Whenever education, children, religion and public money mix, you know there's an explosive cocktail brewing. A Quebec court has allowed a Jesuit school to teach its children about world religions however it wishes, rather than by governmental diktat. On the surface, this ruling is a welcome break from government intrusion into private education. On the other, Pauline Marois welcomes it as well, which promptly rings all alarm bells in my head.
Is it really a school's duty to teach religion in any way? Indeed, religious scholarship is so subjective as to be twistable into many shapes. If sociology and economics - those banes of the unflexible mind - have axioms, shouldn't academically taught religion be expected to conform to the same standard? No sir, not a chance.
Rather than persevere in the vain attempt to reconcile religious parents, private schools and an intrusive secular government Quebec should at least try to transcend religion altogether.
There hardly is a single ethical teaching in any religion that does not contribute to making a good citizen. Charity, temperance, humility, fortitude, you name it. Who needs religion when these citizenly virtues can be taught as part of an all-encompassing civic education course?
Leave religion to the history courses, where children learn more than just the tenets. When studying a religion, one has to know HOW it emerged, WHERE and WHY. Otherwise it's just empty faffle. Classrooms should educate good citizens, and leave the forging of good Christians to the church pews.
3 comments:
When we put our children in the local RC system, it was because we were fed up with the Gaia-worship, secular-infused 'public' system. As Christians, we wanted our faith to be acknowledged and respected.
I'm an atheist, but I think it is a good idea to teach the history of religion. Unfortunately the Quebec course seems to give the same weight to aboriginal spirituality as to the Catholic and Protestant religions.
The other thing is the fact that all course are permeated with the ecological religion. Even the exams are full of questions like how many tons of paper does it take to make so many recycled envelopes.
It gets very boring and repetitive.
Good idea incorporating the world religion courses in history classes. They'll never listen though.
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