Religion in School

Interesting debate and I am glad it started. I would have had a very negative experience of religious education in primary school.
I am 37 now and would have attended primary school from roughly 1974 up until 1982 or 83. It was an all boys school and while we had only lay male and female teachers it was very much catholic in ethos and outlook.
The day began at 9 AM with prayers, 12 noon we all said the angelus followed by 30 minutes religious (catholic) education. We had lunch preceded by grace before meals and followed by grace after meals. Before going home we said more prayers.
The local catholic church was near and we went there often, for various religious festivals and for training for holy communion and confirmation.
I have nothing but bad memories of primary school because of this. I remember art class when I was in senior infants (I would have been about 5 years old) and the whole class were told to draw Holy Mary being visited by some angel and being told that she will have a baby. I did my best drawing and drew a cross in the back ground. The teacher went ballistic saying that This post will be deleted if not edited immediately wouldn’t be nailed to it for another 33 years… I got her knuckles in the back of the head for that.
In communion class (first class) our teacher told us if we even thought a sin then it was an actual sin… I had nightmares for years thinking of all the ‘sins’ I had thought about and then assuming I would go to hell. The same teacher used to smoke a pipe in class and asked boys to put there finger into the flame of his lighter. Obviously no one did and we were told our whole bodies would be in flames for eternity in hell for the sinful lives we were leading so why would we not put our fingers into a flame for a few minutes to get used to it.
Every now and then a bishop (I’m not putting a capital letter for b, they don’t deserve it) would visit the school and the teacher would speak in awe and reverence about them, instructing us how to behave if we came across them in the corridors and sending letters home to our parents saying that we were to make sure uniforms were spick and span. On the one occasion a bishop walked past me I nearly wet myself in fear.
For confirmation we had to study the ‘brown catechism’, (anyone remember that) whereby questions in the book were asked about some religious tripe and were also answered in the book. These answers had to be learned off by heart for when the bishop visited to examine our religious knowledge. If you got a question wrong then there was a fear that you could not make your confirmation and the whole fear and shame that went with it.

That said, religious education in post primary was much more enlightened and progressive (by the standards I was used to). We still got visits from priests and bishops but the education side of it was lighter. Once (when I was in first year of secondary school) a bishop came into our English teachers class and offered his hand to the teacher to kiss his ring. She just shook it as normal and then when he left she turned to us and said “Did you see that f****** trying to get me to kiss his ring?” “I would punch him first!” I was in complete shock and assumed she was going to rot in hell for all eternity.
Thankfully my mind has opened after years of propaganda and brain washing in primary school.
As I don’t have children I don’t know if primary schools are still like this but I would assume and hope not.
I firmly believe that religion should be taught at home and not in the school place. I also find it somewhat ironic that bishops say that sexual education should be taught at home and believe religion should be taught in schools..

Anyway, I needed to get that off my chest!!!
 
That is absolutely horrific The_Banker, words fail me. I am so sorry that happened to you. Its all terrible but the bit about the lighter is especially disturbing. It is experiences like this that make me feel that religion should be taught in a Sunday School model (like the swiss system I described above). It also gives the parents an opportunity to keep a closer eye on whats happening, decreasing the chance of abuse. Im sure your parents would have been horrified at the way you were treated and would have wanted to step in? As a young child you implicitly trust the adults in whose care you're left and don't know that what they are doing is an abuse.
 
Re: The Banker

That reads like a John McGahern short story !

I guess you were unlucky with the teachers in that school rather than the religion.

I laughed at your story about the cross,sorry.

I remember at that age having to make something for class and I made a pram using a cheese box and half a cheese box for the hood and 2 spool threads for the wheels,it looked great.
Next day the teacher held it up to the class and said ,look at the steam roller. It still rankles,that remark!
 
casiopea said:
In the spirit of debating Religion (respectfully) I was wondering how people feel about Religion continued to being taught in Schools? There have been many debates about Irish coming off the syllabus I assume people feel similarly about Religion.

Do all schools in Ireland still have to teach religion?
If you are a practicing Atheist/Agnostic can you get your child out of religion class? Or are you still interested in them attending religion (so they appreciate what you don't believe in)?
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I'm not expressing any personal views here, merely providing information and some associated thoughts.....


Taken from the Citizens Information database:-

"Religion in Irish schools

Most Irish primary schools are under the management of one denomination or another and the majority of these are Roman Catholic. There is, however, a growing choice of schools of other denominations and of multi-denominational schools.

Schools that cater for a single religion may give priority to children of that religion but they will also admit children with other religious beliefs, or none. Children do not have to attend religion classes and you may choose to withdraw your child from such classes if you wish."

All well and good, but there is a practical dimension to all this. The teaching of religion is not a discrete activity other than during the official 30 minutes given to the subject every day, particularly for children who are getting ready for First Communion. It permeates the atmosphere and it's an integral part of the school-day. There are visits to churches for example and dry-runs of the ceremonies, the teaching of prayers etc etc. Schools are not necessarily geared-up (nor is there any obligation on them) to supervise children who are 'opted out', whether in the classroom itself or in a separate room. There is also the fact that small children don't like to be made to feel different. My wife would say that taking these issues into consideration in the school where she works, few if any children are ever opted out. Parents would probably have to take responsibility for the child's supervision during the religion period itself and I don't know what solution there would be for all other situations. The same is true in the C of I school where my neighbour works. If you don't want your child to be taught religion then the better option I think would be to send him or her to a non-denominational school, admittedly hard to find in certain areas.

To determine how people in general feels about the ongoing teaching of religion would require a major poll I believe. I suspect that the results might be somewhat interesting. Despite the falloff in attendance at church services, people, even if they themselves are not regular church-goers, want their children to have First Communion and Confirmation. Marriages are still commonly performed in churches and churches tend to be considerably fuller than usual at times such as Christmas and Easter. That suggests to me that people may still want their children taught religion.

You may take it to be a fact also that if the majority of schools are Catholic, which actually means that the Parish Priest is on the Board of Management as are parishioners appointed by the Bishop, there would be considerable opposition to dropping the teaching of religion so expect any change in the situation to happen very slowly.
 
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Re: The Banker

capall said:
That reads like a John McGahern short story !

I guess you were unlucky with the teachers in that school rather than the religion.

I laughed at your story about the cross,sorry.
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When I was very young I had very bad experiences with dentists.
Won't go into all the details but they were giving kids fairly deep fillings without any anaesthetic.

Needless to say I developed a hatred for dentists and rejected dentistry.

It was when I moved to the US and heard other peoples experiences I realised it was more of an Irish problem back then not a problem with
dentists and dentistry in general.

Thank St Peter's-white-gates-to-heaven for the genius of American Dentistry as I've got me faith in dentistry restored and against all odds a reasonable set of (me own) pearly whites :D
 
When I was in national school a dentist used to come around to the school in a caravan .

Kids were dragged into the caravan kicking and screaming and a while later would emerge ,clutching their jaw,blood dripping.

I never visited the caravan ,I think I was too young. But my brother did and my parents afterwards had to bring him to a private dentist to rectify whatever the caravan dentist did

I kid you not
 
The Banker, thank you for sharing that, sadly I think thats a fairly normal experience for people of our age.

With all the horror that has been exposed about our industrial schools and s**ual abuse by religious orders, the stories that have not been told are about the normal day to day schooling in religious primary schools in the 70s, the rulers across knuckes, the bullying of children living in poverty / who were slow / who were left handed.
 
I have fond memories of my Catholic education in the 80s.
Altar boy duty, the buzz in the parish preparing for Easter.
Cash in hand for weddings, funerals and the big one Ordinations

Missionary priests attending the school with exciting stories of Africa etc
 
Corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in 1982, so I think there is a big difference between schooling in the 70s and the 80s.
 
DrMoriarty said:
As a young boy, I found that rocking violently back and forth and rolling my eyes while speaking Latin backwards in a very deep voice was usually sufficient for me to be excused from class.
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Up to your usual high standard LOL :D
 
SarahMc said:
Corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in 1982, so I think there is a big difference between schooling in the 70s and the 80s.
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I was in primary school post-1982 and I remember corporal punishment being administered. Don't think it was officially sanctioned by the school, it was just some of the older nuns who didn't want to change a habit of a lifetime excuse the pun.

I do remember the school backing the teachers when parents complained even after one kid ended up in hospital!
 
Just wondered if non muslims can attend muslim school in Dublin and are they excused from religion classes.Similiarly with jewish schools can non jewish children attend and be excused from religion class.
 
room305 said:
I was in primary school post-1982 and I remember corporal punishment being administered. Don't think it was officially sanctioned by the school, it was just some of the older nuns who didn't want to change a habit of a lifetime excuse the pun.

I do remember the school backing the teachers when parents complained even after one kid ended up in hospital!
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I agree. Corporal punishment went on in my school till around 1990.
 
Just wondered if non muslims can attend muslim school in Dublin and are they excused from religion classes.Similiarly with jewish schools can non jewish children attend and be excused from religion class.
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Yes, provided there are places available. This is the case with COI schools; though I only know of 2 parents (both atheist families) who removed their children from the religion lessons.
 
Anyone hear St. Stansiclaus on radio one yesterday, she is asking the department of education to take their role seriously in providing schools and the religion orders to understand they are not there to provide education adn should row back from school issues from now on.
She was a great balance to the argument I though.

I would like to remind you all that double standards have existed here before Jewish or Muslim schools were set up here - Church of Ireland school now can and do refuse children an education based on their religon and they can also refuse teachers based on their religious background and training. I am amazed how the points for teaching for COI primary teaching course and Catholic ones are allowed to be different, to me that is discrimiation based on religion?
 
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