What is a good education?
I’ve been having a discussion on Facebook with two close friends about religious education in the UK. An ‘English Baccalaureate‘ is being introduced which omits RE from Humanities.
Before I read up on the topic, and listened to different views, I was opposed to religious education in schools. My thinking was that schools are secular institutions in a secular society, and that religious education should be taken care of by religious institutions. I still have serious reservations about faith schools.
Now the strange thing is that I have several wise and gifted friends (you know who you are!) who teach or have taught religious education. Did I think they were wasting their time, that what they did was irrelevant? No, I never thought about it, never connected the dots.
Because for me, attending a Catholic grammar school for girls in the 1960s, Catholic religious education was propaganda and indoctrination, pure and simple. We heard nothing about other Christian denominations, let alone other faiths. We were actively discouraged from thinking, from questioning anything. We were expected to learn just exactly enough to pass the exam (I did) and to become good Catholic wives and mothers so we could bring up our families in the same brain dead way (I didn’t).
Do I sound bitter? Well good, because I am.
My child’s mind was opened wide to learning at my excellent primary school,* and going to grammar school at age 11 was like entering a prison in which the gates slammed shut on our hunger for learning. It was a prison run by a teaching order of nuns, supplemented by lay teachers of wildly differing abilities.
Looking back as an adult, I understand that many of the nuns were in a vulnerable state of mental health. And one of the visiting priests who gave us explicit lectures on the wickedness of female sexuality and then heard our individual confessions in as much lurid detail as he could coax out of us had clearly tipped well over the edge.
But an adult perspective only comes with time, and I still deeply resent those wasted years that turned me off learning – something I now love – at a crucial time.
And now I read:
Not only is Religious Education as demanding and rigorous as the other Humanities options including history and geography – it is a more multi-faceted discipline, drawing on philosophy, anthropology and theology to name but a few… Religious Education has the strong potential to increase understanding and tolerance, building social cohesion in our increasingly diverse society…
From the REAct Campaign
Now that sounds like a fascinating subject to study!
But of course I did get myself a much better education than many hundreds of girls around the world today. Despite those negative experiences I’m hugely privileged.
I believe that education, real education, not the sausage factory approach that spits out regiments of workers, is the silver bullet that could change everything. And on the Centenary of International Women’s Day, real education for girls worldwide seems to me to be a crucial goal to shoot for.
Original image by Charlie Dave with my Photoshop enhancements
*Full disclosure: my father was headmaster at my primary school. Which as you can imagine set the scene for some interesting little psychological sub-plots in my young life, but doesn’t detract from the fact that he was an immensely talented teacher and leader, and ran a great school.
Elsewhere:
Education International has some good things to say about education for girls, and some sobering facts. And Camfed do some really excellent work in on education for girls in Africa.
although England has a strong Christian heritage, it is becoming increasingly diverse and multi-faith in nature. Therefore it is particularly important for young people to learn about other faiths, in depth at GCSE level, creating a culture of tolerance and understanding and enabling them to better understand the world in which they live.
If we fail to do this we could risk creating a generation of young people who are ignorant, apathetic or at worse hostile towards people who hold different beliefs.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Tess, I ran into the same sort of priest, also at confession. His questions were pointers on all that I did not know and never thought to ask.
I do agree that education is very important. I saw the results in India in the slums. Too many places still were girls don’t seem worth educating.
Tess,
I have to agree that in too many places religious studies can be fatally mind-numbing. I went to a Catholic High School my last two years and had some wildly propaganda-based classes but also met some wonderful religion teachers who opened my mind. Then in college I ended up double-majoring in English and Religious Studies, which was an amazing educational experience as I was introduced not only to philosophy, theology, languages and anthropology, I was also expected to learn and be conversant in all of the world’s major religious traditions from the Abrahamic faiths and Eastern thought forms down to the local Native American and other “shamanic” native religions. It really opened me up to learn things I never would have expected to find and changed me and my personal faith life incredibly deeply. But I would have to say that in most cases, religious studies can be horribly propaganda based if not watched carefully. Thank you for bringing this up and giving me the impetus to actually think about my experiences!
I did precisely half of my schooling at a secular school, the other half at a private Catholic school. In hindsight, I see there was some propagandizing, but the quality of the education was far superior in the Catholic school.
Claire, yes, this question of the value of girls is crucial.
Machelle, a warm welcome to my blog and thanks for commenting. Your double major sounds like a dream come true in terms of true education and learning.
Roxanne, yes, Catholic schools do have a reputation for academic rigour, and many have.
As an educator and as a parent, my experiences with the educational system here in the U.S. in recent years make me feel like the whole thing is just crumbling. Not because it’s “bad” (although in some ways it certainly is), but because the whole paradigm is shifting and the system just can’t keep up. Several alternative charter schools that my kids have attended have tried new approaches, and while these work to a certain extent, they are still built on the foundation of the traditional system.
It seems to me that what kids need to learn today, beyond the basics of the three Rs, is two things: a) how to research and b) how to process information, i.e., critical thinking. Everything else proceeds from that. However, what they need first and foremost is a love of learning, which no one can teach but only facilitate, and the schools seem to be failing miserably at that, focused as they are on enrollment numbers, money, and test scores.
Wow, sorry for the longwinded rant! Apparently this post hit a nerve
Polli, feel free to rant! I think our experiences of education, whether its ours or those of our children, are both crucial and emotive. Agree with you totally on the love of learning, the researching and the critical thinking.
Hi Tess,
Hope all is good with you. I agree that Religious Studies is often taught in that way, closing down when it should be opening up. Though I teach at University, as I understand RE in schools today, teachers (and therefore pupils) are under an increasing pressure to pass, rather than to really explore the subject. I love religious studies precisely for all the reasons you offer: it combines history, literature, anthropology, sociology, psychology, language study, philosophy, music and art – and on a personal note, within the lifelong, human search for meaning.
Hi Abdur, yes, you’re right I believe – education has become so exam-based. Partly because employers have developed more and more closed-off recruitment practices. And the way you describe religious studies makes me so wish I could have studied it that way.