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There should be NO scripture in schools.

20 (83.3%)

There SHOULD be scripture in schools.

4 (16.7%)

Total Members Voted: 24

[Fashion Zombies!]

Anyone from non-NSW states/territories have little brothers or sisters in primary school who do the scripture thing?

I'm from Melbourne, and in primary school (which as a public) we got forced to do RE. Obviously it wasn't compulsory, however we weren't told that, and I don't even think parents were even notified when it was suddenly bought in (Only about 3 other girls didn't do it, and they were all from some freaky religion) It was at my grade 6 graduation when we were all awarded bibles and my Mum was like "Hang on, YOU DID RE?!"

I don't think you'll find many people who will disagree with you, Yak. Which is quite surprising how strong scripture seems to be, considering a lot of people would disagree with it.

I think teachers at these schools feel too bad to say anything. These complete losers waste their time on a bunch of kids trying to teach them something they don't pay attention in. That may be how it is, but teachers view it as "Well respected people in the religion community donating their time to teach bright young students religious education"

And by teachers feeling they need to be kind, more problems arise. I remember heaps of things that weren't right. We weren't allowed to question anything, or we'd get in trouble. I remember once some kid asked "If it took Noah 600 years to make the ark, why was he still alive?" and our grade teacher screamed at him. I remember getting yelled at for not closing my eyes during the prayer.

How are kids to learn these things properly if that's the case? As everyone has said above, they choose what to teach and what not to teach and lessons are biased. However teachers feel they need to be extra kind and students can't question anything.

I think if scriptures in public schools can't be stopped, parents should at least be notified of what happens during these things.

[Phenolphthalein]

I think teachers at these schools feel too bad to say anything. These complete losers waste their time on a bunch of kids trying to teach them something they don't pay attention in. That may be how it is, but teachers view it as "Well respected people in the religion community donating their time to teach bright young students religious education"

Haha, no.

I went to a Lutheran middle/high school.

They used CS (christian studies) classes as manual labour to set up for school functions and shit.

Even the pastor just let us watch Life of Brian and Jesus Christ Superstar in class.

[ilikebeeef]

I reckon that there shouldn't be religious education in primary schools because I feel it is unnecessary, however it should be taught in all secondary schools (Years 7 and 8 only). Although I'm christian myself, I also think that almost all RE teachers should be a lot less biased towards Christianity. My RE teacher taught about a lot of religions, but about half of it was Christianity. That sucks because there are a lot of religious misunderstandings of non-Christian religions and is also incredibly annoying when we learn about Easter every Easter and Christmas before every Christmas. I go to a public school.

[Bookworm.]

Heh, I agree with beefy (to an extent) Some teaching of religious education should occur in primary school, but I think that highschool is probably a better arena for it.

That's because our teachers all have RE qualifications and god knows what else, they just teach it as a normal class. At some religious schools, RE is a compulsory SACE unit, but not at mine, thank Buddha.

My school has compulsory RE for the HSC (my old one as well) and personally I think it is a good thing. Why come to a catholic school if you don't want to learn about religion? Kinda defeats the purpose.

A lot of them are old/clueless people. But there are also some young, perky Christian mums (and dads!) who come in to try and use the "Religion is FUN!" tactic as well.

There has to be something wrong with that. I mean, just parents, any old parents, come in and teach religion? No qualifications, or anything? Not even a piece of paper from the catholic university?

[.]

what state are you in, beef?

i see a few of you talking about "RE". in nsw, only kids who go to religious schools participate in "RE"...whereas (at least in public primary schools) they go to a religion specific class for half hour a week.

is this "RE" a generalist religion course in public schools in other states?

[Adi]

My school has compulsory RE for the HSC (my old one as well) and personally I think it is a good thing. Why come to a catholic school if you don't want to learn about religion? Kinda defeats the purpose.

I don't have a real problem with religious schools that make RE compulsory, and at ours it is compulsory until the end of year 11, I just think it's good to have the choice at year 12, when a significant number of people would see it as a distraction to their other studies which are aimed at getting into uni or whatever. The reality is that only about 60% of our students are even nominally Catholic, and we make a point of accepting Middle Eastern and African refugees, many of whom are Muslim, or at least not Catholic. We value the opportunity for education as more important than imposing religious ideals on people. So I think it's great that they have the choice at year 12. Up until then, fine, teach away. However, all we do in RE is social justice topics and learn about other religions - we never do anything about Catholicism or even Christianity. Mind you, our school isn't exactly representative, our principal does have some atypical ideas. We're very into social justice. We have regular masses and liturgies and whatnot, but we're not exactly oozing religiousness. My boss's son went to a Lutheran school, and they had Chapel every morning. We don't have anything like that.

i see a few of you talking about "RE". in nsw, only kids who go to religious schools participate in "RE"...whereas (at least in public primary schools) they go to a religion specific class for half hour a week.

is this "RE" a generalist religion course in public schools in other states?

Booky and I are talking about it in the context of Catholic schools - but I suspect you'd sussed that out already.

[GreenFroggie]

I thought that in VIC only the schools that declare themselves "Catholic", "Independant", or "Christian" or any other religion were required to teach religion.

I went to a state school and we were not forced to learn it. They did not include it in the curriculum.

Though my state primary school had it, but it was optional, and was really for the religious families to go to. If we didnt go to the RE class then we were just given normal work, like maths to do while we were waiting for the other kiddies to get back.

[.]

Ahh OK rattus...that sounds the same as here.

But as a teacher, that's a huge pain in the arse. I mean, you can't actually teach anything of substance in that time because anything you do, those kids miss out on.

[ilikebeeef]

what state are you in, beef?

i see a few of you talking about "RE". in nsw, only kids who go to religious schools participate in "RE"...whereas (at least in public primary schools) they go to a religion specific class for half hour a week.

is this "RE" a generalist religion course in public schools in other states?

I'm in NSW. I don't know about other schools, but in my school (public), it is called Religious Education, abbreviated RE. In my school, years 7-9 classes have 3 or 4 (I can't remember too well)periods of RE per term. I'm in year 10 so I don't do get to do RE.

[GreenFroggie]

If they do chose to include it as part of the schooling at the public schools then everyone should be given a choice as to whether they want to learn it or not. If they wanted to learn RE then they would have gone to a religious school.

I was given a form in primary school which told the parents they were holding the classes, and they had to say yes or no as to the kiddies participating.

Though my high school included theology or whatever it is called as the VCE elective just in case, even though they didnt teach it there. I think if you picked it then you had to study it outside the college. Would have been a pain in the arse if anyone really wanted to study it.

[Adi]

Though my high school included theology or whatever it is called as the VCE elective just in case, even though they didnt teach it there. I think if you picked it then you had to study it outside the college. Would have been a pain in the arse if anyone really wanted to study it.

That's really no different than for anyone who wants to do a subject not offered at their school. I had to do my two year 12 music subjects offline (at two other schools), because mine only offered basic performance and musicianship, neither of which I wanted to do.

I guess there might be a few people who really want a religious education but can't afford to go to a religious school. I can't imagine that that option would be all that popular, though.

[blue]

So why aren't non-religious kiddies being taught about atheism and agnosticism during religion time?

I was never involved in any sort of religious education in school. We had religious bits included in assemblies and the like in high school, but it was never included in the curriculum. My primary school was pretty much secular, with the only religious bit being where we learnt the Jesus birth story about Christmas, but that was mostly just by singing carols. I'm pretty sure we never learnt more than the very basics about Easter... Actually now that I think about it we didn't have Santa come to the school, we had Saint Nicholas and "Black Pete" (I wonder if they're still getting white kids to pretend to be black kids in this PC day and age  ) and we were taught about how he arrived in a boat and kids put out their shoes to get presents... but it was taught as "this is what used to happen in the olden days in other countries", not "this is the truth, and here's the religious back story." There was definitely no mention of god.

My cousins went to state schools in Qld, and I remember them saying something about RE being a time when you just did some colouring in and got given stickers and lollies, and that it was basically just a time to get out of proper school work. They don't come from a traditional religious background at all, so I thought it was weird that they could be doing anything religious at school. 

But yeah, I agree that learning about a range of religions is useful, but that if parents want their kids to participate then they should do that out of school hours or send them to a religious school.

I wonder what sort of religious nutter backlash you'd get for starting a petition Yak... You'll upset all the creepy religious paedos for a start 

And the Hillsonger, over-enthusiastic types who want to spread the word to save everyone.

[Lexii-]

I was born Catholic & baptised etc, but I've never practised religion (Sunday Mass etc). From grades K-6 I went to scripture every week, I liked it and always looked forward to it because the teacher was lovely, she was old, as they are, but she was really cool and trendy We had seperate classes for it because I know there was Jehovah's Witnesses and other religions within our grade, so different teachers used to come in for different classes.

When I got to High School, it was weird because they told everyone that they HAD to go to it and if they don't then they can go with another teacher and learn about religions of the world. I went to the scripture, but this time it was with young people, young being 20. They were really awesome people and I liked them, but they stopped coming after Year 7, because they opened up the "Christian Life Centre" near where I live, and they literally brainwash people. There were kids in my grade and others who had their MSN usernames as "I <3 Jesus" and stuff like that. Fair enough, if you're religious it's good to believe in it strongly, but I think this "I <3 God/Jesus/whoever" business online is a bit over the top. I was informed the other day that this "Christian Life Centre" is part of Hillsong, which didn't suprise me a bit.

[ilikebeeef]

Anyone from non-NSW states/territories have little brothers or sisters in primary school who do the scripture thing?

Yep, I have a sibling who does scripture.

[Phenolphthalein]

is this "RE" a generalist religion course in public schools in other states?

In QLD, "Study of Religion" is a Queensland Studies Authority approved course. (i.e. counted for your OP -overall position- in year 11 and 12)

From what I heard from my friend, it is a subject that covers a range of religions.

Not sure what happens before year 11 with state schools though.