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Category Archives: Education
Educate Together’s Paul Rowe & PZ Myers at UCC Feb 2010
Church and schools: the public speak
In an ‘Irish Times’ survey this week, 61 per cent of people said the Catholic Church should cede control of primary schools – and 28 per cent said it should not. ROSITA BOLAND talks to people in Portlaoise and Dublin, to explore the attitudes behind the statistics
Also posted in Catholicism, News Leave a comment
Catholicism: Is there a place in schools for it? – by Alice Kinsella
Via VoicesOfYouth
Recently, a friend of mine went to our principal and asked to leave religion class, which is compulsory in our school. I managed to get out at the beginning of the school year by pointing out that I’d never been baptised and that religion was wasting my valuable study time. My friend, however, was told that it is a Catholic school, therefore she must attend.
Our school is not catholic. It is funded by the state. We have a ‘catholic ethos’, a priest on the board of management and mass twice a year. But, none the less, we are a state school. They cannot refuse to admit children of other religions. But, religion classes are compulsory for the full five/six years of education. During these classes they preach about god and catholic meaning. Buddhism got mentioned once in 2nd year, evidently they come up short when compared to the ‘religious education’ and objective view of all world religions they once promised us. In our school, religion is a compulsory exam subject in the junior certificate. And last month our Irish (Irish, NOT religion) teacher gave out to the class for not saying our prayers.
So if you walked in the door, and saw a four foot man nailed to a cross staring down at you you’d probably think it was run by the church, right? Well it’s not; it is being paid for by the tax payer, the NON DENOMINATIONAL tax payer. I’ve found that this is the case in many schools around the country. “You pay, we pray”.
So I ask the reader, is it fair that as young people in Ireland we are still being subjected to the controlling, brain washing, backwards ways of the catholic church when we are supposedly being educated? Don’t get me wrong, Catholics can believe what they want, as can any religion, they can practice and pray until they’re blue in the face for all I care, but should they be allowed influence little children from the moment they step in the door? I don’t think so. We live in diverse and multi cultural society, a society full of people of different race, religion and sexual orientation. And yet, the majority of children still have no other option than to go to schools backed by a single religion, and that religion having openly stated its contempt for the LGBT community. Is this the kind of thing young people of today should be taught?
I live in a field, that field is in a bog, that bog is in a town land, that town land is in the sparsely populated, very wet, kind of green county of Mayo. Schooling wise, there aren’t many options. As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a single non denominational school within a 20 mile radius of my home. But there are six that have a ‘catholic ethos’. So I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re a teenager, scratch that, if you’re a kid of any age in Ireland living outside of Dublin you’re pretty much stuck with the church. Sure, they won’t kick you out, if you’re lucky they won’t even force you into mass, but you’d better get used to being looked at as if everything you think is ridiculous.
When I was a kid my national school was Catholic school too. It was so close to the church, the 6th class kids used to play dares in the church bathroom. I was continuously scoffed at by teachers, the priest used to be left in our classroom for hours on end and tell us whatever he wanted. We were told all kinds of rubbish, dinosaurs didn’t exist, babies are gifts from god found in fields, every time you masturbate god kills a kitten, the usual. We couldn’t question it. He was the priest. End of story.
So what if I’d been Muslim? What if I was a Lesbian? Are kids today in that position? Do they feel that what they do/are makes them a bad person? And all because someone else’s superstition has been given a leading role in their education? I don’t think this is fair.
In countries like France and USA religion and state are kept separate, and people grow up being all the more accepting for it.
It’s the 21st century; it’s time for Ireland to realise that the minds of young people is no place to force varying superstitions as fact. It’s time we all had access to safe, open minded, religion free schools!
From: VoicesOfYouth with permission
Posted in Education 6 Comments
Extraordinary General Meeting: Education Policy
On Saturday 28th of November Atheist Ireland will hold an extraordinary general meeting to discuss & vote on our education policy. The meeting will briefly establish where Ireland is now as regards religion in education. It will then focus on what we would specifically like to see replacing faith-based schools.
If you would like to give us feedback before the meeting, please reply or post your comments on our forum:
http://www.atheist.ie/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2837
Venue: Holiday Inn, Pearse Street
Date: Saturday, 28th November
Time: 2pm – 6pm
We hope to see as many of you as possible there.
My religious education in Ireland
I’ll kick off the section on education in Ireland system by telling of my experience in it. I grew up and went to primary school in the 70s when 95% of schools were Catholic (now it “just” 92%). There were three schools in my smallish town, a boys’ only monastery schools, a girls’ only convent school and a Protestant school (which was tiny in comparison). In the near countryside there might have been two or more country schools. The two major schools had about 300 pupils each.
Like the vast majority of local girls I went to the convent school. At the time it was still run by nuns but there were some lay people teaching there. I’d say I had nuns for 4 of my 9 years of primary education. The school principal was the head of her order and so was called Mother not Sister.
My school was no different to any other girls’ primary school at the time. Everyone in my school was white and Catholic – everyone spoke English – everyone’s parents were Irish (or so it seemed). Class size varied from between 30 to 40. Often in overpopulated classes girls were bumped up two years i.e. do 3rd twice and not do 2nd. The Teacher was at the top of the room and all desks faced towards her (there’s no male teachers in a girls’ primary school). All desks were two-seaters so you had to sit beside someone and that was your desk for the year. The pupils were well behaved and almost all the teachers were nice (there’s always someone).
How was religion taught? Well our school incorporated religion in a very holistic way. The religious programme that we followed was the “Children of God” series that predates the “Alive-O” series that’s now in use. What this meant that we had a “children of god” book (the number of it varied depending on you class number). This we learned during the religion lesson, and along with the national syllabus we also had another concurrent syllabus of the liturgical year to get through. Prayers were said in the morning and depending on your teacher they may be said again at the start of the next lesson. Depending on the time of the year, we were taught about the lives of the various saints (and their often gory deaths). Spend ages getting ready for Christmas and Easter. Encouraged to give up things for Lent (with the proviso that you could break Lent for St Patrick’s day). Classroom decorations at these times were centred on religious aspects of Christmas/Easter – lots of cribs and the holy family. In February we’d make St Brigit’s crosses. We would also get the day off school on days of obligation (which was nice) and on the memorial day for the nun that founded the nuns’ order. During Easter the whole school would be brought to church for Ash Wednesday (as that’s a school day). The end of the school year was always celebrated with a mass. A very large part of 1st and 6th class was taken up with memorising that little red catechism book and preparing for the sacraments. The priest would come in and we would have to have it word perfect in order to recite it back to him when he asked one of the stock questions from it.
Science was not taught at all when I was in school – instead we had nature studies. I definitely got a good education there; but I’m not going to send my 3 girls to a Catholic school. And why? I believe that this cycle of passing on all this unnecessary baggage to the next generation just because it was passed on to me, is not the way to go. The cycle of perpetuation has got to stop somewhere and so I have decided not to pass on my Catholic culture to my kids. Children have got to respect their teachers at school and parents at home. If the school encourages one worldview, I could do two things – confront it putting me in conflict with the school or accept it and bring them up culturally Catholic (which I believe a lot of Irish are). I know that the Educate Together schools are religious in that the promote multi denominational religions, however I feel that this approach will level the playing field for my children and allow them make up their own minds. Who knows, they might end up Catholic but they won’t catch it from me. Religion is not just one class in primary school, it’s a flavour to the school day.
I also went to a convent secondary school, which was a lot different. I had nuns for a half my subject and all of them were lovely. In secondary school, all of the subjects are broken up and you have different teachers for different subjects and frequently different classrooms. Religion in secondary is just another subject – classrooms were never decorated with class work (except the art room). So although you still do the same external features like the masses it doesn’t impact on the rest of the school day.
by Helen O’Shea
Also posted in Catholicism 3 Comments
New VEC primary schools should not teach faith formation
Atheist Ireland agrees with Educate Together and with the Humanist Association of Ireland that children should not be separated according to their religion in the new pilot VEC primary schools, and that there should not be faith formation within school hours.
Atheist Ireland believes that State education should be secular. Children should be taught about the diversity of religious beliefs in an objective manner. Children should be educated in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge. Faith formation should be a matter for parents and religions.
We believe this not merely because it is good for society, but also because Ireland today is violating international human rights law by denying secular education to the children of parents who want it.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has already told Ireland to increase its efforts to ensure that nondenominational primary education is widely available in all parts of the State. And the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that children should be taught about religious culture and ethics in an objective, critical and pluralist manner. It has also ruled that primary schools should not display religious symbols on school walls. Italy is appealing this latter decision.
Atheist Ireland wants a secular state for a pluralist people. This nuance is important: a pluralist society, with freedom of conscience, religion and belief, is best protected by a secular government, with public policy formed by applying reason to evidence.