Question about Religion in American Schools:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

I was schooled in India and we are a secular country (theoretically). Our coursework included studying the basic tenets of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Christianity.


Did you guys get any schooling in any religion? if so what religion and to what extent?

[Anaxamander]

1. I remember learning about Islam

And of course Greek mythology, but I remember that teachers were very careful when talking about the Bible. They would always stress that they were referencing it, not reading FROM it, which I appreciated as an atheist. This was in South Georgia.

[demnan]

2. No

I learned about religion through reading. But it's not covered in grade school or high school, however it is an elective in many colleges

[liontamer]

3. my junior high school covered history in regions

So when we discussed a region, we discussed the religions of that region

[La Lioness Priyanka]

30. that sounds like a sensible way to do it

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. That'd be no for me in CT

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. Not that I can recall. Only that JFK was a Catholic in my American

History class, but no real coverage for me. :hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. thats interesting....

india interprets secular very differently from the USA

to the indian constitution secular means freedom to practise any religion and the space/time to do it with

[forgethell]

6. We stated each day

with a non-sectarian (and very vanilla) prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. That was about it.

[arcane1]

8. hell no

well, I take that back: My first 3 years of school were spent in a Southern Baptist private school, and they had one entire class each day devoted to Bible studies, but never once mentioned any other religion (aside from a ridiculous strawman argument against evolution)

Moving into public school, religion in general was simply missing from study entirely. Even in social studies classes, we never learned about what other people believed, just what they did, ate, etc.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. we had an optional bible studies class

for christians in my school (i went to a catholic school)

[Solon]

9. Had a Hindu, a Muslim, Christian, and Jewish clergy in...

to discuss their religions over 5 days one week, each one for each day of that week. We learned basic tenets, though I will say that wasn't extensive. My best friend in High School was an Indian exchange student, and I asked him about Hinduism many times. Brought it up when I asked why he brought lunch everyday, he simply said, "Do you have any idea how much of American food has beef in it?". That explained everything for me :)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. funny how the beef thing came about!

[Solon]

21. Yeah, well I was curious and all...

I asked what he was eating one day, some type of sandwich, and he said it was tuna fish, I was like, ewwwww....(I HATE TUNA FISH!!!!). I asked why and he said he was Hindu, this was the first day I met him. You know its funny when I think about it, but, I lived in a suburban hell hole for all my life, and yet, even though I am White, most of my friends weren't. My best friends in Elementary through middle were two buddies, Marky, who was black, we were practically brothers, raised together and all. My other best friend at the time was Walter, he was Philipino. Never really thought about it before like that, they were just my friends. I guess this is why I never understood racism or any type of bigotry, just seems like an alien concept to me. :shrug:

[sangh0]

11. I learned about all sorts of religions in public school

and not just The Big Three.

I also learned about Hare Krishnas, Buddhism, Hinduism and others

[chimpy the poopthrower]

12. Public schools are not supposed to teach religion in a way...

...that seems to promote one religion over another. I think religion can (and should) be taught in relation to other subjects -- history, multicultural studies, even literature. But I think a lot of schools just avoid religious issues altogether, which is a shame in my opinion.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. i agree its a shame

builds misconceptions

[DrWeird]

13. Pfff, we didn't study evolution in my school.

My biology teacher told the class he was too scared to teach it because a teacher in a neighboring district got fired for it.

That's how secular my public high school was.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. ugh!

sorry! i never heard of creationism till i move to america

[DrWeird]

17. No, you wouldn't have.

It's almost entirely an American evangelical phenomenon.

To further illustrate my point, a teenage girl got pregnant in another neighboring district and claimed she was a virgin and that it was immacculate conception. A bunch of people believed her.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. OH MY GOD!!

poor poor you!

though there was the lord ganesh drinking milk incident in india. very embarrassing!

[liontamer]

31. clever girl

did she get any presents out of it?

[porphyrian]

16. Not in Florida public schools between 1975 and 1987. - n/t

[Nay]

34. But in Florida public jr hi school and grade school in the 50's & 60's,

I remember a whole section on the major religions of the world -- I especially remember learning the Buddhist Four Noble Truths and quite a bit of Hinduism, Confucianism, the history of the splitting up of Catholics into sects because of Martin Luther, etc., etc. We all had to know and be able to write down on the test each religion's major tenets. Very informative, and did not stress one religion over another. I even remember learning one of the Native American beliefs about the earth actually being the back of a huge turtle.

[Craig Roberts]

19. In high school

I think there were some efforts to teach us comparative religions, and we were always told about religious issues being a factor in the early European immigration to America. But religion was always discussed as an historical or cultural matter and looked at objectively. I did a report on Mohammed when I was a freshman in high school.

On the other hand, there were a couple of teachers who insisted on "witnessing" at least once to their captive audience. I remember one weird incident with a teacher when I was a sophmore, who told us some crazy story which combined the "the greatest thing that ever happened to me was accepting Jesus as my personal savior" thing with a story about how he tried to kill some guy's hunting dog by beating it with his rifle because it had attacked his hunting dog or something. Jesus, that guy was an idiot.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. yikes!

[arcane1]

22. reminds me of a biology teacher I had in high school...

who was also an Amway distributor. He spent an entire class teaching us how multi-level marketing worked


you can't get good biology like that anywhere else :eyes:

[Solon]

24. Now that is funny! n/t

[arcane1]

27. I'm afraid Amway really is like a religion to people like him

money certainly is

[porphyrian]

37. Amway is a money cult. - n/t

[Craig Roberts]

26. Jeez

Amway is almost a religion itself. My father was into Amway for awhile and had me read a book called, "The Greatest Salesman in the World." It was about Jesus. The Amway sub-culture was always trying to merge their marketing ethos with Christianity in very, very creepy ways.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. No

and even though part of my schooling was before the Supreme Court decision outlawing school prayer, we NEVER had school prayer either.

[Ladyhawk]

28. I went to a fundamentalist Christian school.

All we learned about was fundamentalist Christianity and I was never taught evolution. Now my mind is thirsty for the life sciences.

[cally]

29. No for me, but my children learn about different religions

In 8th grade, they study all the major religions and then do a segment on smaller ones. It's done well. They learn about the basic tenets of each faith and the culture surrounding it. Noone preaches to them but they learn understanding. Often a student will speak about their own faith. This is a California public school.

[hiphopnation]

32. Was fortunate enough to have been sent to a private school

for four years where I had religion classes. The school was Episcopalian but the religion classes included study of all major world religions. I was very lucky.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. yes you are

[Trajan]

35. Your question is somewhat vague ...

SURELY: If one desires, they can attend 'Comparative Religion' classes at the college/university level, which I believe is mandatory for certain Social Studies majors, like Philosophy, etc ...

Religion may also be introduced at the lower levels of public schools through similar social studies oriented curriculum ...

So yes: it IS available to those who seek it, and to those who seek certain fields of study ...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

36. my question was directed out of curiousity

wasnt really being judgemental...

a lot of peeople dont go to college so really thats not what i am interested in

[hyphenate]

38. Only to a small extent

that would have been related to world history--things like the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, Henry VIII, etc., etc.

Public high schools maintain a secular curriculum--or at least they did at my high school so many years ago. We did salute the flag each day, though.

Many of us went to "Sunday school" in order to get educated on religious work. I hated it, and rarely attended (even though I got beaten severely for it once). I think it was part of the reason I turned away from organized religion at an early age. I attended parochial school (school run by a religious order or church) for a year and hated it so much.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

41. indian education is secular too

but i think by secular we mean all inclusive and in america it means all exclusive...if that makes sense...i find the difference in these attitudes about secular to be very interesting.

[oldlady]

39. Yes, back in the late 70s

we had Comparative Religion in about 10th or 11th grade with Mrs. Jones. Loved that woman. She lived one town over & when we got our licenses, we'd drop by and say hi, eat cookies, continue the conversations, steal For Sale signs from other yards & put them in hers, you know...dorky stuff. Good thing we had that class, because in my all white hometown there were no known non-Christians-- though the three or four Jehovah's Witnesses in school were considered outsiders. We had a foreign exchange student each year, but we never knew their religion-- except one girl from Sri Lanka, who privately complained to me about her host family speaking in tongues. I think it's important to know & raised my kids in the most diverse neighborhood I could. They've grown up with neighbors who are Muslim, Animists, Shamans, Buddhists... but we know almost no one who is Jewish or Hindu. Guess that's for the grandkids generation.
peace.

[Cleita]

40. I went to Catholic school on and off, including some college.

You can be sure I learned a lot about that one religion in Catholic school. Secular school or public school way back then before the sixties focused on citizenship rather than religion. We were taught to be good citizens. Christian holidays were sort of honored like Santa Claus Xmas decorations or Easter bunny stuff, but no we weren't taught anything about Jesus in public school. Our history classes mentioned religions like Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism when necessary, but not much was taught about them.

[GliderGuider]

42. My experience in Canada

During the 1950s in rural Ontario my parents fought a ceaseless battle to keep the itinerant elementary school bible-thumper operating within the rules so we could skip the half-hour per week indoctrination session. The only exposure to religion we had was the obligatory morning recital of the Lord's Prayer (this was 1956-1964) which my sisters and I sat out.

There was no comparative religion instruction in elementary school, or in high school during the '60s either. I think the reason was that religion just wasn't a big deal in the school system, as in Canada generally. I think this has changed now - with increasing multi-culturalism comparative religion is included in social studies classes.