Religion classes in school - Megathread

I graduated back in '99, and we actually had ethics classes back then. I went to high school in Washington, D.C.
I'm just lurking here for now since my little one isn't even old enough for school yet, but since he won't be getting baptized (and there's no plan for that), this whole topic is pretty interesting to me.

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Does this even have anything to do with what we’re talking about?

It seems pretty obvious to me. I mean, look at the setup. A religious studies teacher—someone who needs direct permission from Vatican City just to step foot in a classroom, someone whose job can be yanked away at any second without some secular authority like a principal or the Department of Labor being able to say a word about it—well, they’re obviously going to teach history a little differently than, say, someone who isn't tied directly to the Church and doesn't have their livelihood hanging by a thread.

But how does that actually happen in practice? It's almost too simple, really. If you let future religious educators, while they're doing their Seminary training at Harvard University, also pick up degrees from somewhere like Columbia University (which is basically the biggest social sciences hub in the country), then you get this result.
What you end up with is professors who double up—like English and religion, or history and religion, or even American literature and religion. And since Vatican City is essentially the one hiring and firing these teachers—even though, let's be real, the government is footing the entire bill!—it creates this loophole. In theory, Vatican City wouldn't just be placing religious instructors in schools; they'd effectively be placing all sorts of social science teachers through the back door.
And since every school principal in the US prefers having teachers who can cover multiple subjects just to make the scheduling easier, this isn't some wild conspiracy theory. It's just a logical consequence of how things are set up.

Well, I graduated back in '79, so I ended up taking an ethics course instead.

hiddendriver34 said:I actually know the deal. In our public schools, only Catholic religious education gets that official spot on the schedule. If you're looking for Islamic or Orthodox instruction, it doesn't even happen during school hours—it happens at local churches or mosques. Basically, an instructor from those faiths just drops by the school every once in a while to log grades into the digital portal.

It would honestly be pretty interesting to see Muslim or Orthodox religious ed integrated into the regular daily schedule. Imagine twenty-five kids hanging out in the hallway waiting for their turn while that one student is inside having their class.

Because let's be real, this is textbook religious discrimination. Only the Catholic curriculum is baked into the actual school day, right? 😉

Exactly.👍😁

Personally, I wouldn't care nearly as much about religious classes being in the curriculum if those textbooks weren't filled with such absolute nonsense. I'm talking pure, unadulterated stupidity.

She just doesn't get it.
http://news.yahoo.com/culture/lilja-vokic-argument-against-religion-classes...

People wouldn't be so worked up if there was an actual solution offered instead of just making kids sit in the hallway during class. It’s not rocket science. Why can't we just introduce a subject like ethics in elementary school, similar to how it works in high school, so one group studies one thing and the other group studies something else? 🤔 Since when is it against the rules to offer an elective like a foreign language or computer science?

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rowdypanther12 said:Well, I graduated back in '79, so I ended up taking an ethics course instead.

I checked: The elective "Ethics" course in American high schools has been around since the '95/'96 school year.

But honestly? I didn't touch Ethics or Religion classes in high school myself.

I remember having ethics back before I was 95, along with logic, sociology, philosophy, and a few other subjects I can't quite recall now. But honestly, except for philosophy, they all only lasted for a single semester—which explains why my head is a total blank when it comes to them. The only thing that sticks in my mind from logic class is that there were these various logical reasoning models, all with those incredibly forgettable Latin names.

Michelle Nelson4 said:I remember having ethics back before I was 95, along with logic, sociology, philosophy, and a few other subjects I can't quite recall now. But honestly, except for philosophy, they all only lasted for a single semester—which explains why my head is a total blank when it comes to them. The only thing that sticks in my mind from logic class is that there were these various logical reasoning models, all with those incredibly forgettable Latin names.

Since I'm a bit younger than you, everything lasted two semesters for me.
It’s funny how they keep constantly reforming the system on us, isn't it? 😁
Could that subject you can't remember be called Civics and Economics?

You couldn't have taken ethics in high school before the 1995/1996 school year, because that was actually when they introduced it for the incoming freshmen. I remember it clearly since I was a senior back then, and I recall that the first-year students were given the option to take ethics if they didn't choose religious studies—and I think quite a few kids went that route. Personally, I didn't take either. I even remember seeing that new ethics teacher sitting on our graduation committee during the summer of '96.

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No, I'm actually a bit of an ethics nerd, and I enrolled in high school back in '92.

I personally started high school back in '92, and I don't recall being offered ethics classes at all—not in freshman year or even in the upper grades. A tiny handful of students opted for religion class, but for the rest of us, there just wasn't a substitute course to take instead. Maybe only two or three kids from my whole class did. I wonder, maybe if you were in a vocational school they introduced it earlier? Or perhaps it was some kind of experimental curriculum they were testing out in a few select schools first? As far as I know for sure, though, it didn't hit the freshman curriculum at my high school or most others until the '95/'96 school year.

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Ethics wasn't some experimental elective, either. I honestly don't see why there's any confusion about that. Ethics used to be a standard, standalone subject back in high school, not just some optional alternative to religious studies (and certainly not in vocational schools, but in prep schools and academies).
The second point is whether it was introduced as a mandatory four-year course as an alternative to religion, but claiming ethics wasn't taught before simply because it wasn't defined as a substitute for religion is... well, it's a logical fallacy of epic proportions.

And I really don't get why people—other than rowdypanther12, Karen Richardson3, and myself, since we all clearly had ethics classes—feel the need to insist we're wrong. Seriously, come on. Do you all consider yourselves absolute experts on every single high school curriculum in the history of the USA? Because you'd have to be to claim what we're saying isn't true. (Mind you, I finished my own high school years back in SUSA)

I was just saying that I didn't have ethics classes back when I was in high school from 1992 to 1996. Honestly, nobody else had them during that period either, since they weren't introduced as an alternative to religious studies until the 1995/1996 school year. So, I guess I don't really know how you two managed to have ethics. I'm pretty sure no other high schools were offering it at that time. Maybe you took it as some kind of elective or perhaps it was tucked into another subject, but I doubt it was ever part of the standard curriculum.

Back during the communist era, there was Marxism. You all definitely had that. I didn't personally experience it because I'm younger, so I missed the window when that was being implemented.

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http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/pubs/arch...1-pubs-zag.htm

Hey, moderator, if you wouldn't mind, could you please move this link and my two previous posts over to the religious studies thread? I couldn't figure out how to include the link without starting an entirely new topic.

According to this article, Professor Lilja Vokić actually introduced ethics as a completely new subject—basically a substitute for religious studies—for high school freshmen back in the 1995/1996 school year. It mentions that since it was such a new course at the time, there weren't even any textbooks or teacher manuals available yet. It even lists which professors were teaching it.

So, I’m just a bit confused as to why some people are claiming they took this class years ago. I mean, I guess Lilja Vokić would definitely know, given her long career as a high school teacher. For instance, philosophy wasn't officially added to the high school curriculum until 1991, but I know we used to study from this old textbook written by Kalin. I actually used to have that book at my house! So, it seems pretty clear that philosophy existed as a subject before it was formally integrated into the high school syllabus, considering those older textbooks are out there.

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Brenda Doyle5 said:She just doesn't get it.
http://news.yahoo.com/culture/lilja-vokic-argument-against-religion-classes...

People wouldn't be so worked up if there was an actual solution offered instead of just making kids sit in the hallway during class. It’s not rocket science. Why can't we just introduce a subject like ethics in elementary school, similar to how it works in high school, so one group studies one thing and the other group studies something else? 🤔 Since when is it against the rules to offer an elective like a foreign language or computer science?

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Ethics in elementary school? No way. I mean, what would kids even learn for eight years and then another four? 😕 And who on earth is going to pay for all those extra professors?
What exactly should kids be learning in a class that would have more hours than social studies, science, chemistry, or physics? It would basically be on par with math or a foreign language. 😕
By the way, you could cover the religious education curriculum in a single semester rather than dragging it out for eight years (I can't even begin to explain the difference between a physics teacher and a religion teacher).

Not to mention, the content for religious ed (and ethics too), especially in lower grades, could easily be integrated into social studies, American history, foreign language, art, music, or even homeroom... basically everything! Aside from the divine stuff, which honestly doesn't belong in a secular American school anyway.

So, it’s an unnecessary subject, it's a sign of a broken and underfunded school system, and it's way too expensive. That goes for ethics and the whole "babysitting kids in hallways" situation too.

I'm younger than rowdypanther12, and I didn't have ethics classes. My mom is older than rowdypanther12 and she didn't have them either (religious ed wasn't even an option at her school back then).
That doesn't mean ethics wasn't taught in other schools before the mid-90s or that it wasn't offered at mine; I just wasn't aware of it.
Religious ed used to be a zero period for all four years. No sane person was showing up at 7:00 AM for class, even though that young, handsome theologian was supposedly great and everyone had their fifth period free. I come from a family of practical believers and we had all our sacraments back then.
Neither my parents nor the church ever complained about it.

Personally, I don't think any extra alternatives are acceptable (unless the teacher uses that hour for extra math or English), but they should at least schedule the class during a different block (like other electives) or make it the first or last period of the day.

It seems like Lilja Vokić is catering to the clergy this way; as soon as you force an "alternative" that is actually mandatory, religious ed stays in the school. When there's no forced alternative, and if it's held during the first or zero period, only the kids who truly want to go because of their family faith will show up.

Now that more kids are choosing ethics, some priests are even insisting that godparents must choose religious ed, and they double-check the elementary school curriculum—heaven forbid they hear something new or different. 🧐

Alright mistyjackal842, I'm going to try to dig up my high school transcripts today. I might have some copies lying around since the originals are still over at my college 😳 😂

If I manage to find them, I'll snap a photo and post it here—I'll probably include the grade too, since it was an A 😂

Hey, calm down! Why are you jumping down my throat over my post?
I think you totally misread what I was getting at.
Ethics don't have to be part of the core curriculum. There aren't any answers to your questions about where the teachers come from or who would foot the bill... I was just saying that if religious studies were handled better, parents wouldn't feel so "burdened" by it. They’d actually know their kids are being looked after instead of just sitting in a hallway unsupervised (which happens in some schools).
For the record, I've signed petitions to get religious education out of public schools entirely. My kid hasn't been baptized, and we aren't religious people... so whatever, one day my child will just be one of those kids out there living their life.
The whole point of the post was that Lilja Vokić didn't make it clear what the actual issue is.

Brenda Doyle5 said:Hey, calm down! Why are you jumping down my throat over my post?
I think you totally misread what I was getting at.
Ethics don't have to be part of the core curriculum. There aren't any answers to your questions about where the teachers come from or who would foot the bill... I was just saying that if religious studies were handled better, parents wouldn't feel so "burdened" by it. They’d actually know their kids are being looked after instead of just sitting in a hallway unsupervised (which happens in some schools).
For the record, I've signed petitions to get religious education out of public schools entirely. My kid hasn't been baptized, and we aren't religious people... so whatever, one day my child will just be one of those kids out there living their life.
The whole point of the post was that Lilja Vokić didn't make it clear what the actual issue is.

Honestly, I was just quoting you, I didn't mean to drag anyone else into this.
What I was saying is that there shouldn't be any ethics classes in school.
She basically squeezed it in (Lilja Vokić pushed for it) just so they could keep religious ed in the system.
And it's not impossible that ethics teachers might end up being chosen from among those who graduated from seminary.
My point was 🙂, let's not push these alternative subjects just to give religious ed a fighting chance
(which my mom calls beating a dead horse 🙂)

It makes me sad that kids are forced into religious studies just because they aren't allowed to hang out in the halls. But then again, I don't want my child to have yet another subject added to their plate just because other parents feel the need to practice their faith at school.🤷
If people really want religious ed in schools, then fine—let them have it as a 7th or 8th period elective, just like how kids take a foreign language, computer science, or choir.

It would be much fairer if the parents who actually want religious ed were the ones to spearhead an initiative like that.
A little bit of Christian compassion and mercy wouldn't hurt.🧐

I'm with you on this—there's absolutely no need to cram more stuff into an already packed schedule.
Honestly, if we actually embraced some Christian values of mercy and solidarity, they’d move religion class to a different period instead of forcing it into the first or last slot of the day.

(The news ticker just cracked me up—apparently they're introducing gluten-free communion wafers 🤣 totally irrelevant, obviously) 😁

My little one absolutely loves religious studies. She goes to every single class, and 😁 when they aren't in there playing chess in the library, she’s being her usual studious self by practicing her letters. If the weather is nice, they just head outside to play... honestly, it feels like one big, lovely mid-day break 😁
I still have my doubts about whether this belongs in the school curriculum, but since she's already there, I'm just really glad to see schools making an effort to be inclusive of kids who don't participate in those classes. 🙂