Atheist Ireland Forum

Hi all,

I was wondering if anybody could help us with writing a letter to the RE teacher.
First I would like to outline our backround. We are a non-national couple living in Ireland for the last 20 years.
We believe in Secularism and believe that especially the Island of Ireland has suffered a lot from Religion - so we would like to stay right clear of it.
Our daughter is in Secondary school , which is a good school, but like most schools in ROI
under Catholic Patronage.

She started her second year now and in the first year we just wrote a small note to the RE teacher to exempt her
from RE. There was no Problem and she was able to do her homework during that time.
Our daughter has now started the second year with a new RE Teacher and this new teacher has pointed out that every pupil has to take part
or read their own spiritual texts according to their faiths.

I include this relevant text from the school policy:

Religious education ensures that students are exposed to a large range of religious traditions and to non-religious interpretations of life. It has a particular role to play in the curriculum and in the promotion of tolerance and mutual understanding. It is not a ‘free class’ to do homework. There is allocated time on the timetable for RE and faithformation, and students of other faiths are expected to use this time to study something relating to their own religious tradition, for example, a sacred text.

Withdrawal of students from RE class can present the school with considerable logistical and supervision dilemmas. Therefore this needs to be negotiated with management and addressed during the enrolment meeting. However the school expects that all students will remain in and take part in R.E. classes. The onus is on parents to provide suitable alternative texts should they be required.

The school supports the principles of:

inclusiveness; equality of access and participation in the school;

parental choice in relation to enrolments respect for diversity of traditions, values, beliefs, languages and ways of life in society


So what we actually want to do is to still send this teacher a note telling her that we would like to have our child exempt from RE and that if doing homework in RE classes is no longer possible,
we would like to provide our own reading / books to her according to our own views. These books could be philosophical text for her age, or books with a non - biased overview to the religions of the world.

Can this be said in politest way possible as we would understandably want to avoid disadvantages for our child.
And finally would it be better to forget about the letter and make an appointment with the relevant teacher.??

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

I think you should be firm - polite but firm. Get it in writing - word of mouth is nothing.
Have you checked out the teach don't preach site?
http://www.teachdontpreach.ie

Hello, this is my first post on here though some of you may recognise my user name from p.ie.
Could you tell me exactly what form this class takes? Is it simply a case of teaching about all religions or are they teaching religion as fact? I personally would be against all factual teaching of religion but would have no dispute with an overview of the various faiths. Though I would think these could be covered in at most 3 or 4 lessons.
If they are teaching religion as fact and you are obviously an Atheist I think you have the right to explain your views to the teacher (I would go in person) and insist that your child be allowed to perform some non faith based educational activity, I don't believe they can force your child to take part in any indoctrination that goes against your beliefs.
If they are giving an overview of religions I would ask why so much time must be dedicated towards it as unless someone has a keen interest it can serve no purpose to spend so much class time on it, its hardly going to have real world applications to have such intimate knowledge of lots of competing myths. Is it part of the leaving cert? Can that bit be opted out of?

I should say however that our child is in national school and as he is so young we have not kicked up any fuss, we simply give him our views at home and hope that he will eventually work things through, it is annoying that a child from an atheist background professes belief in God but short of telling him his teacher is deluded we are at a loss as to what to do, the school is local and we are loath to use him to fight our battles until he is able to make an educated (!) choice. (there are no other school options) We have not kept our non belief secret from anyone, but have I suppose gone with the flow, though with the communion thing looming I suppose we will have to make a choice about how far that can go soon.
It is unjust and you have my sympathies, school time is precious and no one wants to spoil it for there children, but this is not us trying to impose anything we would simply like the impositions lifted. Anyway, a bit rambly there but if you could clarify the position you are in (and we will no doubt find ourselves) I would be grateful. Thanks

Dear Teacher,

In accordance with our wishes and our rights as parents, our daughter is excused from taking part in religion class. We would prefer that she be provided with an education during this time, but as the school is unwilling to do this, she is free to indulge in whatever activity she feels appropriate during this time, as long as it is not disruptive to the class.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Parents

First of all welcome to the forum.

You could include that since you are not religious you can't provide suitable study material and that it would not be to your accoording your consience to let her study any scripture since you believ she can decide for her/him self when she/he is older.

You could PM Marks about it and she can provide you with the Law articles or maybe some else can?

But I think Funky Dereks letter would do. And then react further when they react. Welcome to the forum by the way!

I had a huge fight with the school my son went to and learned one thing; write everything they say down and send them a letter with what has been said. It might help you later on and there won't be any misunderstanding about what has and has not been said.

Hi Yellowfish,

There is another thread on this site which show sample examination papers from the Junior Cert RE exam and expected answers. It's clear from them that faith formation is the goal of the course not an overview of world religions.

Micha,

I think you're taking the right approach. I can understand why a teacher might not want a student to use class time for homework, the RE teacher may have other motivations beyond that but I'm sure you could comply with the schools requirement - "The onus is on parents to provide suitable alternative texts should they be required"
I'd imagine books like 'I am David' would be suitable (that was reading material in first year of my RE class even though as far as I recall it's non-religious), I'm sure there are plenty of books on philosophy or general theology for students your daughters age too.

BTW welcome to you too yellowfish

http://evolvefish.com/fish/kidsbooks.html

some good books here that your child could study (some very crap ones aswell though) . I bet you can get the titles through Amazon or Book dipositry

Thanks for the Hello's. I am going to try and find that thread.

Found those links, I can definitely see the point here, but how do you get your child through school with good points if they do not do the class? (I am English so don't have a good grounding in this school system though trying to learn)

Also some of the questions are somewhat ambiguous, from memory one said -- Tolerance is about respecting others different ways--True or false.
It seems to me the answer they want is TRUE, but to my mind tolerating something would not involve respecting it, if you respect it you would not need to tolerate it. Obviously most churches claim to be tolerant of Homosexuality, but do they respect it?
I do not see how any intelligent child can pass that question.

Anyway something slightly disturbing has just happened, this is my first opportunity to do my lads homework with him since starting 1st year, I honestly did not know how much the religion would be ratcheted up, we have two pages of prayers, some extremely religious songs, and the other work is far peppered with a lot more references than in his junior/senior infants. Plus of course I have no idea what his Irish says (though he tells me its all about fetching coats)
It is a bit of a coincidence my joining this site today and having some of this reality bought home (literally) I had no Idea, I went to a C/E school, I thought it would be about as low key. I have posted on p.ie frequently about how i object to having any faith foisted on us, but this is far worse than I ever knew.

Double post

I have had the same experience and was appalled by the reaction I got from principal and teacher to board of management when I found out they were teaching my son to recite prayers while I had opt him out of RE class

I just don't think we can realistically do this, the RE is embedded throughout the entire day, also its fair to say that there is some disagreement in the Household over the communion. Neither of us was bought up catholic and we are now both atheists, I feel the work they put into communion is a waste of time and we should look to get him doing something of benefit to his education, My wife feels that we should do nothing that separates him from his friends. Of course its not as black and white as that neither of us wants him singled out and we both want him to be studying real subjects, but we differ over how far to go either way. The communion practice though takes up a lot more time than either of us was aware of.
Their is no realistic school alternative, education apart we feel it is vital for him to attend school with his friends from the village, it would be cruel to separate him from them, but even if we wanted to the nearest educate together school is 10 miles away and we both work, shifts in my case.
It is becoming more and more ridiculous as faith demographics change to force children of non faith parents and different faiths to undergo this sort of education, Time is wasted on things entirely separate from learning and you are required to practice prayers at home! its mad and should be stopped.

I think this teacher is a bully, and not allowing your child to do homework during that time is indefensible. I can't imagine there is any legal backing for her position. I would continue as you have done before.

The teacher is spoofing as you have the Constitutional Right to exempt your child out of this course.

There is a section in the Irish Human Rights Commission’s Report on this course and I am providing a link to it.

http://www.ihrc.ie/download/pdf/religio ... ionpdf.pdf

Please read page 26 of the Report and Recommendations and as you will note some schools are making this course compulsory but they do not actually have a right to do this. You could therefore write a letter to the Teacher pointing out that the course is not compulsory and quote the above section from the Recent Commission’s Report. Ask her to explain why she is claiming that if your child does not do the course she must read some religious texts. Don’t say anything about reading material or your child not doing her homework. Write the letter and ask for a response asap. They cannot pick any material for your child to read in the class without your permission.

I think it would be better to put everything in writing and remember they cannot force your child to take this course. Let us know if you get a response and we will take it from there.