Religion in schools -- your experience.

[Green Gaia]

This is not a thread to debate what if any religion should or should not be disussed or taught in public schools. Any posts that debate will be deleted and the poster will be warned.

That said, I'm looking for everyone's individual experience with religion in school, what was taught and the general atmosphere towards religion in school.

 

[Lightkeeper]

We didn't discuss religion in schools, but we did celebrate the Christian holidays. We did special artwork for Easter, Christmas, etc. I think that is not allowed now. Do the schoold still do anything for Valentines Day?

 

[standing_on_one_foot]

Well, there's always the joke that says that as long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school...

But besides my school's tendency to schedule important stuff on holidays (which can be a bit frustrating, admittedly), it doesn't really have much to do with religion. We learn a bit about it in history, but beyond that, it's pretty secular.

 

[painted wolf]

I had a wonderful class on the history of the 'non-western' world... ie, everyone but Rome and Eruope. One of the key parts of the class was learning about how religion shaped different (ie non-christian) parts of the world. We learned the basic tennants of all the worlds Major and many of the Minor religions and how they influenced the culture and polititcs of the world around us. It was a wonderful class and it opened my eyes to the variety of religious possibility and to the fact that deep down all religions basically teach the same things, just in different ways.
The History teacher wanted to make shure that we understood that Christianity wasn't the only religion in the world and that by at least lerning the basic ideas of other religions we would hopefully be more tollerant of others.

Otherwise, relgion was kept at an arms length. In science class the teacher was made to mention creationism as per Genisis and took it on himself to also mention that there were other creation stories of equil validity such as the Hindu and Native American ideas on creation. Then having upheld the school bords ideas of what education is he got back to teaching Science in his Science class.

Not bad for a tiney hick town in the back woods of New Hampshire

wa:do

 

[peacefulwitch]

Most of my school career was saturated in Christian ideology. In elementary school I had a teacher aproach me about a book I was reading and say "You know, Jesus is Lord, right honey?". Actually there were many incidents such as this.
In middle school I had teachers that would preach to us in class. I also experienced my guidance counselor informing all my teachers that I was going through a 'Witch' phase and they should try to help get me back on track with god. Shortly after that I was told in front of most of my 8th grade class that I had 'unChristian character' and I should change if I wanted friends.
I replied to that teacher that I wasn't a Christian. To which she replied that the society in which I live was Christian and if I wanted to succeed I should conform.
High school was much the same. We didn't learn about Asia at all in my World History class because the teacher didn't want to have to teach us about Bhuddism, Hinduism and other eastern religons.
I'd say on the whole, the attitude towards religion at my school was very detrimental to the educational experience there.

I didn't a religous school. This is the only school in my small town. They post "In God We Trust' in all the classrooms and have mandatory AWANA club for elementary kids (AWANA is a Christian club).

 

[Ceridwen018]

14 years of Catholic education and counting! (That includes pre-school and kindergarten)

Most of my religion teachers have been pretty good. I haven't had any Nazi Nuns or anything. Theology class doesn't bother me--I can tolerate it. It's humorus to me how pointless it all is though. I mean, has anyone ever tried to actually read a religion textbook? It's just a bunch of flowery crap that doesn't make sense. Oh well. Whatever works, I suppose. This is my first year of Theo class as a big-time Atheist though. My teacher isn't going to know what hit her!

 

[anders]

The subject Religion was called something like "Knowledge of Christianity". I had it as a formal subject for the last 8 of the 12 years of school before University. It must have been rather relaxed, because I have very few memories of it.

During the last four years, it was taught by an ordained minister of the Church of Sweden. The teaching was mainly the history of Christianity up to Luther, and from then Protestantism. I was the only openly confessing Christian in the class, and one (1) classmate was openly atheist. I don't think that I ever compared, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got better marks than mine.

 

[robtex]

I don't have any signifigant experiences but my old college roommate when to a private catholic high school and he learned how to do the hustle from the nuns. (you da da da ta-da-da-da-da "do the hustle" spin and clap).

 

[Jaymes]

Here if you're not a Christian, you're Very Quiet About It at school unless you want to be harrassed by people who are convinced that they're saving your soul.

Nothing over the top with religion comes to mind... well, nothing involving teachers, anyway. The students are stupid, but that's a whole 'nother story.

 

[Amalcas]

I remember a mini-course I did on religions in S.S. I thought it would be interesting, but it was really rather boring. I guess they didn't want parents complaining. I mean, they even made us take home a permission slip for it.
I am the only Baha'i at my school, but nobody has any problem with that. We don't have any evangelical people in my school. We talk about religion a good bit, though.

 

[Faust]

When I attended elementary school the teachers often put things in the context of Christianity. The whole atheist thing hadn't happened at that time. (separation of church and state battle over religion in public schools) By the time I got to highschool there wasn't as much said about it.

 

[Runt]

Lets see... in elementary school I was more or less completely oblivious to the religious opinions of my classmates and although I was kinda skeptic of Christianity, I really didn't have any religious opinions of my own that I felt a pressing need to share... so I don't remember any experience with religion in my early schooling.

In middle school I was a little hellion. I liked Wicca because it made more sense to me than Christianity, but more than that, I liked it because it made me feel rebellious, and I made it quite clear to my classmates that I was pagan and proud of it. As a result, I was told a few times that I was going to go to hell, and reminded once or twice that in the old days witches were burned... but it was never that big of a deal. I was almost disappointed, because I WANTED to make a scene.

In high school there were a few instances where religion and school met and clashed a bit. In drama one year we had to do "How To" presentations, and one of my classmates chose to do his on seeing auras and a girl chose to do hers on reading the tarot. One guy in my class decided that auras and the tarot were too evil for him to sit and watch the how-to discussions, so he was allowed to go sit in the hall during their presentations. And in my AP Biology class the teacher openly said on the first day that he personally was NOT an evolutionist--that he believed in creationism--but to do him credit, he taught us evolution, and he taught us well (I'm in college now and my biology class covers the same things he did; he didn't leave anything out).

That's all I can think of. I distinctly remember being forced to recite the pledge a few times, but that is not quite the same (though the fervor with which people show respect to this country often parallels the furvor people show toward their religion, so I dunno... perhaps Democracy should be called a religion? )