Should we be studying religion at school?
Recently, I read an article that really caught my attention. It made me question how much religion should be discussed in our history class? We go over the key points and discuss the major religious figures, but should we be going deeper into the Christian faith? How much time should we be spending studying religion in history? Is there room to have more discussion about Christianity and still cover the major historical events that have happened? If so, how many religions should we put more emphasis on?
In my opinion, there is no need to go into more detail about religion at school. If one wants to study more about religion, he/she can go to Church more often or even attend Private or Catholic schools. History is mainly about studying politics and discussing the major role models that have made an enormous impact on the world. Emphasizing more on religion will lead to de-emphasizing major historical figures. According to the two reviewers presented in the article, they want to remove references to some of the historical figures such as Cesar Chavez. These people think that religion plays a vital role in history and should be focused on more. History is made up of role models like Cesar Chavez and eliminating them would be getting rid of major parts of history.
There is so much diversity in America that you cannot put more emphasis on just one religion. Only a certain amount to students in a class are Christian so not everyone is going to agree with what the Bible says. People with different faith than Christianity teach their children certain principles about their religion and those beliefs might cause conflict with what they might be learning at school. Discussing more Christianity in history classes would just cause more conflict between those who are Christian and those who are not. There are so many religions in the world and it would be impossible to cover each religion in a class.
Religion is something very personal and should not be taught at school.
September 10, 2009 at 4:28 PM
I love this outlook on this topic, but i feel there are certain exceptions. I agree completely with if you want to study more about religion,go to church, or maybe a private school. Then again, I feel there are certain aspects of history where religion pertains to developing the country. ei In colonial America many of the colonies were formed beause of religious discrepancies,which you can argue is the beginning of the diversity of America. This in my mind are the only times that religion should be brought into education, when learning about how it affected the country not to learn about the religion. Also, the Grat Awakenings, only for the sole purpose of the differences they made on people and once again, the growth of the nation. i agree completely that religion itself should not be taught.
September 10, 2009 at 4:31 PM
Raveneet,
I really enjoyed reading your blog about religion being added into the school curriculum. After reading your blog it really helped me to form some ideas and thoughts on what to write about in my blog. :)
I also enjoyed reading the first paragraph of your blog. The questions that you chose to express in your blog really got me thinking and to question myself personally about these things happening around me today. I also really liked the ending sentence of your blog. I believe strongly that religion is a very personal thing and it should not be associated with school.