Religion in schools...Please, I'd like feedback on these questions.?

Question

At most, they say we are allowed to learn about religion as long as we learn about all religions.

I have just finished the 6th grade and am going into the 9th. But, the only religions we have learned about have been Christianity, Judism, and Islam.

Doesn't 'all religions' also include the pagan and jewish and so on religions as well? Or will I learn about those later on in my school life?

I have learned about religion in my History class. Also, do you think it should NOT be required to learn about different religions, or should we just have an elective course on it?

What is it like at your school (if you still go to school) or what was it like (if you have already finished school)?

I would like to know what you think. Religion has seemed to interest me lately.

Answer 1

I think it's ok to teach religion but not preach it in school. Many religions triggered wars in the past and it is important to learn which beliefs clashed to cause such battles. It doesn't mean teachers should impress their beliefs on students.

Answer 2

How can you be a freshman if you just finished 6th grade? Typo?

Well remember that you probably learned about Greek mythology, so that for the most part covers paganism (not to say that paganism is limited to Greek stuff). It would be literally impossible to learn about ALL the religions (there are thousands), but I think it's acceptable to learn about the big 5 (Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and the Hindu religions) plus paganism. That's pretty much what I can remember from elementary. I remember world history in middle school having some religion too... but AP Euro not so much- we learned in depth about the history of Lutheranism and Calvinism, Methodism, etc.

Answer 3

They touch on pagan religions when discussing Greek and Roman mythology, but your right it is not really covered.

Also the Jewish religion is Judaism, so you have already seen a bit.

Also for your history class, yes when I was in school they did talk about religion in History class, but from a historical perspective. This is important because religion dose have a big impact on history, and to study an area without knowing the religious practices of the people involved is a severe handicap.

That being said religion should not be discussed in a theological perspective in public schools. Their are other places (such as here) to do that.

Answer 4

No school can teach about "all religions." There's just not enough time in your life. Schools generally teach about the largest religions and the religions that students are most likely to encounter. In history courses they also tend to teach the religions that are appropriate to the historical topics of the class. Western schools tend toward Western history, so the religions taught also tend to be Western. In fact, in learning about Christianity, you probably learned about two branched: Catholic and Protestant. Did they even mention there's a third magjor branch, the Orthodox, which is way older than Protestantism? The difference is its generally practiced in Eastern Europe, not Western Europe, which our school systems tend to ignore.

Answer 5

OK. Gifted?

The teaching about religion in schools is not the question, I hope. The teaching of religion is the question.

If you are teaching about religion in schools you really can't deal with them all at once. How many Christian denominations are there now? Each one demands its own historical perspective. The same with all the others.

When we are teaching about religions we must discuss their histories and how each reacts with other religions. Its quite an undertaking.

When we are teaching 'religion' we are talking about teaching the perspective of each church. Each area in the country with a majority in one religion or another will demand that its religion is the one being taught. Not just the deep south's perspective of teaching their religious attitudes.

I am way beyond school. When I was in elementary school we said the Lord's prayer every commencement. I didn't know why.

Later, that was stopped. It was better.

Answer 6

First - if you're smart enough to skip seventh and eight grade, then you'd know that Judaism and Jewish-ness are the same thing.

Second- when I was in sixth-seventh grade, we never even studied Christianity and Judaism. We studied the religions of ancient civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc.) and things like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. I'm from California and a high school jr. now.

Next year, I expect to read the Bible for AP Comp. class, but we will idscuss it as literature, not religion.

Answer 7

I went to a Catholic school until the 8'th grade. At public school we didn't learn anything about religion.

Maybe in the grades proceeding that the students were taught.

When I was graduated I was interested like many young people in learning about different beliefs.

By the time I was 24yrs. I decided to stay with Christianity. God pulled me back. I have never regretted that decision.

Answer 8

I teach middle school Social Studies and when we talk about religion we talk about how it affected major parts of history. We in general mention any type that the students bring up. For example 80% of my class is LDS (Mormon), we also talk about Pagan, Islam, Judaism and they even asked what hinduism and buhdism was the other day. We could never cover all of them so we talk about what they want to learn about. Again the focus is not on which is right or wrong we just cover what it is and how it has affected history.

Answer 9

In many school it's mandatory that we get taught almost everything (founders, gods, when?, where?, why?, what's it like today?) about these religions:
Hinduism
Islam (Sunni + Shi'a)
Christianity (and it's sects)
Buddhism (not technically a religion)
Jainism
Paganism (but we only spend like 5 minutes on this one)
Judaism
and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few....in any case, you'll probably learn much more as you get into high school, and especially if you take any advanced world courses (AP World History, AP European History etc.)

Answer 10

In Australia, we have General Religious Education (which is similar to what you're learning), as part of the social studies syllabus. We also have Special Religious Education (aka Scripture), which is specific instruction in the religion of the student's parents' choosing.

I have nothing against GRE. I feel SRE takes time away from more important areas of study.