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Now before you storm off the comment section to tell me why religion should stay in schools, hear me out...
Just stop and think for a minute. What are the odds that all the students in any given school believe in the same god? When I think that South Africa has the most racially diverse population in the world, I think that the possibility is very slim that all our children share the same beliefs. There's simply far too many options and parents - whether knowingly or not - begin to indoctrinate their kids into their own belief system from a very young age. My grandmother is already teaching my 2 year old nephew "Jesus loves me" and he can't even speak properly yet...
Our "Rainbow Nation" diversity means that there are many children of different race in schools right now and with that comes an even more diverse list of belief systems in schools - or at least, the possibility for greater diversity exists. We have black, white, indian, coloured, asian, hispanic and maybe more children in our schools. Just thinking about the beliefs that these kids are taught by their parents the list is even bigger. There's Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, Judaism, Paganism (which consists of various different "flavours"), Wicca, Hindi, Buddhism, and many more. Even Satanism, for the purposes of equality, should be considered. This doesn't even consider Atheists either...
Some organizations insists that certain religious values be kept in schools. The ACDP wants Christian values to remain and when I hear that, I wonder if its fair to force-feed those values to children who aren't Christians. Should Pagan/Wiccan/Hindi/Buddhist values be included as well? What about Satanic values? I mean, if we're going to teach kids how to be good people, we should probably cover as many interpretations of whats good as we can, right? Isn't that what all this is about?
Have I made my point? Personally, I feel that our teachers would do better to use their time teaching our children how to read, write and use their minds, rather than what to believe. Leave that job to the parents.
If a child is born to atheist parents, he shouldn't be forced to learn Christianity or Christian values. Likewise if a child is born to Christians, she shouldn't have to learn about Buddha or Allah either.
Keep religion at home unless you're teaching a class in theology. Leave schools to do what they're really supposed to
Just stop and think for a minute. What are the odds that all the students in any given school believe in the same god? When I think that South Africa has the most racially diverse population in the world, I think that the possibility is very slim that all our children share the same beliefs. There's simply far too many options and parents - whether knowingly or not - begin to indoctrinate their kids into their own belief system from a very young age. My grandmother is already teaching my 2 year old nephew "Jesus loves me" and he can't even speak properly yet...
Our "Rainbow Nation" diversity means that there are many children of different race in schools right now and with that comes an even more diverse list of belief systems in schools - or at least, the possibility for greater diversity exists. We have black, white, indian, coloured, asian, hispanic and maybe more children in our schools. Just thinking about the beliefs that these kids are taught by their parents the list is even bigger. There's Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, Judaism, Paganism (which consists of various different "flavours"), Wicca, Hindi, Buddhism, and many more. Even Satanism, for the purposes of equality, should be considered. This doesn't even consider Atheists either...
Some organizations insists that certain religious values be kept in schools. The ACDP wants Christian values to remain and when I hear that, I wonder if its fair to force-feed those values to children who aren't Christians. Should Pagan/Wiccan/Hindi/Buddhist values be included as well? What about Satanic values? I mean, if we're going to teach kids how to be good people, we should probably cover as many interpretations of whats good as we can, right? Isn't that what all this is about?
Have I made my point? Personally, I feel that our teachers would do better to use their time teaching our children how to read, write and use their minds, rather than what to believe. Leave that job to the parents.
If a child is born to atheist parents, he shouldn't be forced to learn Christianity or Christian values. Likewise if a child is born to Christians, she shouldn't have to learn about Buddha or Allah either.
Keep religion at home unless you're teaching a class in theology. Leave schools to do what they're really supposed to
