Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
I do not object to any of that.  What Armistead said and what I also think is that in a secular state, public schools should give dedicated religious classes no room but that the state should stay out of such lobby-focussed religious education. Still, said religions have been influential economic and political actors in history - sometimes in good and more often in bad, and thus are an object to be covered by history courses, like Rome, WWII, the Enlightenment and so. So I do not mean religions should be the only object, but one amongst many objects taught about in history classes. Teaching their history is one of the best ways to demask religions, and teaching it should not be left to religion's representatives - that would be like putting the fox in command of the henhouse. |
I'd make a difference between
religion class and
religious class. The latters haven't existed in the years I have been in school and I hope it stays as such. The former take a secular view on religions, which I support in a mandatory public school.
But I think such secular religion classes should be kept as their own. First of all, there is the issue of time which I already mentioned: history as a subject is already full of themes that we can't cover and have to make choices. There simply is no room for the theme of religion. We touch the subject, of course, but we don't teach it. That's the job of the religion classes.
Another point is that we are historians. Not experts of religion. I, for one, have only very rudimantary understanding of how Hinduism or Zen Buddhism work, and definitely wouldn't say I'm qualified to teach a lot about them. And if I want to teach their impact on, say, politics or economy, the students will first have to be taught
what they are. I'm glad we have people who have specialized on these things during their studies, who understand what they are talking about and can therefore teach it. And of course, I'm again happy we have those people so I don't have to do their work on my class time.
Again, we can and will touch religion in history when necessary, but when the students come to my class, I expect them to know from other classes what kind of religions there are.