Religion in Schools and the Effect on Students

[Dark-San]

I was forced to undergo education, both my Primary and Secondary years, in an Anglican School. In that 10 years although, we were made to undergo church services and morning prayers. Although the Muslims were excused from all those, the rest of us aren't given any leeway. It didn't influence me in anyway. Although it must be the due fact that I am very stubborn guy by nature.

Education- wise, I don't find much difference. After graduating with an 'O' Levels from my Secondary School, I went on to do a diploma in Polytechnic. So by advancing towards a higher level of education, there is no chance that I can compared between the level of standard. Morally- wise, I see no differences except for a couple of incidents that almost made my blood boil.

For instance, I have encounter several occasion when Christian students particularly a few ones think that they are superior to that of the non- Christian. During my Primary School, I was made fun of. And was occasionally labeled as a dumb kid. It was until my final mathematics test that I topped the class and kicks everyone's ass. Also during my secondary days, there are also a few guys from the Boy's Brigade that sometimes made several sarcastic remarks to me. I ignored them, treating them as retards.

Well these things happened once in a while, but I can easily conclude that those actions only happen because those guys are still just immature in their thinking. We are like 11 to 16 years old brat back then. ^.^

As for your assignment with regards to religions and schools, it is better to gather newspaper reports particularly the ones from the South East Asia region. You will find the linkage between terrorism and it links back to schools found in Indonesia and Southern Thailand.

Looking around, I guess I am the only one so far that is the closest ideal to the subject that you wish to interview for your assignment. If you have anymore specific questions, you can feel free to pm me about them.

Oh btw if you are wondering, my official religion is Buddhism.

[DarkTemplarZero]

I love when people seriously identify themselves as Pastafarian.

But yeah, here in New Jersey, religious education is pretty uncommon. Where I was from there were 2 Catholic boys' schools and 1 Catholic girls' school. The Catholic boys schools were exceedingly good at football, baseball, and basketball, and most of their students were rather jock-like. The Catholic girls school was unsurprisingly known for how incredibly easy the girls are.

I spent up until 8th grade in a public school, where religion wasn't particularly a big deal, and then 9th-12th in a science/technology magnet high school, where there were maybe 4 or 5 kids out of a class of 300 who were devoutly religious. As such, morals and values and that junk were never a big deal in my high school, we had a mandatory class on ethics as freshmen which everybody felt was remarkably useless, but other than that they weren't big on trying to teach us morality.

[Arnen]

I love when people seriously identify themselves as Pastafarian.

Hey, aside from the parody factor, I really do believe the Eight I Really Rather You Didn'ts are pretty good guidelines to live by.

Anyway, I thought of something else to note:

Someone mentioned that the Catholic boys' school in their area was filled with jocks. Well, around here, it's apparently pretty common for Catholic schools to basically buy off good atheletes from public schools - paying the kid's parents to send their kid to their school, so their teams will perform better. And the schools are so small, they're grouped in the same divisions with tiny public schools with only a few hundred students, so they constantly dominate. Not exactly fair, but everyone's afraid to call them out on it.

[Mew Master]

I went through the American School system, which has various different approaches and is supposed to be secular. I've been in three different Elementary schools, two different Middle Schools, one High School and of course College.

The most persecution I got was one afternoon while I was at the play. We were waiting around and someone started discussing God. I said I didn't believe in a God, and they felt the need to hound me about it, going and asking "What started the universe?" and then insisting it was God. I'd come around and ask "Where did God come from then?" The answer was "He's always been there." And so on the discussion went.

When I was taking Biology as a Sophmore (10th year), the teacher spoke about how he didn't agree with Evolution, but was required to teach it. I went to High School in a heavy conservative state, which of course, was Kansas. Yeah yeah we have our issues with the state board of education and their fanatic beliefs, but thankfully we voted those idiots off in the last election.

In College I'm more accepted for having an atheistic view on our existence. I have friends of Christian, Catholic, and deist views, and only a few times have any of them made any comments towards me being an Atheist. One which was an insult towards me for having "high moral standards."

I guess the main thing here is that I only felt persecuted by a few individuals in High School, and none of the teachers held back their opinions. We aren't taught Intelligent Design or Creationism because neither are any kind of science. If nothing else, they belong in a history of science or maybe even Philosophy of Science (though even that's a stretch).