religion is a muslim in the eyes of God. So it is a not a name to label some one, but to define the meaning of someone who is obedient to their lord.