Religion in pre-school

Morag

We've had two poems come home this week to be learned by heart all about the baby Jesus in the manger, as Irish and English homework /sigh.

Sarky

Doesn't anyone learn Tom's Bomb any more?

Heh, first Google result was a post back on Boards.ie. How handy!

misemise

hi there, just wanted to add that Montessori isn't a trademarked word and any one can claim to be a montessori to bump up the price. (happens a lot!) The creche were I work has a Montessori room that is very very good and true to the Montessori method. I know that in our room no religion is thought and the christmas play they are doing has nothing to do with religion. This is normal for a 'real' Montessori room but as some one has already pointed out it is completely up to the people who own the facility on how they choose to run it.

EGAR

My son's creche (he went three days a week until he started school) was completely non-religious. I was very happy with that and then he started school....

Peregrinus

misemise wrote: »

. . . I know that in our room no religion is thought and the christmas play they are doing has nothing to do with religion. This is normal for a 'real' Montessori room but as some one has already pointed out it is completely up to the people who own the facility on how they choose to run it.

There's nothing in the Montessori system which is inconsistent with a religious approach to education, and Maria Montessori was herself a devout Catholic. An "authentic" Montessori school may have any religious character, or none. The fact that a school is, or claims to be, a "Montessori" school tells you nothing about its religious character; if you want to know that, you need to ask.

Gregor Samsa

OP here. There's been a few recent replies, so I thought I'd give an update.

In fairness, my daughter tells us nothing about what goes on in the playschool, but there hasn't been any episodes of spontaneous praying since she started, so either it's something they don't do much, or she doesn't pay much attention to.

They were due to do a little concert on Thursday, with each of them assigned a Christmas song. My one got "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer". My wife got the impression that they deliberately gave her a non religious one (we wouldn't have minded either way at all, to be honest). But it turns out that the kids aren't very good at remembering the words, so they're doing a group rendition of "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" instead.

We had to go to a Catholic funeral at the weekend, so there was lots of questions there (What's in the box? Why is the man in the box? Where are they going to put the box?). Fortunately, she asked me and my brother, instead of some of the rest of my extended family (I have an uncle in the Knights of St. Columbanus, for instance), so we were able to answer without any ridiculous mumbo-jumbo.

mikhail

phutyle wrote: »

...We had to go to a Catholic funeral at the weekend, so there was lots of questions there (What's in the box? Why is the man in the box? Where are they going to put the box?)...

Ellis Dee

bluewolf wrote: »

prayers in the morning for 3 year olds are they for real

I fear they are very much for real. the god-botherers know that the time to start moulding little minds is when they are very impressionable and malleable. The younger you start, the more effective the brainwashing/conditioning is. :eek::eek:

lynski

my 5 yr old, educate together attendee, decided last week he did not believe in god because god is just made up stories, but he might believe in jesus, cause they talked about him at mass, the one time he has been for my dads funeral.
I think he is not so sure about Santa either.