standard end of the month rant

I have a pretty strong interest in religion. I tend also to maintain an interest in education. From time to time the two do meet.

Recently the two have been meeting more than usual.

It seems that in the past few days, the topic of religion in education reared its ugly head in the legislature. There is a movement afoot to allow parents to pull their children out of classes in which material is being covered that they may not agree with. It looks as though this would translate to parents having the right to pull kids out of science classes in which evolution is discussed.

The government, of course, denies it. I wouldn't expect them to do any less. But when the time comes I'm pretty sure there will be a rash of students pulled from science classrooms across the province.

Which raises a couple of questions: i) what rights do parents have regarding what material their children are taught?; and ii) what place does religion have in the classroom?

From a practical standpoint, I can see this turning into a disaster for teachers. Will we now be required to send advance notice of all material to be covered in class to allow parents time to ponder its worthiness? Will classes no longer be able to contain a discussion component in case 'disagreeable' material comes up? Are we to be censored for everything said and done in our classroom?

I understand parents wanting their children to have values similar to their own. But isn't it the parents' job to transmit those values? In the end everyone has to live in the same world, will be faced with ideas they disagree with and will be forced to defend their own beliefs against them.

Which brings me to the second question: what place does religion have in the classroom? There are a lot of people who say it has no place - many of whom I share numerous political beliefs with. A classroom free of religion, they say, is a tolerant classroom; one in which all students are included.

I understand the position, but I can firmly say that that's a load of horse turds.

As an English teacher I've found that literature cannot be well understood outside the frame of religion. Nor can the history tied to so much of that literature. I cannot communicate ideas about French culture and history without a discussion of religion. Yet there are people who would challenge me because I dare to mention such things within the walls of a school.

The debate really gets ugly when we turn to the sciences - the argument between intelligent design/creation and evolution rages to this day in communities across Alberta. The majority of science teachers I know have found their peace by teaching evolution and devoting ten minutes to creation during the last class of the unit.

The reality of the situation is this: to a very great extent, students' opinions, prejudices, values and beliefs are already solidified long before they arrive in a classroom. A student who enters a classroom believing in creation is unlikely to leave it believing otherwise. Children's attitudes are shaped by the conditions in which they are raised - a child raised by parents who value independent thought and open-mindedness is more likely to demonstrate those traits than a child raised otherwise.

I don't mean to suggest that teachers and schools have no effect on students whatsoever - if I didn't think that schools could play a positive role in kids lives I wouldn't work in one - but to suggest that schools are the sole mean of communicating knowledge and ideas is naive. They are simply one of countless vehicles by which culture is communicated.

"But Stu," you cry, "you still haven't really addressed the idea of religion in schools!"

There you are right, dear reader, I haven't. But patience, for I shall do so now.

Schools cannot escape the realities of the context in which they exist. The outside world will always find its way into the classroom. As teachers we can encourage students to think critically about everything they know. No more, no less.

There can be no such thing as a truly secular school. We can remove all mention of religion from the curriculum, banish it from the science lab, exorcise it in the hallways but we cannot remove those ideas from teachers' or students' belief systems.

The world needs to accept that education is an organic process and cannot be totally bent to any one group's will. Compromise is a fact of life. Sometimes we have to grit our teeth and bare it.

And that, my friends, is where I leave you. Other rants need ranting, other subjects needs flogging and I intend on giving them their due.

Merry Thursday from the brush plain.