Teachers Preachin'

Comment by BlancheNoE on May 26, 2012 at 4:37pm

This is a GREAT vlog. I have often wondered to myself if the motivations of humans like Mother Theresa aren't more about fear of doing bad than a true desire to "good", however individuals might interpret what "good" is very differently as is evidenced regularly in the news. I am about to crack a book on heresies of 12th -14th centuries. I'm particularly excited about the content on Catharism. I'll be watching "In God..." later.

You're right, by the way. I'd say " hang tough" but I know you will. You have lucky students .

Comment by SydTheSkeptic on May 27, 2012 at 11:07pm

Blanchie

Heresies of the 12th-14th centuries?  Would love to hear about that when you're done, or half-way through, even.  :o)  *Goes to look up Catharism...*

steve- That's gotta be tough.  That preacher dude isn't the norm, but I thought it was interesting because you hear more claims of teachers having some kind of a liberal agenda more than you hear about religious teachers preachin' the gospel.  Here's for the storm:

Comment by Chig on May 28, 2012 at 10:53am

Bottom line.... as long as there is no separation of Church and State, there should be no separation of church and state sponsored schooling. I'm not saying influence any beliefs....

Just go with  this religion or belief lead to that innovation, or event (whether progressive or disasterous).  

We can't have things both ways where you encourage religious topic discussions in law but shy away from it in State sponsored education.. 

Then again, I could say the same about abuse of power, prostitution, corruption, sneaky agendas and tom foolery.   Nevermind.

Comment by SydTheSkeptic on May 28, 2012 at 2:20pm

Chig, yes, I think most religions are corrupted or stagnated by creeds and doctrine that are static for ancient times and not dynamically attune to changing attitudes and values.  So why not be innovative around belief?  However, I completely disagree that teachers should be leading it, though. Maybe I misunderstood. 

Check out Charter for Compassion by Karen Armstrong.

Comment by Chig on May 28, 2012 at 5:02pm

Lost me on the "leading it".

Basically I mean to say... Religion (all of them) is a good topic for History.  It is good for discussion...  i.e.  Huge architectural feats, written language, math, chemistry medicine, astronomy, scrolls, war,  booksm etc have roots in religion.  It was a huge driving innovative force before and even leading to the scientific movement.   Just present this kind of thing without trying to recruit someone to any kind of belief system.   Present all outcomes of clinging to one idea too dearly... both the good and disasterous.  

I mean they teach economics and politics don't they? Those seem to be on the same controversial scale as religion is to me.  BFHD, really.

Comment by spacemonkey1310 on May 28, 2012 at 5:40pm

Find more videos like this on The Ark

An insight into the damage that can be done by those insisting there is only one way.

Comment by SydTheSkeptic on May 28, 2012 at 7:49pm

Chig- Ah, yeah, that's kind of what I do, although students are challenged to explore all aspects of religion on their own looking at patterns and systems when it comes to contributions or legacies. They did that before transitioning to The Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Romanticism.  There's no way they'd fully grasp the significance of those revolutions in thought without having had an idea of how religion played a part (the good and the bad).

Comment by SydTheSkeptic on May 28, 2012 at 7:55pm

Dan- love that video, especially the end. 

Comment by jinboy on June 2, 2012 at 10:45pm

in my opinion if your taught everything atleast then you can make an informed decision about your life i do not see the problem with that in fact for some if after you have heard all different aspects of how to live life and you chose one path the resolve you have to stick to it is amazing

 

i still can not commit to single way of life because there are so many thoughts religous and non religous that its become overwhelming my stance on life is simple and crude and im amazed not more people are using it.......it goes something like this be good dont be bad

 

also there is a joke from a comedian in england by the name of andy parsons on the subject of teaching atheism he says "teachers are now being told that they will have to teach atheism in schools.......that'll be short class Do you beleive in god? No. Excellent see you all next week"

Comment by NatureJunkie on June 4, 2012 at 3:38pm

Introducing the topic of religion into public classrooms is such a slippery slope. I don't know how we can teach high school students about world history and international relations without giving them some background about the religions that have motivated the actions and laws of many governments around the world. We trust teachers to present a balanced view of politics when they cover that topic in the classroom, so we should be able to trust them on the topic of religion, too. But here's the rub:

Teachers receive classroom education themselves in political science in either high school or college or both. Hopefully it was taught to them in a way that forced them to employ critical thinking. But unfortunately, there are many, many teachers who obtained their only education in religion in a church rather than in a classroom. No critical thinking required there.

I'm open to high school teachers covering religious perspectives in the classroom, but it would make me more comfortable with it if those who do it were required to have a certain number of continuing education units in the subject themselves before they could teach it.

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