Should Sacred Studies be part of a general public school curricula

Jar,I see an understanding of religion as crucial to a child's education, especially in a cultural environment that is loaded with religious references (as in the US and many other countries).A child who knows about the history of religious thought will not only have a valuable source of knowledge about the history of human ideas, and a basis for understanding much of western philosophy, but will also be best equipped to understand the origin and ideology of the new religions (i.e. various strands of born-again christianity, etc) and best equipped to deal sensibly with the debate on intelligent design and biology.Mick

This is the only part I don't like. Where Greek culture has made a contribution to mathematics or whatever, then it is already taught, is it not? Everybody learns Pythagoras' theorem, for example. And everybody is taught how to use arabic numerals. I'm not sure what useful thing sacred studies would add to the existing maths syllabus.As for history and current events - again, these should already cover comparative religion to some extent. I remember as a 14 year old studying the history of medicine, and we covered the contribution made by major civilizations of various religions.Sacred Studies should be taught, but i don't see it as the bedrock of study, that has to be "integrated" everywhere in the syllabus. In fact that sounds a little alarming.

Well, okay.I agree that it would be ideal for all scientific and mathematical classes to include some work on the history of these disciplines. That is something I personally feel I have missed out on. I am okay with the "cutting edge" bits of my own biological research, but my historical knowledge even of my own field only extends in detail back through a few decades. I get very sketchy when we reach the pre-wwII period, and more vague still in the nineteenth century. So your aim in and of itself is admirable.The problem is that the quality of maths education, worldwide, is already quite poor. For many kids, just understanding simple differential equations is a struggle. If we were to sacrafice classroom hours to studying the detailed history of the discipline, I don't see that the quality of maths education would increase.In fact one needs to understand the power and beauty of something like maths, before one can understand the magnitude of early culture's contribution. If you don't understand trigonometry, then the contribution of ancient greece will likely seem trivial.

I strongly agree.Teaching kids about the contributions to knowledge made by people of cultures other than western-european would be a good way of making them less xenophobic and less intolerant. It would have the happy consequence of giving them a grounding in philosophy and history. But we don't need to go overboard and put the history of religion into every class.As an alternative to jar's suggestion, might I make a suggestion of my own?A school class in the history of ideas. Professional philosophers and historians may sneers, but I think it would do the job that jar wants it to do, and would satisfy people like SuperDave as well.mick

Really? There are only 24 hours in the day, jar. I'm sure that we could make education more efficient, but we will reach a point at which there is only so much one can learn from the age of 5 to 16 (these are the age groups we're talking about, right?)I'm kind of torn two ways here. I KNOW that our kids are not stretched enough at school. Around one quarter of them are bored stupid, and around half drop behind because teachers don't have time for them, or because they think that school can't make their life better.Maybe there is room for your proposal in the timetable, but it would rely upon a complete revamp of our teaching methods. I am not a school teacher, and I don't know how the solution to this problem. For a while I used to work voluntarily at a pretty average primary school, teaching basic skills like reading and maths. The teachers were INCREDIBLY grateful just for the fact that I bothered to turn up. They definitely seemed worked off their feet dealing with the average kids, never mind the cleverer ones and the ones with problems. Adding extra stuff to the curriculum, saying that it is not a zero sum game, would have been met with despair! This is a deplorable statement. I agree. Maybe we should look outside of schools for the reason. Personally, every time I see an Arab on TV they are a terrorist rather than a mathematician. I certainly can't recall such an idea being taught to me at school. Maybe it is an idea that is picked up elsewhere. But it's definitely a reason to teach comparative religion rather than a single religion. It's an argument against private religious schools, for example. As far as I know, public schools (at least in the UK) don't teach such things.Perhaps the people who come to EvC are more likely than the general population to make such silly statements. I'm 100% with you on that one.

Okay, I took a look at the St. Paul's website. [qs=Jar]Well, the bit about the inestimable worth and dignity of each individual is admirable. But the stuff about a spirit of service before god, and the idea that each individual is made in the image of God, sounds like nonsense to me.Perhaps it's a great school. You say it fulfils all of my requirements, perhaps it does, I have no reason to doubt you. I don't want to pick a fight with St. Pauls, particularly. It's a religious school, probably indoctrinates its kids to some extent, like any other religious school.

General Krull,do you have to teach that stuff?Mick

well, yeah, as an atheist it would actually make my life easier if religion didn't exist at all. We could then all learn about the history of ideas in a detached manner. It's only these bloody believers who get in the way of such utopia. But never mind. Now THAT's something I find hard to stomach. I was sent to one of those brain-washing sessions every week, for years. I really don't see why my parents had the right to attempt to brainwash me. Children are meant to have human rights, including the right to their own freedom of conscience, aren't they?

Did St. Paul's teach episcopalianism? If not, in what way was their role distinct from non-episcopalian, non-private schools?Mick