Religion at school, here and in Spain.
For the last 10 to 15 years, the role that religion should have or not have at schools in Spain has made the news very often. This is so because of the political changes; the Constitution gives a wide margin of freedom to the government, and the only things that would be definitely anticonstitutional are to teach against any religion or to force children to take Religion classes against their parents’ wishes. Simplifying a lot, when the conservatives are in power they want Religion to be a school subject as important as Music or History, and non-Catholic kids can take a few bland alternatives like extra credit where needed, and the socialists (socialdemocrats? Anyway, the guys to the left of the conservatives and to the right of the communists) try to please everyone at the same time by keeping the Religion subject while reducing its weight in the curriculum (when I was a child the grade didn’t count towards my average grade) and giving some entity to the alternative for non-Catholics; some form of Education in Secular Moral Values. Every major change in the government gives proportional changes to the education system, or at least tries to.
The main argument used in favour of the Religion subject is that Catholicism is important to Spanish society; besides, conservatives have never taken seriously the secular alternative as a subject, which is not a fault of the principle but of the practice: in my school, there was a year or two when I and the other kids that didn’t want to take Religion were left alone and unsupervised in the school library, with a teacher coming to check on us if we were noisy.
The main arguments of the enemies of that course are that Spain does not have an official religion, that Catholicism is unfairly privileged, and that the time and the resources spent on it should go to teach “real” subjects. Leaving aside that they dislike Catholicism, of course, as a doctrine of oppression and misery (and anticonstitutional principles such as sexual discrimination, but that’s another rant for another day)
I think that the conservatives are missing the point. Their main motive is obviously that they would like to retain as much public presence as they can get. While they are in schools they can make an effort to keep children and maybe even teens under their influence. They are so shortsighted… no, excuse me. They are so fucking blind. Just go and compare with the American situation. In this country, as far as I know, the First Amendment forces schools to behave as if religions didn’t exist. All religions. If Evolution is out of the school curriculum in some States it is because it was judged to be against the beliefs of some Christians, not because the schools of that State are officially Christian. And still it is the developed country with the highest percentage of people going to church regularly (I mean church, temple, mosque, synagogue, place of worship in general). And the highest percent of people calling themselves Christian too. Why? Because you cannot make believers at school. Children believe first their parents, then their peers. You cannot inspire religion by teaching it, not beyond age five, not to people who live in a secular world the other 23 hours of the day.
The most the conservatives would get would be stealing one or two hours a week away from the real courses. Have children and teens study for Religion exams when they should be studying Literature and English. Pay the salary of the Religion teacher with the money that should pay a new computer or books for the library. And then all those children would become atheists, as they so often do, as soon as they hit sixteen years-old. Because it is in the air they breathe. Simple as that.
The main argument used in favour of the Religion subject is that Catholicism is important to Spanish society; besides, conservatives have never taken seriously the secular alternative as a subject, which is not a fault of the principle but of the practice: in my school, there was a year or two when I and the other kids that didn’t want to take Religion were left alone and unsupervised in the school library, with a teacher coming to check on us if we were noisy.
The main arguments of the enemies of that course are that Spain does not have an official religion, that Catholicism is unfairly privileged, and that the time and the resources spent on it should go to teach “real” subjects. Leaving aside that they dislike Catholicism, of course, as a doctrine of oppression and misery (and anticonstitutional principles such as sexual discrimination, but that’s another rant for another day)
I think that the conservatives are missing the point. Their main motive is obviously that they would like to retain as much public presence as they can get. While they are in schools they can make an effort to keep children and maybe even teens under their influence. They are so shortsighted… no, excuse me. They are so fucking blind. Just go and compare with the American situation. In this country, as far as I know, the First Amendment forces schools to behave as if religions didn’t exist. All religions. If Evolution is out of the school curriculum in some States it is because it was judged to be against the beliefs of some Christians, not because the schools of that State are officially Christian. And still it is the developed country with the highest percentage of people going to church regularly (I mean church, temple, mosque, synagogue, place of worship in general). And the highest percent of people calling themselves Christian too. Why? Because you cannot make believers at school. Children believe first their parents, then their peers. You cannot inspire religion by teaching it, not beyond age five, not to people who live in a secular world the other 23 hours of the day.
The most the conservatives would get would be stealing one or two hours a week away from the real courses. Have children and teens study for Religion exams when they should be studying Literature and English. Pay the salary of the Religion teacher with the money that should pay a new computer or books for the library. And then all those children would become atheists, as they so often do, as soon as they hit sixteen years-old. Because it is in the air they breathe. Simple as that.
Comentario:
Y lo peor... Que los profesores de religion sean nombrados por la conferencia episcopal...
No dudo que estas personas tengan estudios en teologia (aunque dudo mucho que enseñaran -por ejemplo- las similitudes existentes entre el cristianismo y las doctrinas orientales), pero pasan por encima de los demas al no tener que enfrentarse con ellos en un examen.
Even worse...
A) Teachers of this subject -religion- get their posts 'cos they form part of the hierarchical structure of Catholic Churh (most of them are priests), I mean, they do NOT have to pass any exams as other-subject teachers do (i.e. Maths, Science or Arts teachers)
B) They may be experts in theology, however, it's not likely they would ever teach anything like cross-influence or similarities between different religions.
No dudo que estas personas tengan estudios en teologia (aunque dudo mucho que enseñaran -por ejemplo- las similitudes existentes entre el cristianismo y las doctrinas orientales), pero pasan por encima de los demas al no tener que enfrentarse con ellos en un examen.
Even worse...
A) Teachers of this subject -religion- get their posts 'cos they form part of the hierarchical structure of Catholic Churh (most of them are priests), I mean, they do NOT have to pass any exams as other-subject teachers do (i.e. Maths, Science or Arts teachers)
B) They may be experts in theology, however, it's not likely they would ever teach anything like cross-influence or similarities between different religions.
Comentario:
Cuando me harto de reír es cuando salen los retrógrados de costumbre diciendo que sólo en clase de religión aprendían los niños una moral que les permitiría vivir en sociedad. Resulta que ni los padres ni los profesores de otras asignaturas pueden inculcar a los niños que no se debe robar y asesinar :P
Por cierto, revisa el texto, que hay un párrafo repetido, en el que dices que las horas de religión se podría dedicar a otras cosas y el catolicismo está favorecido. Besos
Por cierto, revisa el texto, que hay un párrafo repetido, en el que dices que las horas de religión se podría dedicar a otras cosas y el catolicismo está favorecido. Besos