Religion classes in school - Megathread

nimblelynx7 said:Religious studies and ethics don't necessarily have to be taught simultaneously; for some people, they’re two completely different things.

It doesn't actually state anywhere that they have to overlap, though in practice, they almost always do.
In any case, even if they aren't happening simultaneously, it just means classes end up being scheduled during zero period, first period, or the very last period of the day; there aren't really any gaps created just because one half of the class is taking ethics while the other takes religious studies.
So, either they are held during the same block, or else the rest of the students are either coming in early for zero period or leaving school early.

By the way, I think more than twenty years ago, I attended a high school where ethics wasn't mandatory. It was basically either religious studies or nothing at all, I suppose.🎉

I was part of the very first generation to have ethics as a dedicated subject. I graduated back in '99, and in my high school, religion and ethics were always bundled together in the same period all four years. Our ethics instructor was actually the same professor who taught us logic and pig studies. It was always tucked right into our regular daily schedule—never something extra held before or after classes. Honestly, I haven't a clue what the curriculum looks like for students these days.

I graduated back in 2004, and for as long as I can remember, the schedule was always a mess.

It wasn't just the first or last period. We had Ethics classes lumped together with three other sections because there were only 15 of us total.

nimblelynx7 said:I graduated back in 2004, and for as long as I can remember, the schedule was always a mess.

It wasn't just the first or last period. We had Ethics classes lumped together with three other sections because there were only 15 of us total.

Fair enough.
but we’re looking at 2018 now.
I suppose we have to assume things have shifted quite a bit in the intervening years.

Anything is possible. For all we know, some people might have been dealing with the same thing back then too.

nimblelynx7 said:I graduated back in 2004, and for as long as I can remember, the schedule was always a mess.

It wasn't just the first or last period. We had Ethics classes lumped together with three other sections because there were only 15 of us total.

Well, I was also part of the class of 2004. For all four years, we took Ethics while the rest of the class took Religion. There was one year where we merged with another group, but most of the time we were on our own—much like those kids in Religion who were stuck by themselves even though there were only five of them in the whole class.

urbantinker8 said:It doesn't actually state anywhere that they have to overlap, though in practice, they almost always do.
In any case, even if they aren't happening simultaneously, it just means classes end up being scheduled during zero period, first period, or the very last period of the day; there aren't really any gaps created just because one half of the class is taking ethics while the other takes religious studies.
So, either they are held during the same block, or else the rest of the students are either coming in early for zero period or leaving school early.

By the way, I think more than twenty years ago, I attended a high school where ethics wasn't mandatory. It was basically either religious studies or nothing at all, I suppose.🎉

Same here. My group was basically the last generation stuck with that "religion or bust" choice.

Personally, I chose "nothing"—which mostly just meant grabbing coffee and a smoke at the local diner instead.

Larry Walker24 said:Same here. My group was basically the last generation stuck with that "religion or bust" choice.

Personally, I chose "nothing"—which mostly just meant grabbing coffee and a smoke at the local diner instead.

Same here, I guess.🙂

Students are already hopping onto that high school enrollment website to pick between religion classes or ethics. If the administration doesn't group the classes based on those choices (for instance, if an entire class ends up being religious studies students), then during that period, half the class stays for religion while the other half heads off to ethics.

Michael Nguyen2 said:Students are already hopping onto that high school enrollment website to pick between religion classes or ethics. If the administration doesn't group the classes based on those choices (for instance, if an entire class ends up being religious studies students), then during that period, half the class stays for religion while the other half heads off to ethics.

If you have 15 kids going to religious studies and 13 to ethics in Class A, and then 12 to religious studies and 14 to ethics in Class B, you could technically schedule them so they align perfectly.
But they don't.
The reason is that both the religious studies teacher and the ethics teacher would end up losing an hour of instructional time.
At the very least.

And honestly, please stop pushing for any kind of alternative to religious studies in elementary school—whether it’s religious, ethical, psychological, or whatever else... 🙂
It's just a waste of taxpayer money, resources, our kids' precious time, and even the paper used for textbooks and notebooks...

I belong to the generation where religious studies was introduced as an elective. They couldn't even manage to pull enough students together for a single class during the mid-term break. I honestly suspect these "stellar" results—which are purely from an optional (and largely unmonitored) curriculum—are exactly what led us to this point. It seems young Americans weren't actually as eager to attend those classes as certain people would love to believe 😁
.
I still remember being asked in my freshman year of high school art class who knew that the Bible is divided into the Old and New Testaments—maybe ten of us out of thirty knew the answer. Either we were mostly the kids of old-school government officials, or perhaps faith simply wasn't as widespread among the population as modern media outlets shamelessly claim it is these days. I mean, if you were raised in a religious household, you’d surely know at least the absolute basics...

I started school back in '92. About half my class skipped religion classes, but then there was this parent-teacher meeting where they basically "explained" to everyone that if the kids didn't attend, they wouldn't be able to have a church wedding later on—or some other scare tactic, I can't quite recall since it was so long ago. Most parents eventually gave in, leaving only three or four of us who actually opted out.
After that talk, even the kids from the local minority families signed up for the classes. 😁

Church Wedding 😂
So, I’ve got some guy trying to lecture me on my actual wedding day about how "the husband is the head of the household"... honestly, how did I even survive this long without his expert guidance? 🤣

well 😂
after attending my first church wedding, I don't think I could ever bring myself to make fun of 😁

Back in elementary school, our religious studies teacher—who was actually an ordained priest—cornered us right there in the hallway, trying to pressure us into attending his classes while whispering that our parents didn't need to be informed about it... I eventually mentioned the whole thing at home, which prompted my father to go on a bit of a hunt to track him down through town. Honestly, he just couldn't stand someone trying to manipulate kids like that.

By the way, my father was a bit of a loose cannon, if I'm being perfectly honest... though sometimes, his intensity really paid off. 😁

Amy Cruz8 said:I started school back in '92. About half my class skipped religion classes, but then there was this parent-teacher meeting where they basically "explained" to everyone that if the kids didn't attend, they wouldn't be able to have a church wedding later on—or some other scare tactic, I can't quite recall since it was so long ago. Most parents eventually gave in, leaving only three or four of us who actually opted out.
After that talk, even the kids from the local minority families signed up for the classes. 😁

I started that same year. My whole class took religion classes from first through eighth grade.
We all did First Communion. If I remember right, maybe just one person skipped Confirmation.

urbantinker8 said:It doesn't actually state anywhere that they have to overlap, though in practice, they almost always do.
In any case, even if they aren't happening simultaneously, it just means classes end up being scheduled during zero period, first period, or the very last period of the day; there aren't really any gaps created just because one half of the class is taking ethics while the other takes religious studies.
So, either they are held during the same block, or else the rest of the students are either coming in early for zero period or leaving school early.

By the way, I think more than twenty years ago, I attended a high school where ethics wasn't mandatory. It was basically either religious studies or nothing at all, I suppose.🎉

At my school, we have this one student who actually gets a bit of a break while the rest of his class is stuck in religious studies, since he’s the only one scheduled for ethics during that period... It honestly couldn't have been timed any better, giving him that extra space in his schedule to really focus on his coursework...

casualowl33 said:At my school, we have this one student who actually gets a bit of a break while the rest of his class is stuck in religious studies, since he’s the only one scheduled for ethics during that period... It honestly couldn't have been timed any better, giving him that extra space in his schedule to really focus on his coursework...

That's quite a thing.
I don't think I've ever heard of a situation like that before, honestly.

He’ll probably end up taking ethics with some other class—you know how it goes—since they have the same instructor for religion, so there's no way he can squeeze both into the same period.
Back when I was in high school, things were a little different—we actually had two different religion teachers—so they’d run parallel sessions, one with the whole class and another with a smaller group pulled from two different sections, while the ethics teacher would just take everyone from all three tracks at once.

Around here, our ethics instructor is actually juggling roles at another high school too, which means she handles several different grade levels all at once, and things get a bit complicated because those other classes follow a rotating schedule where they alternate between classroom instruction and field practicums one week...
So, he ends up having ethics class only every other week, but since that second period religious studies block is the very last thing on his schedule, he just heads straight home right after...
It’s also worth mentioning that whenever an ethics session is actually happening, there's often a scheduling conflict where another class is occupying the room, like with my student who specifically has English Literature scheduled at that exact time, and there was simply no way to work around it...