In America, apparently, many people say they want it but can’t get it, and in the UK many don’t want it, but can’t get rid of it - god in school, that is.
As a school pupil I had to endure it every day - the compulsory hymn and routine prayers. Just imagine it, 600 teenage boys with their mind focused on one thing (and believe me, it wasn’t god or their Latin homework), growling the hymn as quietly and as nonchalantly as possible (you could get punished for not singing), then standing and trying to provoke other people to laugh during the troubled stillness of the prayers being monotonously intoned by the headteacher. It was a ‘really meaningful’ religious act.
The Roman Catholics were excused, of course. As I remember it, we didn’t persecute them or try to burn them in the school yard at break-times. They were held in awe for having the mysterious secret that enabled them to avoid the daily assembly torture as well as escape the compulsory Religious Education lessons where we quizzed the aging teachers about sex (again, and again, and again, and again).
By the time I became a teacher the hymns had gone, but in the schools I worked in, there had to be an inspiring little homily, usually on a religious theme, and there were still prayers. Although at the time I was a Christian, even I could see the pointlessness of it.
The staff would be betting on how often the headteacher would repeat the same story. When he was often called away at the last minute, the deputy headteacher, knowing I was ‘one of them’, would often grab me with a look of horror as he was about to walk on the stage and say: “You couldn’t just go and do something religious could you?” I was happy to oblige, 1) because helping out the senior management wouldn’t harm my career, and 2) because I worked in church youth groups in my spare time I had a fund of ready made bible stories I could quickly adapt. Staff colleagues seemed to be mystified by the fact that I could pray in public without reading anything from a book, but the teenagers did what all teenagers do during prayers in school - they tried to provoke other people to laugh during the troubled stillness. I could see that it was really far from being a meaningful religious act.
Religious communities have their own schools outside of the state system and have been debating the precise purpose of those schools. For example, in 2001 the Church of England issued a report, “The way ahead: Church of England schools in the new millennium,” which marked a radical shift in its position. The report called, in effect, for a subordination of the service to the nurture function. C of E schools, it announced, should be more “distinctively Christian,” with a mission to “nourish those of the faith; encourage those of other faiths; challenge those who have no faith… religious education and collective worship should be seen as an integrated experience, with collective worship acting as an expression of what is taught in many RE lessons.”
Despite what is happening in the religious schools, the state sector has never seen its role as being overtly evangelical. However, there is an understandable argument that the function of schools is to produce educated, model citizens, and there seems to be this lingering view amongst some in the establishment that one of the best ways of doing this is to give them a forced daily dose of exposure to Christian ritual. (Perhaps with Anglican Bishops still in the House of Lords, and the monarch still as head of the Church, that is not surprising.) Like cod liver oil, a forced daily dose of exposure to Christian ritual may be revolting to take, but it does you good.
It is also worth remembering that this belief in the daily dosage in schools is taking place against a background of predictions that the Church of England, at least, is facing a serious crisis about its survival. The authors of the annual book of church statistics Religious Trends which is produced by Christian statisticians argued that the fall in attendance is so precipitous, the Church will soon become financially unsustainable. As congregations age and die, there will be no money from collection plates to support the Church’s infrastructure and keep on paying the pensions of retired vicars and bishops.
The really good news is that some people are beginning to question whether forcing children to endure exposure to religion is against their human rights. As a recent e-bulletin from the British Humanist Association points out:
A report from Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (13 May, 2008 ) calls for any child of ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ to be given the right to withdraw from compulsory religious worship in schools. Currently, only sixth form students have the right to withdraw themselves, and other children can only be withdrawn at the request of their parents, but the Human Rights Committee have said that this violates children’s rights to freedom of belief and conscience. Writing in support of the Committee’s report to Minister for Schools and Learners, Jim Knight MP, the BHA said, ‘We agree with the JCHR that the law is clearly inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights and that children of ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ should be permitted to withdraw themselves from prayer and other worship.’
If there has to be compulsion for school assemblies, god has to go. As Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education and Public Affairs, commented:
‘The best situation would be the replacement of the law requiring religious worship with a law requiring inclusive assemblies that would be suitable for all children. For as long as the current law remains, however, children must be allowed to decide for themselves whether they wish to participate. To compel them to pray, or worship in other ways, is a clear interference with their right to freedom of belief – one of the most important rights that we enjoy.’
And of course, if I were god, I would want to stop being forced into schools. I would gain no pleasure in gaining worship by compulsion, whether it be from torture or the threat of a school detention. If I were god, I could read hearts and could recognize a sham when I saw one.
I feel there is a sharp moral decline in many schools. To be fair, I am not advocating enforced prayers and singing sessions but perhaps there should be instead some kind of free discussion, somewhere in the school day, where the pupils could talk about God and what faith means to them or not, life and other important moral issues. In the days when this country did actually have some moral fibre and standing, comprising of decency, citizenship, respect for others, care, compassion, which this pathetic little government and society over the years have eroded away to shreds;the assembly was a time of unity, coming together, making a point and God would be included.
There needs to be more fellowship in schools. Ok leave God out of it if you like but there has to be some kind of alternative if this shitty little society called British life isn’t going to be eroded anymore than it is.
Children are crying out for some one to give them some vision, direction and purpose. I am not saying that God fills the gap and the church indeed has in most part become way out of touch. However, in our Catholic school children are taught more than family values but so many other things in assembly which will increase their chances of actually being decent human beings in the long run.
You can still have discussion, values, ethics, coming together without enforced worship.
I may be strange because I actually liked cod liver oil. My mother believed it did me good so I drank gallons of the stuff. I even used to ask for it to take away the taste of nasty medicine! Being a vegetarian prevents me from consuming it now otherwise I would be interested in seeing whether I still like it.
There is a good side to enforced religion in schools: it puts a lot of people off religion for life. I agree, though, that that’s not a reason for continuing with it. I believe the only place where religion should appear in school is during RE lessons where no religion should have greater emphasis than any other and atheism and humanism should receive equal billing with religions.
Studies of moral behaviour have shown quite clearly that morality does not come from religion. People who want children to receive doses of religion in order to train them in morality are simply revealing their ignorance.
These studies show that people of different cultures and religions (and none) coincide to a remarkable degree in their moral instincts. Moreover, these moral instincts occur at a level below the rational, i.e. people are often hard pressed to explain their moral insights. This is the opposite of what you would expect if religion imposed a moral code on believers.
The fact is that religions take common human morality and “rebadge” it with the name of the religion.
The demands of religion in fact often contradict human morality and thus cause moral confusion. For example, strangling your daughter to death is generally regarded as immoral and horrifically so and yet some religions persist in prescribing this as a punishment for certain trivial “sins” such as falling in love with someone of the “wrong” faith. Religion thus often militates against morality.
Let’s hope the appeal to children’s freedom of belief is successful in finally bringing to an end this stupid “act of worship” in schools.
“Studies of moral behaviour have shown quite clearly that morality does not come from religion. People who want children to receive doses of religion in order to train them in morality are simply revealing their ignorance.
These studies show that people of different cultures and religions (and none) coincide to a remarkable degree in their moral instincts.”
I would like to hear about which studies particularly draw these conclusions. Character education, for example, does not necessarily have to be drawn from religion, but there are some general Christian principles that apply to the major tenets of character education as well, such as the fruits of the Spirit. If we take an anthropological view of morality all the time, however, we may then say that female circumcision is morally correct or that the concept of jihad is not necessarily morally wrong as one of the third pillars. So I guess my question would be which ethical system do we choose for determining what is a “moral” education and what is not a “moral” education if anthropological systems are out and religious systems are also out.
To athinkingman:
Yes, I agree with the comment you made. However, if you read my statement again, you will see that I am not advocating enforced worship at school.
I need to make a couple of more comments since writing the above.
1) The most important of all. There can never be a potential argument for female genital mutilation to be morally correct.
2) I understand and accept that writing on an atheist site, as a Christian, can be a brutal and lonely affair. yet, It saddens me indeed when we are labelled as ignorant. I think this is what disturbs me most about atheism, the shere power and magnitude that “you” are right and everyone else is just off the planet. Leaving that aside, lets try and look at this with some balance. If we look at the Christian ethos there are elements within it which could be regarded as moral teachings and, therefore, a postive code to live by. However, we also realise that religion as a meaning and concept have caused many immoral acts and horror. There are both sides to the coin. People can be moral without any faith ie: atheists, and some who have a faith, will be decent people who feel their faith has helped shape their values, conduct and the way they lead their lives.
I agree with Silver Tiger. I went to a Catholic school and like you, we took the piss out of all the assemblies, laughed at the nuns’ habits (the clothes I mean - not their other habits!!), and I have never taken religion seriously since.
I have often thought of asking for my children to be exempted from assembly because the whole idea that they have to do it is ludicrous to me, but then again I think back to the effect that enforcing things has on people, and I know that it will give them a sound atheist foundation to see them through life - plus why should they not suffer as I did!
I think an assembly is a good idea - everyone getting together, sitting quietly, listening to a message or music - just not a religious one.