School indoctrination

[FuzzyQuark]

I'm concerned about what my daughter is being exposed to in school. She is 5 and attends a standard state school in England, UK (not associated with any church or other religious organisation). One day the head teacher must have tried to explain the concept of the trinity, because my daughter told me that he said "There's a God in the sky and he's got 3 heads". I thought this was a bit funny, but now she's started singing Christian songs.

I want her to grow up thinking for herself but this school is filling her head with religious nonsense which I'm having to undo - I tried explaining about "evidence" and took her to the natural history museum & explained about the fossil evidence for dinosaurs. It's irritating that I have to do this at such a young age.

What bothers me most is that I want her to respect the teachers, but I feel like I have to say "Don't believe everything the teachers tell you." I'm very annoyed about this. Unfortunately we don't have separation of church & state in the UK, we're supposedly a "christian country" and believe it or not schools are required to have an act of Christian worship every morning (although many schools ignore this).

Short of taking her out of the school which would be a shame as its academic record is pretty good, how can I prevent her being brainwashed but at the same time instill respect for the school and the teachers?

Thanks
FQ.

[cbish]

Have you spoken with the teacher?

[Sansha]

I went to a Christian school all my life (in Australia) and never wavered in my atheism. In fact, exposure to such drivel on a daily basis probably helped things along. Children are far more influenced by the ideologies in the home than at school.

Ideally you don't want to create competing authorities for you child (ie. what I say is right, what the teacher says is wrong) as you will only be encouraging her to blind acceptance from authority which is a bad thing. Try to use a socratic approach to tap into the natural inquisitiveness of your child and teach her to detect the ******** on her own. Of course I was taught always to obey authority - even when I might be quietly thinking they were an idiot.

My father never told me God was a load of crap but I still ended up having conversations that drove my Relgious Ed teachers mad because he taught me to ask questions. (Like: where did all the water go? Why does God let people die? How did he get whales on the boat? Why do bad christians go to heaven but good non-christians go to hell?

[Glacian]

That's a tricky one. I'd have a talk with the teacher, first of all, but ultimately I'd just do my best as a parent to teach critical thinking, skepticism, and basically...thinking for oneself, and 5 isn't too early to start with that. If I'm ever a parent and have a child, I may have to accept the fact that some day they may walk their own path and that path may involve being a fundie Christian, but I wouldn't want their head stuffed with drivel at such an early age, when minds are so vulnerable, I don't think it's fair to children at all. Ugh, dumping religion on children really irritates me.

[Darat]

Originally posted by FuzzyQuark
I'm concerned about what my daughter is being exposed to in school. She is 5 and attends a standard state school in England, UK (not associated with any church or other religious organisation). One day the head teacher must have tried to explain the concept of the trinity, because my daughter told me that he said "There's a God in the sky and he's got 3 heads". I thought this was a bit funny, but now she's started singing Christian songs.


Surprised to hear any teacher try to explain the trinity to such a young child, especially in a non-Catholic school. Are you sure this is what happened?


Originally posted by FuzzyQuark

I want her to grow up thinking for herself but this school is filling her head with religious nonsense which I'm having to undo - I tried explaining about "evidence" and took her to the natural history museum & explained about the fossil evidence for dinosaurs. It's irritating that I have to do this at such a young age.


Again how do you know they are "filling her head with religious nonsense"? It also seems a strange approach to take her to a museum and explain about the "fossil evidence" if you are trying to explain to her about religion. Wouldn’t it be better to take her to a synagogue, a mosque, a Sikh temple and so on?

Originally posted by FuzzyQuark

What bothers me most is that I want her to respect the teachers, but I feel like I have to say "Don't believe everything the teachers tell you."


I would suggest you teach her what respect is, then she can decide whether to respect any particular person or not for herself. Also doesn’t every parent teach their child not to believe everything anyone says to them, whether they are a teacher or not?

Originally posted by FuzzyQuark

I'm very annoyed about this. Unfortunately we don't have separation of church & state in the UK, we're supposedly a "christian country" and believe it or not schools are required to have an act of Christian worship every morning (although many schools ignore this).


Do they? I didn’t realise it was required.

Originally posted by FuzzyQuark

Short of taking her out of the school which would be a shame as its academic record is pretty good, how can I prevent her being brainwashed but at the same time instill respect for the school and the teachers?

Thanks
FQ.

Teach her how to question. But don’t forget this means letting her question you and it means you'll not be able to get away with that good old parental favourite "Because I said so!". :)

And welcome to the forum.

[kittynh]

wow! They are supposed to have a little religion thrown in there?

I just never imagined it. when I'm in London the population is so very diverse, I can't imagine them standing for a prayer or something to start the day.

[Kiless]

Darat, as always, has some great points - I'd add this:

I'd hazard a guess and say that this is just ONE teacher, if it's a public, non-denominational school? Could that be possible? When I was in primary school, I had a grade two teacher who was a fundamentalist Christian. My parents didn't care about it and I only know of one kid who left our grade because of her habit of making biblical allusions in class and telling us that we were going to hell if we were bad.

If it really bugs you, and there's a (ahem) 'higher power' than this head teacher, go to them. Tell them that it is disrespectful in a school that is supposedly not going to favour one religious belief over another (such as - where's the Hanukah songs? And I like the 100 names of Allah myself, honestly, when I heard it as a part of daily prayer at the Islamic School I taught at....) and that includes the parents choice to not have religious beliefs. Do they do this for the population of Rastafarian students and Sikh students, start getting them to sing about the Trinity?

I would also, if you're worried about respect for teachers and the school, have a nice discussion about world beliefs to your daughter and that this isn't the first time she'll hear opposing beliefs to what your family supports. Tell her straight out that the school has a good academic record and you want the best for her. The school I currently teach at is in the top five of the state and although the school flatters itself (as you'd expect) that it's because of the religious teaching.... it's more than just that, IMHO..... and you can't look at just one facet to explain the success as a whole.

[Kevin_Lowe]

To add to what Sansha said, I recall having some fairly confused ideas about what God was supposed to be when I was five or six, picked up from Religious Ed classes and christian children, although I am sure I never actually worried too much about the issue.

By seven or eight I had got it straight that religion was a load of rubbish, and like Sasha if anything my atheism was reinforced by the school's attempts at indoctrination after that point.

If you have a stable, happy, atheist home I imagine that your child will sort it all out satisfactorily in a year or two.

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by Darat
Do they? I didn’t realise it was required.
Yes, it is. The law mandates "an act of Xian worship" every morning, but indeed, many schools ignore this. Had they tried it at my school, I would have just walked out of assembly.

[Mid]

Just to add my brief ramblings I would agree with those who’ve argued that if you encourage your daughter in a fun way to think critically she will more than likely grow up to be sceptical.

On the point about compulsory daily worship in schools in the UK I’m sure this is the reason I’m now agnostic, as I used to be fairly religious until I had to sit through that boring drivel for 15 minutes a day for years. So all in all I’m in favour of it as I think it helps undermine organised relgion.