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Teachers see God as 'too boring' for Religious Ed
From the Telegraph (UK)God is being edited out of religious education lessons in schools for fear that His presence might bore children. A study at Exeter University found that biblical accounts of the Good Samaritan, David and Goliath and Joseph were taught as ethical stories, with no reference to God, in increasingly secular classes on religion. Teachers said that they were reluctant to introduce theology because they did not believe in God or feared that constant references to Him would put off children or be seen as indoctrination. The study, which was commissioned by the Bible Society, incorporates three separate pieces of research into pupils' and teachers' attitudes to RE lessons. More than 1,000 children in nine secondary schools in the South-West, the Midlands and the North-East of England were asked to name and describe a bible story and to state its meaning. Only one in five children gave what researchers classed as a theological response that mentioned God. The vast majority gave secular, ethical answers. One 14-year-old who chose the "feeding of the 5,000" said its message was "don't take things for granted and share things". Another said that the story of David and Goliath meant that "even when the odds are stacked against you, you can still come out on top", while a 15-year-old girl said that the Nativity signified "that the birth of a newborn baby is the best gift of all". Despite such apparent lack of religious understanding, the number of teenagers who took a GCSE in RE last year rose seven per cent to 141,037, making it one of the fastest growing subjects. Prof Terence Copley, who led the study, said that observations of RE lessons showed that stories such as Joseph were told without any of the 50 references to God that appear in the Hebrew Bible narrative. "During the presentation of biblical text, God in the narratives is often consciously or unconsciously edited out by the teacher," he said. "This might be occurring because teachers interpret the goal of learning from religion to mean learning secular morals from religion. Teachers often ignored the God-centred dimension of the Bible in which God as the hero acts as the driving force behind events." Prof Copley suggested that presentation of the Bible in RE lessons was symptomatic of ambivalence towards religion in Britain. "Our young people are the products of a culture that has been secularised," he said. "The leading position of the Church, church-going and automatic subscription to the Christian moral code, have gone." Despite this, however, most pupils questioned said that the Bible was still important. Three quarters of children disagreed with the statement "the Bible is no longer relevant because people no longer believe in God". Only 15 per cent said it as "a waste of time". The more positive attitudes to the Bible expressed by pupils contradicted the expectations of teachers who told researchers that when asked, children would say the Bible was "boring, old -fashioned, and uncool". Canon John Hall, the Church of England's chief education officer, said that teachers were wrong to assume that children might be bored or put off by religion. "There is in much of the education system a strong presumption of secularism which is not articulated but is just there. In some ways, it is 30 years out of date. In fact, children have a real interest in spirituality. Children need to know the place of Christianity in our cultural heritage. They need to be confronted with the reality of Christ so that they can respond, or indeed not respond, to it." David Holloway, the vicar of Jesmond and a member of the evangelical group Reform, said schools were legally required to teach Christian values, but that "political correctness and multiculturalism" had influenced the content of lessons. "What parents want is that RE is mainly Christian and that children also learn about other faiths," he said. "We need to realise that other faiths still only make up a tiny proportion of the population. "There are teachers who take a liberal view, but omitting God does not help any religion." Terry Sanderson, the vice-president of the National Secular Society, said, however, that pupils should not be forced to read the Bible at school. "The fact is that children have rejected the Bible," he said. My kid rejected having to go to bed at a reasonable time, too. Come to think of it, most kids don't like vegetables either. Guess we should let them all run free in the woods. A spokesman for the Professional Council for Religious Education said: "It is a very interesting piece of research and provides a valuable tool for people to consider when addressing Biblical material. I am very happy with the way RE is taught in the majority of cases." Although RE is compulsory in schools, it is not a national curriculum subject and local authorities are left to determine what is taught, resulting in a huge variation in style and content. To address concerns about this, a new national guidance on RE was published last year. It says that children should learn about the six principal religions represented in Britain - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. The guidance was welcomed by the main faith groups, although some Christian groups complained that it put too much emphasis on other faiths. This is much worse than never exposing kids to religion at all. Europe really is sunk, isn't it. Posted by: sigh 2005-03-20 |
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