debate-points, indoctrination, schoolI have a meeting with the head teacher at a church funded school to explain why I want my 5 year old child taken out of RE and other religious activities. There are no available secular options in the area and it does annoy me when the church gets opportunities to indoctrinate kids.
I don’t want to come across as rude or have a long drawn out discussion, so I’m just looking for some simple potent arguments that work. Ideas?
Tell the head teacher that you want to control the religious education of your child yourself, and that you will take responsibility for that religious training.
Do you have to give a reason? If the school is religiously led, the best course of action might be not to give a justification to avoid singling out. Of course, that depends on the actual situation and depends on how graciously the head teacher handles this.
In Ireland where there are exactly zero non-religious secondary schools, although there’s a recent secular movement called Educate Together that provides this for primary schools, my kids had to go through the entire system avoiding the brainwashing techniques of the Catholic system: they even emphasised (not sure if they still do) to trainee teachers that they should introduce religion in all subjects, at every possible chance (yes, they controlled teacher training too). This led to the situation where my kids could spend the RE class in the corridor, outside the classroom, with no supervision, something that’s usually reserved as a punishment.
Fortunately more & more teachers accept that not everyone needs brainwashing, so my youngest got away with simply being encouraged to read in the background, although she did soak up much of what was said. My guess is that this is essentially what you’ll end up with - not perfect, but at least better than the current situation.
Just state simply that you don’t want your child to be included in RE classes: you are under absolutely no obligation to justify it. My guess is that the headmaster is not a fool and consequently won’t have a problem with it. If he does, your local education board (or whatever you have where you are) have to provide education, and you are not required to toe the religious line.
The obvious way would be to simply say that you do not believe in gods and that you would rather your child not be taught about religion this way or that, if he or she does go to religion, it will be when he or she is old enough to make that decision for himself/herself rather than because adults said it’s the truth.
If that the above won’t work, you could always:
Those two might be arguments that a theist might respect more. However, you would have to lie and those lies might have consequences so, if you you these rather than say the truth, be sure you’ve thought it through. If possible, use the argument found in my first paragraph.
maybe you could ask that your child be allowed to attend the class but that he is free to join in or not join in as he wishes and that all the days lessons are made available to you so that you can teach him the version of the lesson you wish him to have? Sometimes it is good to have the child witness the two sides first hand, your child may not know why he is not attending a class and my think he is missing out.
Best of luck, it is a tricky one.
Could you even attend the odd class?
If you can’t take your child out of the class (it may be law that the child attends. In the country I live, if you represent yourself as a religious school and also receive public funding then it is a requirement by law that the students attend religious education classes), then I suggest you should do exactly what churches do.
For religious families who are forced to send their children to non-religious schools, or to a school of a different religion, is is then the families responsibility to teach their child their religion. This should be no different in reverse - if your child is sent to a religious school then the onus simply falls on you as a responsible parent to teach your child your world view.
This also teaches your child that not everything that people in authority tell them should be unquestionably accepted and this is just healthy in general.
I think there’s another option of not saying what religious beliefs you hold, but just say that their doctrines (be it Christian church for example or any other) insult your faith. Thus you save you from explaining your belief or atheistical world-view, and show that you’re not about to offend theirs.
The simplicity of a conscientious objector stand on the whole enrolling your child might be the most straightforward and least complicated. I say that on account of the line of arguments an administrator might reply with. This standpoint allows you to object to the instance of education, not the curricula as a whole.
It seems likely that the administrator will try to bring up an angle along the lines of “But do you really want to ostracize your child like that?” My apologies for not having an immediate rebuttal of that question. However, it seems like an important consideration to take into account.
As an attendant of Catholic elementary and high schools (US; years 1-5, 9-12) there was no opting out of the classes. It was a mandatory feature of their curricula. However, these were parochial schools with public, secular options available. An answer to your request would run, “then take your kid out of our school.” You might want to prepare for that rebuttal as well.
Forgive me for asking a question with a question, but is it really the best idea to take your child out of the religious education classes in the first place? Whether we like it or not, our children are going to be exposed to theistic ideas as they grow up.
If your child learns about the mythology of the religion in a controlled, organized religious education setting, you now have the opportunity to learn about the curriculum itself find out what they’ll be discussing on any given day, and be prepared with a response to the daily lessons when your child comes home.
I know that we, as parents, want to shield our children not only from pain and suffering but also from misinformation. But the misinformation is out there, and I, personally, would rather know when and where it’s coming from, than not.
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