Religion and Culture
Further difficulties that face teachers in secular schools come from trying to determine the difference between religion and culture. The reason why educational reformers were keen to separate religion from education was at least in part because they wanted education to become more rigorous: they wanted children to learn how to think for themselves instead of having to rely upon established beliefs, the validity of which people were starting to question. In order to be able to think for themselves, however, children need to be able to understand the world in which they are living, and if they are not provided with information about the culture within which they are growing up, they are unlikely to be able to develop this understanding. For example, if children living in Europe or North America don’t know the story of Adam and Eve, the story of Noah, the story of Moses, or the story of Jesus – and nowadays they often do not – and if they do not know anything about the Greek Gods, then they will have great difficulty in making sense of anything that they read that was written more than twenty years ago.

If a teacher does, however, tell children these stories, it is difficult to see how it could be done in a non-religious way. Furthermore, having heard about the life of Jesus, etc., the children are bound to ask whether or not it is true, and what significance it has in their own lives: whatever answer the teacher provides, it is religious education in one form or another.

Teaching Morals in an Immoral Environment
These difficulties are compounded when it comes to issues of morality – and this is a problem which is becoming ever more acute in today’s schools. Schools cannot function unless children can be made to agree to a certain code of behaviour – they have to show a certain respect for their teachers; they have to listen when they are being spoken to; they have to be present for the lessons; they shouldn’t fight with other children or assault the teacher; it is better if they do not use offensive or abusive language; they shouldn’t smoke or drink during lessons, etc., etc.

Teachers have traditionally relied upon ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to ensure that these basic codes of social behaviour are followed: when children behave as directed they are being ‘good’, and when they do not, they are being ‘bad’ and must expect to be punished.

Even when running reasonably well, schools represent rather a tortured moral ethic because the teachers do things – such as shouting, threatening, bullying, etc. – which they expressly do not want the children to do themselves.

Religion has traditionally been used to bolster this somewhat dubious double standard: teachers have tended to portray God as being vengeful, and bent on punishing anyone who strays too far from the path of righteousness; they have then taken this as a model for their own behaviour when dealing with children who do not do what they are told.

Once religion has been taken out of the school curriculum then the teachers no longer have any moral authority with which to justify punishing children.

This is a dilemma that few people who have not worked within the education system have managed to grasp: almost every politician knows that votes can be won by saying that they are going to improve school discipline, but once you have removed any sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ from the curriculum, discipline becomes impossible.

Why Not Simply Return to a Traditional Religious Education?
Such considerations make many people long to return to the days when schools were overtly religious – but such a course of action is probably impossible, and, if it was attempted, would almost certainly have disastrous consequences.

The global economy and the multi-cultural nature of modern society have created a situation in which people living in close, day-to-day contact with each other are following different religions.

Experience gained in various parts of the world has amply demonstrated the difficulties that arise when different religious traditions are taught within the same community: the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland and the experiences of several centuries of Jewish people living in Europe show what happens when two religions try to coexist side by side.

Most religions advocate tolerance of people who have other religious beliefs but they also tend to suggest that they themselves represent the only true faith, and that people of other religions are destined for Hell. Sooner or later this contradiction gives rise to some sort of civil strife in which members of the more powerful religion use their beliefs as an excuse to persecute members of the less powerful.

This phenomenon is now being seen on a global scale with the advent of Islamic terrorism. The ease of travel and communications in the modern world means that it is no longer true that particular religious beliefs can be localised to particular places: any overtly religious education system, anywhere in the world, now has a direct effect upon everyone else, no matter how remote it might be geographically from places where other religions are practised.

In this connection, leaders of Islamic communities around the world are now having to re-examine how religion is to be taught in their schools: any education that presents Islam in the light of being the one true religion, or Muslims as being persecuted and oppressed by unrighteous Westerners, plays into the hands of extremists who want to sow mayhem and destruction amongst peaceful communities. Similar problems would face any other group who wanted to set up schools with an exclusively religious curriculum.

A Baby Has No Religion
The underlying truth with respect to religious education is something that everyone knows but, which, perhaps, is not sufficiently acknowledged: children are born without any religion at all – in Northern Ireland, for example no one is born Protestant or Catholic, there are simply babies born to Protestant and Catholic families; similarly, there is no such thing as a Jewish baby, a Christian baby, a Hindu baby, or a Muslim baby. Adults are therefore only justified in bringing up a child so that it becomes a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, or a Muslim, if they are convinced that it is in its best interests – and that conviction is not as widespread now as it was in the past, when most people saw their religion as something that would provide help and support for their children throughout their lives.

Comparative Religion
Taking all this into account, it is easy to understand why the trend in Western countries has been to move away from including any form of religious instruction in the school curriculum, and where it is included, not to instruct children in a particular religion but to try to present the subject in a disinterested way – ‘Christians believe this.’, ‘Hindus believe this.’, ‘Muslims believe this’, etc.

As hinted earlier in this article, this approach has not proved to be an adequate response to the challenge of teaching religion: children seek some sort of moral code and guidance from their teachers, and if teachers are unable to address the most important issues of life, they cannot expect to be respected by their pupils.

What Schools are Really Teaching Our Children
Schools may aim to be neutral on religious issues, but there is an underlying set of beliefs that runs through the modern school curriculum: it can be summarised as believing that Human Beings are essentially animals, that the whole of creation has arisen through chance, that the idea of there being a divinity is a superstition rooted in the past, and that the purpose of life is to get as much for oneself as one can.

Perhaps nobody has consciously decided that this is what we want children to believe, but it is what has arisen to fill the vacuum left by removing traditional religious instruction from the school curriculum; and one could argue that it is proving to be disastrous both for society and for people in their individual lives. It seems to be responsible for creating an increasingly materialistic society in which people do not care for each other, or for the world in which they live, but simply devote their energy towards the acquisition of material possessions without any thought for the consequences.

Being a Responsible Parent
The conclusion to be drawn from the above arguments seems to be that everything to do with the teaching of religion is fraught with difficulty, and that one cannot avoid these difficulties by simply pretending that one is not going to teach religion at all. In view of this, the following are a few suggestions based on my experience of teaching children from a range of cultural backgrounds (as well as from teaching my own children).

Reading the Scriptures: There are at least three good reasons for studying the scriptures, whether one is religious or not. Firstly, the scriptures have played an important role in the history of the world, and if children have not read them, they will have difficulty in understanding the world as it is today.

Secondly, in spite of the huge volume of new material now being produced every year, the scriptures are still the most influential pieces of literature so far produced by mankind – and for this reason alone anyone wishing to be considered well-educated ought to read them.

Thirdly, throughout history, there has been a discrepancy between what is said in the scriptures themselves and what is said by the established religions which purport to follow them. Rather than explaining one’s own views about the beliefs of a particular religion to a child, it is far preferable to let them read the scripture upon which that religion is based.

Behaving Well: Being good and being religious are closely associated with each other in most people’s minds. Unfortunately, modern society is permeated by such a sense of disillusionment that people have come to associate religious people’s attempts at being good with hypocrisy and double standards. To counteract this, parents and educators can try to act well towards the children in their care – without linking this good behaviour to any set of religious beliefs.

Parents who have time for their children, who listen to them, who take their concerns seriously, who are kind to them, and who put the needs of their children before their own problems, will obviously win the respect of their children. If a child sees that it is their parent’s religion that has helped them to behave in this way then, by default, they will acquire a respect for that religion.

Admitting That One Does Not Know: Part of the whole process of setting a good example is being honest. Judging by the scriptures themselves, there have been remarkably few people in the course of human history who have really understood the mysteries of religion, and there is therefore no shame in admitting to a child that there are things that one does not oneself know or understand.

If your child asks ‘What is God?’ or ‘What is going to happen to me when I die?’, it is quite acceptable to answer that you don’t know – even if one is a practising member of a religion. People are worried that such an answer will disturb a child, but if one stops to consider the matter for a moment, the fact that a child has asked the question means that they have accepted that they themselves do not know the answer; if you admit that you don’t know the answer either, then you are providing them with a sense of fellowship; they are no longer alone in their uncertainty.

Admitting that there are things that you don’t know will not put a child off from studying religion – on the contrary, it is likely to increase their interest in the subject and encourage them to search for the answers to life’s most interesting questions for themselves.

Religion may not be a fashionable part of the educational curriculum, but anyone who takes education seriously knows that it is looking for answers to the most important questions in life that makes studying and learning worthwhile. An education that does not face these issues is not really an education at all.

Gareth Lewis

Your letters and comments are welcome. You can send them to Gareth Lewis at the following address, or to me at the address beneath:
gareth.lewis@freedom-in-education.co.uk

wendy@freedom-in-education.co.uk