Religion being downgraded as per circular 13/2018

sitstill

What are peoples’ thoughts on this development?

Religion is essentially to become an option subject in community schools and ETBs.

As a religion teacher, I’m not totally against it becoming an option. But I’m worried about the implamentation of the idea and what do religion teachers do if nobody chooses their subject?

Effects

Religion has no place in schools. Maybe retrain if you are worried about losing your job.

mirrorwall14

I posted in teacher shortages but you are probably right its better to have a thread. Massive concern in our school from religion teachers today. Realistically if we put an option against religion they are going to lose hours. And losing hours means losing teachers. How many hours and how many teachers won't be known until we survey. And the fact that this has to be done across all year groups makes it almost unmanageable. You can recreate the option structure for incoming first and fifth years to accommodate the change "relatively easily". However doing it retrospectively, mid course for JC and LC is a different ball game

And then there's a much bigger debate to be had within the school itself in our case, we currently have only 3 periods of religion but options are currently 4 (although changing as the New Junior Cycle comes in). It would be reasonably easy to change this for incoming option subjects and put them on a line with religion but how do you apply that to other year groups? Make religion 4 periods a week in 2nd and 3rd year as an option? But what parent is going to move their child mid cycle from another subject into a choice of religion?

Finally our current situation is that you rank your choices of option subject and we do our best to put you where you want but if classes are full, classes are full and lotto is run. You can't create a second music class for three students for example. The reading of this circular means that is irrelevant to religion. If you demand out of religion, even if all the other class groups are full, you have to be taken out and taught something else. How this will work within PT ratios is anyones guess

I've honestly no idea how this is going to be brought in. I agree with no catholic specific instruction but I do think that a religious education across all religions is important to understand the world and the current JC is reasonably good at that although all syllabi could be improved I guess

As for your specific concern, unfortunately thats the worry of every option teacher (I'm music). That students and parents won't pick it. Makes me glad I have maths as well I guess

Grueller

Effects wrote: »

Religion has no place in schools. Maybe retrain if you are worried about losing your job.

I would agree that faith formation does not. However to say that a study of religion and its causes and effects does not is frankly ridiculous, given how it shapes political policy and influences conflict right across the world.

Effects

Yeah, you have a point. As long as it's taught properly. I'm thinking of when I was in school and we were taught that supernatural abilities were real and we were being watch by an other dimensional super space creature at all times. Ah Christian Brothers!

babi-hrse

As a student 12 years ago I thought it was a doss class for the junior cert and though it was a waste of valuable time during our leaving cert thankfully they used it as a sorta stand in if you have projects to plan do it now if you have study do it now during these forty minutes the religion teacher turned more to a councillor role talking to those who wanted advice and leaving the rest of us to do our work.
There does need to be classes with a gap between work and lunch otherwise where do the students get the time to study or complete homework with a teacher who can advise them they're going the wrong way about solving for X or they're working outside the scope of the question.
No student is going to pick religion optionally you may be looking at 2 - 5%
It'll need to be reverted over to a chaplinacy role drop in drop out throughout.

sitstill

Effects wrote: »

Yeah, you have a point. As long as it's taught properly. I'm thinking of when I was in school and we were taught that supernatural abilities were real and we were being watch by an other dimensional super space creature at all times. Ah Christian Brothers!

This thread is about community schools and ETBs, which are multidenominational and often are teaching religion as an exam subject, suitable for students of all faiths and none.

I suggest that if you have no current and relevant knowledge of the situation that you disengage from the discussion.

sitstill

Effects wrote: »

Religion has no place in schools. Maybe retrain if you are worried about losing your job.

Thanks for the heads up. Back to college I go.

evolving_doors

Ok cool the jets.
The OP aimed the question to 'people' so anyone is free to give an opinion (as is typically the way on this site).
In saying that, keep in mind to be civil, so saying to simply go away and retrain isn't really helpful either.
Back on topic
Don't respond to this post on-thread.
Ta
MOD

sitstill

evolving_doors wrote: »

Ok cool the jets.
The OP aimed the question to 'people' so anyone is free to give an opinion (as is typically the way on this site).
In saying that, keep in mind to be civil, so saying to simply go away and retrain isn't really helpful either.
Back on topic
Don't respond to this post on-thread.
Ta
MOD

I said "people", but I thought that as this is the Teaching & Lecturing forum that those "people" would be fellow colleagues, i.e. other teachers, not the "I went to school 20 years ago, so I'm an expert on teaching" brigade.

r93kaey5p2izun

Will this apply to Designated Community Colleges?

I hope so. We have religion as an exam subject for JC but in reality there's more than 50% of the time spent on Catholic faith formation. They do just Catholic faith formation at LC, no exam option. 3 periods per week for juniors and seniors.

Core subjects lost periods to accommodate Wellbeing for seniors with students going mad that it should have been Religion.

sitstill

Antonella Drab Stripe wrote: »

Will this apply to Designated Community Colleges?

I hope so. We have religion as an exam subject for JC but in reality there's more than 50% of the time spent on Catholic faith formation. They do just Catholic faith formation at LC, no exam option. 3 periods per week for juniors and seniors.

Core subjects lost periods to accommodate Wellbeing for seniors with students going mad that it should have been Religion.

Yes it applies to all ETB schools, including Designated Community Colleges.

fritzelly

About time, forcing kids to endure the class even when they 'opt' out or be removed by the parents was always ridiculous
As to the OP - there will always be families that still want the RE lessons so I'm sure your job will be safe for many a year to come

TheDriver

I think the title isn't right, RE is not being downgraded. In fact it will upgrade it from a "we have to do it" homework/doss class to more schools doing it as a proper subject with students who want to do it.
It might cause a very interesting Vol sec vs ETB/ACCS schools

TheDriver

Effects wrote: »

Religion has no place in schools. Maybe retrain if you are worried about losing your job.

I disagree. Religion is part of a lot of cultures and a lot of conflicts in the world and as such, is a vital part of education in areas of history/politics/faith. Hence there is a place in the education system for people to be educated in this area if they so choose and its structured correctly.

feedthegoat

Two observations:

Firstly, community schools must offer 2 hours of religious education as per their deed of trust. Is this being revoked? If so then RE can become an optional subject, the likes of Home Ec. etc. This may save the bacon of History\Geography teachers who fear that their subject may become an optional subject within the new junior cycle programme.

Secondly, RE is not about faith formation or religious instruction. It covers all major world faiths. I don't know how many times I have seen absent RE teachers leave work on the 5 pillars of Islam!

TheDriver

DESk would override any religious agreements. The min time is for those who opt in. Circular is quite specific about all these considerations

Terri26

RE is a very important. People need to learn about different faiths as ignorance breeds contempt. A lot of parents probably have a negative experience of religion I'm school and think it will be religion teachers pushing faith down children's throats and hence they won't pick it. The exam means students take it (a bit) seriously. Ironically community schools.and community colleges are probably more likely to teach religion as an exam subject and therefore not religious instruction. The school's that are exempt are more likely to be teaching religious as a faith format. Lots of religious run school do teach it as an exam subject though.

Ave Sodalis

Our local secondary school is meant to be multidenominational. They tell you that religion class is to teach all major religions and I'd love if they actually did this. Instead, we got handed those awful catholic magazines and made read those, and were basically preached at by an extremely religious teacher. My sister is now in the school and they spent the first day of religion class this year praying for the atheists... this was a different teacher. If religion was taught the way it was meant to be taught, I'd have no problem with it remaining the way it is. It's an important topic. However, I'm certain our secondary school are far from the only school to claim to be all-inclusive but actually just use religion to preach catholism. This is why I'd support religion being made optional.

fritzelly

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

Our local secondary school is meant to be multidenominal. They tell you that religion class is to teach all major religions and I'd love if they actually did this. Instead, we got handed those awful catholic magazines and made read those, and were basically preached at by an extremely religious teacher. My sister is now in the school and they spent the first day of religion class this year praying for the atheists... this was a different teacher. If religion was taught the way it was meant to be taught, I'd have no problem with it remaining the way it is. It's an important topic. However, I'm certain our secondary school are far from the only school to claim to be all-inclusive but actually just use religion to preach catholism. This is why I'd support religion being made optional.

Maybe we should take a page out of the US system (eek doesn't sound right) where you can teach about religion but not teach religion in state schools
If you want your kids to have religious teaching then go to a school that teaches that.

r93kaey5p2izun

I think it's interesting that the circular instructs that parents are to be specifically informed that the NCCA curriculum is not confined to learning about religions, that it also serves to meet the religious instruction requirements of the Catholic Church - ie that faith formation is still catered for within the exam classes so students doing it won't necessarily be "safe" from prayers etc just because it's exam RE.

This is something that has really annoyed me in the past when I hear the "it's learning about religions not faith formation" defence of mandatory RE trotted out. In my experience that's not true in the majority of schools.

jimmycrackcorm

Effects wrote:

Religion has no place in schools. Maybe retrain if you are worried about losing your job.

As a parent I talked to my kids religion teacher about what exactly they were doing. I explained that as a typical "Irish Catholic" that doesn't go to mass, I was wondering about the point of the class.

She explained that they don't teach prayers, Catholic faith as doctrine, instead the kids were wedding taught about different religions, the history of religion and the effects of religion.

I got the impression that it wasn't exactly the syllabus that was spotted to be filled, but I was impressed and thought that was very valuable. To be taught to understand how and why billions of people actually follow religion is an important facet of religion.

LaLa2004

I suggest that people have a look at the junior cert textbook and the topics for the project that students do for the exam. That religion course is heartbreaking. It is not relevant to teenagers’ lives. There is so much history in it.

A course in which religion is a module, which deals with ethics and such issues would be more useful.

I am delighted that my younger children will have the option of not taking RE as an exam subject.

Having had the most useless day of inservice on Wellbeing - I am not optimistic about the future though....

HandsomeBob

sitstill wrote: »

What are peoples’ thoughts on this development?

Religion is essentially to become an option subject in community schools and ETBs.

As a religion teacher, I’m not totally against it becoming an option. But I’m worried about the implamentation of the idea and what do religion teachers do if nobody chooses their subject?

I don't think there's any need to be concerned about poor take up.

Choice is good at the end of the day. I didn't go to the most affluent of schools so the choice of subjects I could pick were quite restricted and it hurt me ultimately. I see no reason why a student wouldn't at least consider a properly structured and critical Religion class.

RealJohn

Effects wrote: »

Religion has no place in schools.

Not wishing to derail the thread but I’ve never understood why this attitude so often goes unchallenged, and this applies to both faith formation (in schools with a religious ethos, obviously) and religious education in general. It appears to be something that the more militant atheists (and I stress, it’s not all atheists but more the ‘angry’ variety) have managed to get ingrained as though it makes some sort of moral sense. Every subject we want children to learn is taught and, like it or not, a great many parents do want their children taught about religion. Why is it that it’s the only subject that gets the “if you want to learn that, go to a priest and learn it on your own time” treatment.

Imagine someone applied the same to science (and let’s face it, some of those who are somewhat ignorant of science almost consider it a religion anyway, not to mention many of those ‘angry atheists’): if you want to learn that, there’s a pharmaceutical plant down the road. It’s ludicrous but for some reason, religion is something that doesn’t need to be taught by an expert teacher (ie. someone who is both an expert in religion and in teaching, as most of us here strive to be in our respective subjects). Apply that logic to any other subject and it sounds nonsensical but for some reason, certain people seem to think they’re taking some sort of righteous stand by making that claim about religion. I don’t get how they get away with it.

Note: not intended as an attack on Mr/Miss/Mrs Effects there. I’m taking issue with the idea, not the poster.

Effects

RealJohn wrote: »

Why is it that it’s the only subject that gets the “if you want to learn that, go to a priest and learn it on your own time” treatment.

Imagine someone applied the same to science.

I'd say it's because religious beliefs have no grounding in fact or reality. People believe in Gods but this doesn't make them real.
Children should be taught to use critical thinking and not blindly believe falsehoods. My nephew is 5 and he learns mindfulness in school. Far more appropriate than religion from what I've experienced.

You can't apply the same to science because it is the study of what is real.

TheDriver

But it is real if you believe it is real. People believe that Jesus was real. So it's a study of what people believe and hence how that forms opinion on other things such as conflict, wars, government etc

Effects

TheDriver wrote: »

But it is real if you believe it is real.

That's a ridiculous thing to say. If I believe I've won the lottery does that mean I've won the lottery? If I believe I can fly does that mean I can fly?

TheDriver

Effects wrote: »

That's a ridiculous thing to say. If I believe I've won the lottery does that mean I've won the lottery? If I believe I can fly does that mean I can fly?

Nope but do you believe in all the historical events that have taken place? Because a lot of religious events are based on evidence (e.g. Bible) that people believe. So it merits discussion which is a key part of education.

Effects

TheDriver wrote: »

Because a lot of religious events are based on evidence (e.g. Bible) that people believe. So it merits discussion which is a key part of education.

Maybe it merits discussion in relation to history but the Bible can't be the basis of evidence. Maybe in the past, but it shouldn't be like that in modern times.

Anyway, off topic so there's no real point debating this here.

RealJohn

Effects wrote: »

I'd say it's because religious beliefs have no grounding in fact or reality. People believe in Gods but this doesn't make them real.
Children should be taught to use critical thinking and not blindly believe falsehoods. My nephew is 5 and he learns mindfulness in school. Far more appropriate than religion from what I've experienced.

You can't apply the same to science because it is the study of what is real.

I would say that that reply suggests that you have very little understanding of faith or religion and therefore, are not in a good position to judge the subject. You also seem to have missed my point - that a subject should be taught by an expert in both the subject and in teaching and that there’s no logic to the claim that that doesn’t apply to religion.