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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Interfaith Ignorance Really Pisses Me Off
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
The perpetrator appears to be mentally ill, but there has been another attack on a Sikh temple in the US that someone thought was a mosque. Luckily no one was physically hurt. Of course, any attacks on actual muslims or mosques are also evil things, and there are plenty of those.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/mar/03/spokanes-sikh-temple-vandalized-holy-book-desecrat/
We need Fox News, conservative talk radio, televangelists, right wing pundits, leaders of the religious right, etc., and other people who are part of the separate media sphere that many people in this country inhabit to undertake the public service of educating people about the many different faiths in this country and underlining the need to not attack any member of any faith because of the actions of other members of that faith.
We also need to educate the public about the diversity of styles of dress and of human diversity in general. It sickens me whenever anyone assumes that anyone in a Turban is a Muslim (in the US, almost every man who wears a turban is a Sikh), that any woman with a veil is a muslim, or that any person with brown skin is either Hispanic or a Muslim.
Yes we need to respect all religions, especially Muslims - but we also need to not be ignorant a**holes.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Fox News, conservative talk radio, televangelists, right wing pundits, leaders of the religious right,
You want these people to educate?
This is the kind of thinking that results from mixing crack with your hash and chasing it with hallucinogens.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I want some of that then. How do we get the right-wing media to use it too?
[ 04. March 2016, 16:25: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Everybody knows that if you are targetting a muslim and you miss, make sure there are plenty of buddhists standing behind them.
Seriously, education and The USA? Sounds like an oxymoron to me I'm afraid.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US dopesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
This isn't true. Schools in the US can teach about religion, they just can't teach children to believe in religious doctrine, and they also cannot favor one religion over others, or favor belief over non-belief (this doesn't mean that they have to teach about every religion that exists, though). There can even be a class on the Bible as long as it is taught as a work of literature. Many school districts do not teach about religion, though, and this is a problem in my opinion. The problem is also not only that a lot of children tune out what is covered in school but that a lot of parents do not trust schools and think that they are centers for indoctrination in leftist secular values.
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US doesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
I just took a US dollar bill out of my wallet, and sure enough, it still says on the back, "In God we trust". I have no idea what that means to them.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US dopesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
Right. Because there is no religious intolerance in the UK.
Religious literacy is
generally low because religious education is typically instruction on one religion. What needs to be is a secular, non-partisan, comparative religion class.
Learn your religion on your own time, learn everybody's in school.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I don't know what you're going on about, Leo. I learned comparative religions in school, in history class. Didn't need any religion class for it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
It is so unnerving that observant male Sikhs have been so often targeted just because they look more like the stereotypical Muslim (which, to your average uneducated American, looks like a character from Disney's Aladdin) than many male Muslims. Every time an attack happens against Sikhs there is a talk about educating the public, and yet the attacks keep happening. I know that this perpetrator was likely mentally ill and that Muslims should not be targeted regardless, but the repetitive nature of these attacks makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
I just took a US dollar bill out of my wallet, and sure enough, it still says on the back, "In God we trust". I have no idea what that means to them.
It was added to the dollar bill in 1956 as a statement of anti-communism, not as a specifically religious statement.
Same as the motivation for adding "under God" to the pledge, which my elders objected to for breaking up a single thought; "One nation indivisible" became "one nation, under God, indivisible."
If you are going to mess with your country's tradition wording about something, do get some grammar aware people involved! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) (In my now almost old age, it unconsciously comes out the way I learned it as a child, before the addition.)
Anyway, politics, not religion, was the motivation.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm not a native speaker, but I see nothing grammatically wrong with "One nation, under God, indivisible".
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US doesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
I just took a US dollar bill out of my wallet, and sure enough, it still says on the back, "In God we trust". I have no idea what that means to them.
What, you don't label your idols for easy identification?
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US dopesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
Right. Because there is no religious intolerance in the UK.
Religious literacy is
generally low because religious education is typically instruction on one religion. What needs to be is a secular, non-partisan, comparative religion class.
Learn your religion on your own time, learn everybody's in school.
Having taught RE for nearly 40 years I can assure that it isn't. In fact, the 1988 Education Reform Act made it illegal to teach only one religion.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
I don't know what you're going on about, Leo. I learned comparative religions in school, in history class. Didn't need any religion class for it.
RE is an academic subject in its own right. If subsuned undefr history and taught by non-RS graduates, it could not have had much time devoted or expertise beyond something superficial.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
A certain young man of my acquaintance, very intelligent, very well mannered, very well brought up, a devout Baptist, thinks the Pope is the antichrist and is surprised that the Council of Trent didn't anger God to the point where he would have ended the world right then and there.
It is any wonder, then, that people confuse Muslims with Sikhs?
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
StoneSpring: Do you not think it weakens your case that you cite an action by a person who is mentally ill?
I'm not trying to deny that crimes based on ethnic prejudice will occur, and I'd like to see some statistics. But is interfaith ignorance the main problem?
The problem with educating people in a religion is that you are educating them about what religious adherents believe, not convincing them that those beliefs are reasonable. If you do that, it's preaching.
So a muslim may accurately be told that many christians drink alcohol and eat pork, and on that basis may try to ensure that they don't enter their country to live.
I just don't see that knowledge = tolerance or acceptance.
And the abstaining from violence is dependent on knowledge of the laws and standards of your country, and applies to violence against drug pushers as well as to muslims, sikhs, communists, white supremacists, or whatever.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The problem is that some people think that a reasonable response to a criminal act is another violent criminal act. Solve that problem and you won't have idiots attacking anyone (and whether they target the right people becomes moot) or calling for some people to be exiled or kept the other side of a wall.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US dopesn't allow religious Education in its schools, which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
I think the sort of imbeciles who carry out attacks on places of worship weren't the kind to be paying much attention to the finer points of religious education. It's a bit like the morons who attacked a paediatrician's office because they confused the word paediatrician with pedophile.
That's not to say all religiously inspired violence is conducted by the uneducated, that's demonstrably false, but I guess the educated target their victims more accurately.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The US dopesn't allow religious Education in its schools, . . .
Simply not true.
quote:
. . . which is why religious literacy is so low as to be non-existent.
And you know this how?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting for a minute that there isn't a significant religious literacy deficit here. But I do encounter sufficient amounts of religious literacy in enough different contexts to know that it is far from non-existent—even here in the Bible Belt.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
re education as the answer to the problem of religious violence:
A Stone of Hope is a meticulously researched history of the American civil rights movement. Chappell contrasts the unsuccessful civil rights movement in the 1930s/40s with the more successful movement of the 1960s. One of the factors that Chappell cites to explain the difference is, in fact, the naive reliance on education alone in the earlier movement-- it was thought that if they could simply show people the injustice of segregation/Jim Crow, educate them on race and the lack of any biological distinction, etc., the problem of racism would disappear. By the 1960s, MLK, Howard Thurman, and the other leaders had figured out education about injustice/segregation alone would not be enough.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Of course, the UK has compulsory religious education in schools. It doesn't appear to have made everyone well informed about what different faiths teach and practice, nor produce a tolerant multicultural and multifaith society. British example of interfaith ignorance (which at least didn't result in anyone getting injured or killed).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
Hm. I mean, I'm a product of the US educational system, from state schools in the Bible Belt. I remember learning about Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism in history and geography classes—and, surprisingly, actually still remember some of the things I learned—but, for most people, I think it got filed away the same place everything about the Mughal Empire, Baghdad Caliphate, and Tokagawa Shogunate got filed: the intellectual trash. If you don't have any reason to remember anything about other cultures or histories, why remember anything about them? Heck, I'd wager that if I asked most Americans about the French and Indian War, I'd get a blank look—and that's our culture and history! Now, granted, it usually gets glossed over on the way to the Revolution in the same way the First World War gets glossed over en route to WWII over here, or pretty much anything not about Western Europe before 1492 gets glossed over in a month on our way to early modernity (and thus forgotten), but that's a totally separate issue.
Or maybe it isn't. I mean, I see truly hideous howlers and stereotypes about the Middle Ages from Intelligent People Who Should Really Know Better all the frikkin' time; there's no way someone could have learned those from a history textbook (well, okay, a halfway decent history textbook), but lots of ways one could have learned them from the cultural background assumptions and discursive field in which we live. Who cares if medieval philosophy, logic, and science didn't even remotely resemble any of the prevailing narratives we have about them, the fact is that "medieval" is a pejorative denoting blind faith, brutality, and unreason.
And that's our own culture. I'd wonder how badly we're bungling everybody else's, but, well, I think that's how we started off this here thread.
So maybe what we need is not just more well-intentioned (or just academically necessary and sensible) lessons to American or British schoolchildren about Weird Stuff (Other) People Believe. Perhaps a reason to remember all this WSOPB might be a better thing—but, of course, those reasons can't just be taught by lecture, they have to be lived. It's nice knowing the 5 K's, but if you're never going to meet a Sikh or read a newspaper article about a group of them who all have the same last name, why would you bother remembering them?
Or, I guess what I think I may be trying to worm my way towards thinking: what's the point of all this interfaith dialogue and education if you're not expecting to live an interfaith life? If you don't think you'll ever have Muslim or Sikh neighbors, why, other than a sort of intellectual curiosity that renders other people and communities into intellectual curiosities, should you bother remembering or thinking anything about how and why other people live?
For that matter, why should you even bother trying to live an interfaith life—no, really, why should you—when it's so much easier to just act like those other people aren't there? I have quite a few Muslim neighbors, for instance; there's an Islamic elementary school, a couple Halal grocery stores, a good Pakistani restaurant, an Islamic garb store (yes, "garb," that's what the sign out front says), and quite a bit of "keep out Muslim terrorist outsiders, preserve our quiet community" on the neighborhood listserve. Forget the jerkishness of that comment for a moment; what kind of obliviousness does it take to ignore both the quiet community and who lives there right now, yet complain that people like the ones who already live there doing the same thing that people who already live there already do is somehow going to harm the neighborhood? You'd have to be pretty much willfully ignoring half the signs on businesses to miss that point—and yet, I think that's exactly what people do. Easier to think and act like you're the only kind of people around rather than think and act like you aren't.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
StoneSpring: Do you not think it weakens your case that you cite an action by a person who is mentally ill?
I'm not trying to deny that crimes based on ethnic prejudice will occur, and I'd like to see some statistics. But is interfaith ignorance the main problem?
The problem with educating people in a religion is that you are educating them about what religious adherents believe, not convincing them that those beliefs are reasonable. If you do that, it's preaching.
So a muslim may accurately be told that many christians drink alcohol and eat pork, and on that basis may try to ensure that they don't enter their country to live.
I just don't see that knowledge = tolerance or acceptance.
And the abstaining from violence is dependent on knowledge of the laws and standards of your country, and applies to violence against drug pushers as well as to muslims, sikhs, communists, white supremacists, or whatever.
Yes. This is not the best example of the phenomenon. But here in the US there have been many examples of Sikhs being targeted because people thought they were Muslim by people with no mental illness, from the Sikh man killed not long after 9/11 to the Sikh temple shooting that happened here not that long ago.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I don't think that school lessons are the answer. Meeting lots of people of different backgrounds, and learning that they're all people helps of course. When I was at school we learned about various festivals, different religious customs and holy books and so on. But being able to name the Five Pillars of Islam (for instance), doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to like or value Muslims. The worst Islamophobe I know is also probably the most educated person I know: he's a clergyman with about five different degrees, has worked as an academic and is very well educated in comparative religion. What turned him into such a raging bigot was a particular Christian narrative that sees Islam as the enemy in a holy war. He's got himself into various echo chambers and has got into serious confirmation bias about every nasty rumour going around about what awful people Muslims are. That's what sets people off. When you throw yourself into a group where you feel welcome and loved, and a big part of that group's identity is hating another group, that's when the seeds of some really nasty stuff are sown. This guy's not going to torch a mosque - that's not his style. But find the right group of people and similar rhetoric and you've got yourself a recipe for hate crime. And it doesn't make any difference what they learned at school.
So it's probably asking way too much to ask Fox News to be more reasonable about Islam. I get that. But there is a real problem with those echo chambers and that confirmation bias: these days it's particularly easy to only hear voices that agree with you, however ridiculous or harmful your views are. There are lots and lots of voices saying the right things but the people who need to hear them don't.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
[QB] I don't think that school lessons are the answer. Meeting lots of people of different backgrounds, and learning that they're all people helps of course. When I was at school we learned about various festivals, different religious customs and holy books and so on. But being able to name the Five Pillars of Islam /QB]
Festivals, books etc. are low-level - they belong to Key Stage 2 (i.e. for 7-11 year olds)in RE.
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
Bullshit. To even attempt to claim such a thing reveals you for being either miserably ignorant of real teaching, or massively incompetent.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Education can never be enough, it may (indeed, should) be part of the solution. But, we have a whole history of failure to change attitudes through education - cliffdweller has recently given another example.
Which brings us the question of what is needed. We need to change laws in some cases, to criminalise and punish those who through their words and actions promote intolerance of others - be that suggesting banning people of particular faiths from entering the country, that some groups of people are all thieves and rapists, or umpteen other examples that could be produced. We particularly need to take our media to task for the way they report matters of religion - why do we get the words of a few nutters spread all over our front pages, but never see the words of the sensible majority?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Which brings us the question of what is needed. We need to change laws in some cases, to criminalise and punish those who through their words and actions promote intolerance of others - be that suggesting banning people of particular faiths from entering the country, that some groups of people are all thieves and rapists, or umpteen other examples that could be produced. We particularly need to take our media to task for the way they report matters of religion - why do we get the words of a few nutters spread all over our front pages, but never see the words of the sensible majority?
No, no, no - unless the words and actions you refer to stir up violence. Stopping expression of ideas otherwise is very dangerous.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Define "stir up violence".
We all know that the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a load of bollocks. Why then only judge whether someone should say something or not on the basis of whether or not it results in physical violence. Those words themselves hurt, and are a form of violence.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Incite, if you like. Read this case for a good discussion of inciting in relation to anti-discrimination legislation. There are many other cases in criminal law.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Festivals, books etc. are low-level - they belong to Key Stage 2 (i.e. for 7-11 year
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
Yeah, I note that you snipped the bit of my post where I made my main point. I took RE up to GCSE (and then again I have an MA in Philosophy and Religion) and yeah we did the whole examination of different ethical issues from the perspective of what different faith groups might think. It was no more useful in gaining compassion for other people. It was just information. You simply cannot do this in the classroom. An hour a week, or two, or three, of "and this is what these people believe and how they worship", with handouts and educational videos, is not enough to stir compassion if the rest of the week someone is immersed in a culture that is full of intolerance, if people they respect are full of hate, if the estate they live in is deeply divided along religious lines, and so on. Unless you can break them out of the echo chamber it's not going to work.
[ 09. March 2016, 10:21: Message edited by: Liopleurodon ]
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
In religious education you could teach the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim. An angry racist will therefore be able to correctly target a Muslim and not get a Sikh in error.
If you want to deconvert an angry racist then that's not religious education you're looking for.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
That presumes you can teach a racist anything.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That presumes you can teach a racist anything.
Some you can. Racism is a varied thing. Presuming every racist is intractable leaves some in the dark who might otherwise be enlightened.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
In religious education you could teach the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim. An angry racist will therefore be able to correctly target a Muslim and not get a Sikh in error.
If you want to deconvert an angry racist then that's not religious education you're looking for.
This was precisely my point in the OP. Religious literacy and religious tolerance are different things, although both very important. I was referring to the first, though.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
Bullshit. To even attempt to claim such a thing reveals you for being either miserably ignorant of real teaching, or massively incompetent.
My 'claim' is based on legislation and guidance - that ethics and beliefs are prescribed for key stages 3 and 4 and that practices should not be taught beyond key stage 2.
Maybe it is you who are 'miserably ignorant' of UK practice.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
Bullshit. To even attempt to claim such a thing reveals you for being either miserably ignorant of real teaching, or massively incompetent.
And more to the point, can you tello me how many schools you have bvisited in the past year and which LA Agreed Syllabuses you have read that prove you are right? Can you cite any that does mere practice, as opposed to ethics and beliefs' beyond KS 2?
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Festivals, books etc. are low-level - they belong to Key Stage 2 (i.e. for 7-11 year
If British young people have done RE as prescribed, they'd have a far deeper knowledge - of beliefs and ethics - rather than merely of practices.
Yeah, I note that you snipped the bit of my post where I made my main point. I took RE up to GCSE (and then again I have an MA in Philosophy and Religion) and yeah we did the whole examination of different ethical issues from the perspective of what different faith groups might think. It was no more useful in gaining compassion for other people. It was just information. You simply cannot do this in the classroom. An hour a week, or two, or three, of "and this is what these people believe and how they worship", with handouts and educational videos.
I took the liberty of looking at your profile to find out your age. You would have done RE beforfe the year 2000 when a new raft of syllabuses came in with levelled assessment which 'upped the game'.
Also, re- GCSE, that is RS, not RE. RS is run by private companies maximising their profit by dumbing down so as to attract more pupils and, thus, more cash.
RE, on the othger hand, seeks to follow Ninian Smart's advice to 'transcenmd the informative.' We do this by imaginave stilling exercises so it's not merely imparting information.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Sounds like a load of pretentious shit to me.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I have been maintaining high orthographical standards. That's got to count as a positive contribution, surely.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
leo, if you were really on the ball you'd be talking about the Prevent duty which embeds British values across the curriculum. British values are defined as democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Which still doesn't address the point that teaching something (no matter how well) rarely changes attitudes and beliefs. Education has to be part of the answer to intolerance. But there needs to be a much deeper change in society, in what our media say, in calling bullshit on the pronouncements of some of our politicians and public figures (and, for that call to be backed up with legal force if necessary), in each of us addressing our own failings.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The Prevent Duty is wider than just embedding British values (as defined above); it's also about reporting extremism and providing support to young people and families at risk of extremism - which is defined wider than just religious hatred - homophobia is on the list, as is racism.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Look at leo spin. Clutching his one penny of meaning and not understanding why the mortgage brokers disdain everything he has.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
leo, if you were really on the ball you'd be talking about the Prevent duty which embeds British values across the curriculum. British values are defined as democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.
That's incorporated in our materials - it has to be by law. RE is better placed that any other subject to deal with this. I was at a conference this Monday where 2 out of the 6 papers were about this.
[ 10. March 2016, 12:12: Message edited by: leo ]
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Look at leo spin. Clutching his one penny of meaning and not understanding why the mortgage brokers disdain everything he has.
Which is mere assertion - you still haven't told me which schools you have visited and which Agreed Syllabuses you have read - so I still assume that you don't know what you are talking about.
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