Deference to authority
Stephen Law asks a crucial question:
[M]y greatest concern is that the smoke generated by the battle over whether religious schools are a good idea has obscured a more fundamental question, a question about the kind of religious education schools offer: to what extent should schools be allowed to encourage deference to authority when it comes to moral and religious matters? To what extent should they be able to suppress independent, critical thought?
How about deference to authority and downright obedience of existing rules (no hitting, no knifing the teacher, no breaking windows – you know the kind of thing) in combination with no suppression at all of independent, critical thought about the rules? How does that sound? Obey the ones that are in place, and by all means think about them, discuss them, analyze them, along with other moral and religious matters. Sound reasonable?
Let me be clear that there are some excellent religious schools, schools that dare to educate rather than indoctrinate. But far too many, while officially liberal, are busy applying psychological techniques that, if not quite brainwashing, lie on the same scale. Some don’t even pretend to be liberal. The other day I heard the head of a British Islamic school agree that in any good Islamic school, “Islam is a given and never challenged”. Any school that insists its religion should be a given and never challenged should no longer be tolerated, let alone receive government funding.
Which suggests the idea that secularism and independent critical thought go together, and theocracy and authoritarianism do the same. That’s probably obvious enough, but it’s worth keeping in mind.
Authoritarian political schools would be a shocking new development. But there have always been authoritarian religious schools. Familiarity, and perhaps a sense of inevitability, has blunted the sense of outrage we might otherwise feel. I think it high time we got that sense of outrage back.
I’ve already got it.
(Cross-posted on Stephen Law)
I agree, religious indoctrination in schools should be a thing of the past.
But I don’t think non-religious (i.e. in the UK regular “county schools”)have quite figured out how to deal with this stuff either.
The overwhelming aim of RE classes seems to be to teach children to ‘respect religion’ (both other people’s and the one handed down from their parents). From what I have seen so far of what my kids are learning in primary school questioning doesn’t come in to it. I don’t know if it gets any better in secondary school.
The Council ‘scheme of work’ on RE seems designed to steer children away from any kind of critical reasoning about religion. Class teachers keep their heads down – going through the motions on this topic – the last thing they want to do is antagonise parents with strong religious views.
Meanwhile kids who are full of questions quickly learn not to bother asking them in class, so they take them out into the playground where discussion decends into tribal attack and defence of each other’s identity.
Catholic schools have their gory sacred hearts and religious messages around the walls, but the message in state schools that questioning religion is not encouraged comes through loud and clear
The Religious Angle to Schools
Catholic and Proud of it!
“Take a look at the Irish £5 note in circulation until 2002 and you’ll see something unique among the currencies of the world. The picture embossed on the bill was not of a president or king. Instead, the scene is a classroom presided over by a Nun.”
Yes, indeed, the infamous sister being one such Mother Catherine MaCauley, Sister of Mercy. Whose religious congregation ran an inordinate amount of Ireland’s industrial Schools of the the past. Namely, Goldenbridge.
“Irish education began in earnest only after a century of repression when the law forbade Catholic children to attend school. It was the church which resurrected the great tradition of the sixth through ninth centuries when Ireland was a land of “Saints and Scholars.”
Most schools today are national schools presided over by the secular Department of Education, but the Catholic ethos is deeply embedded in the school system. There is no separation of church and state. It is the school which prepares children for their first Communion and Confirmation. Every class begins with a prayer, and Religion class, often taught by members of the religious orders, is required until graduation from high school.
Non-Catholic Schools
“Nonetheless, different traditions are respected. For those seeking alternatives, in Dublin there are Moslem schools, Hebrew Schools, and Protestant institutions of learning.
“How about deference to authority and downright obedience of existing rules of tolerance within the schools.”
Well. from an Irish religious perspective of one schoolboy… here is a third-hand account…
Today I was in conversation with a person who told me that her nephew who attends a Christian Brothers’ School refused to enter Religious Knowledge classes. He told the school teacher that he had become an atheist and did not wish to participate. His wishes were respected. There was no back-lash in the slightest. So that is a plus for critical thinking. Would you not say?
Maya I think the purpose of r.e teaching is just to imform children about religion, it is then left up to the child to either acept or reject it.
Richard,
(…sorry so late in replying, but I’ve been on holiday..)
I agree this should be the point of RE. But I think the skills and knowledge imparted by conventional RE teaching are just too flimsy to really help children brought in a up with religion to make their own ‘free and informed choice’.
The underlying assumption of RE teaching is that children will accept or reject what they hear in RE on the basis of whether they are christian, muslim, hindu etc..( as kids are clasified on their school records from age 4!) – not that anything they hear in RE will cause them to accept or reject what they hear at home, Sunday School, Madrassa etc…
Maya