Occasionally, yes, some American institutions teach World Religions. However, it's not a single religion but rather a study comparing the major religions of the world. This usually isn't taught in high school (I won't say "never" because I could be mistaken about this) and is more commonly taught in colleges and universities.

I just picked up a book on the anthropology of religion -- fascinating stuff, really.

Whats the name of the book ?

From my knowledge this will be taught in elementry or junior high.

Deep

More information available to the kids will hopefully lead to less prejudice in the future. I'm all for this.

The study of religion in Ontario public schools has evolved to include the study of ideas and practices of a variety of religious traditions. The population of Ontario today includes significant numbers of people from diverse racial, ethnocultural, and religious backgrounds, and Ontario public schools seek to foster respect for and understanding of different cultures, including their forms of religious expression.

Go Canada!

Go Canada!

Only in Canada

bahahahaa


Im happy with this aswell, I just wish I had this as a child.

Deep

I go to high school in Toronto (TDSB) and our school offers World Religions as a course.


edit - btw, it's a public school too

also, my buddy is taking the course at his high school (catholic, TCDSB)

[Edited on 14-4-2004 by anjeeeee]

Serious? Nice, I also hear that Pyscology is being offered in Highschool aswell.

Man I missed out.

Deep

Ya know, aside from the occasional screw up here and there, Canada is totally on top of things!! Way to go Canada!! It's about time someone started doing this.

I like the set of rules they came up with regarding the differnce between Education and Indoctrination.

The court elaborated on the differences between indoctrination and education in the following manner:

1.) The school may sponsor the study of religion, but may not sponsor the practice of religion.

2.) The school may expose students to all religious views, but may not impose any particular view.

3.) The school's approach to religion is one of instruction, not one of indoctrination.

4.) The function of the school is to educate about all religions, not to convert to any one religion.

5.) The school's approach is academic, not devotional.

6.) The school should study what all people believe, but should not teach a student what to believe.

7.) The school should strive for student awareness of all religions, but should not press for student acceptance of any one religion.

8.) The school should seek to inform the student about various beliefs, but should not seek to conform him or her to any one belief.

I don't really have a problem with the concept at all, but my worry would be if the teachers could remain truely unbiased. This is the real problem. I was married to a teacher ---- Oh, sorry. Educator, once. I can provide personal testimony to the fact that teachers are like anyone else. Personal bias and agendas creep in.

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
I don't really have a problem with the concept at all, but my worry would be if the teachers could remain truely unbiased. This is the real problem. I was married to a teacher ---- Oh, sorry. Educator, once. I can provide personal testimony to the fact that teachers are like anyone else. Personal bias and agendas creep in.

I suppose that is where choosing Good teachers comes in. The same situation pretty much goes for all subjects I imagine. I know I've had more than one History teacher that taught History with their spin on it.

In highschool biology class I had a teacher that had to teach a little about evolution and creationism. We just went over the basics in both of them but she did do a vary good job of keeping personal bias out of the classroom. I don't know if it was just my school or school district but we had vary good teachers. I once had a history teacher that no matter how hard we tried we couldn't even get us to hint to us what is personal bias was towards politics. I would imagine these types of teachers would be good to teach religion courses as well.

I think that having world religion taught in school is a wonderful idea. It's things like this that make me want to move to Canada, but I know in time things will change here in the US. No point in moving if I could stay here and help be a part of the change.

damn i wish we have it here in US too. we can also have some better classrooms and teachers here in california if it werent for a certain dumbass (COUGH BUSH COUGH!!!)

Ehhh... it's not as great as you think. I was one of the first classes to go through the new cirriculum. I was in a catholic school about two years ago, and we had World Religions as a mandatory course. Unfortunately, only the most zealous and fanatically indoctrinated teachers have the honor of teaching World Religions. Basically, the teachers turned it around into a comparison course to Catholicism/Christianity, and basically picked out each and every flaw with other religions from Sikhism to Islam. At one point, Buddhism was actually ASSIMILATED into christianity. It was truly awful. The teacher mocked students of different religions. In one case, we had a native student in our class. She shared her own experiences and culture from firsthand events, only to have the teacher turn to her and call her belief system primitive straight to her face.

WHen we went on a field trip to various temples and places of worship, we all just kept our traps shut and our distance from the woman. The trip didn't go well. Needless to say, the next year there was no world religion field trip.

DE

I remeber in 6th grade we studied Islam,Judaism,Hinuism,Buddhism, and Christianity. It was more of a basic learning of what these religions were,like what they practiced and compared them.

Usualy I dislike what Canada does but this is a good move.

In 6th grade we had a chapter on islam, Judaism, Christianity, and one cahpter on a mix of Hinduisn, Animist religions, and other smaller groups.

Is this new?

Originally posted by ZeroDeep
Serious? Nice, I also hear that Pyscology is being offered in Highschool aswell.

Man I missed out.

Deep

I haven't seen it at my school yet...grade 11 has a course that mixes Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology into one...and grade 12 has "Families" , which is pretty much sociology with about half the stuff focusing on the family. No psychology on it's own yet. I hope they offer it...i'm taking a 5th year next year and would love to have that as one of my courses.

Originally posted by DeusEx
Ehhh... it's not as great as you think. I was one of the first classes to go through the new cirriculum. I was in a catholic school about two years ago, and we had World Religions as a mandatory course. Unfortunately, only the most zealous and fanatically indoctrinated teachers have the honor of teaching World Religions. Basically, the teachers turned it around into a comparison course to Catholicism/Christianity, and basically picked out each and every flaw with other religions from Sikhism to Islam. At one point, Buddhism was actually ASSIMILATED into christianity. It was truly awful. The teacher mocked students of different religions. In one case, we had a native student in our class. She shared her own experiences and culture from firsthand events, only to have the teacher turn to her and call her belief system primitive straight to her face.

WHen we went on a field trip to various temples and places of worship, we all just kept our traps shut and our distance from the woman. The trip didn't go well. Needless to say, the next year there was no world religion field trip.

DE

Yeah, if you catch a bad teacher for this course it really sucks. My buddies say they have a pretty good one this year...he's pretty lazy and isn't too serious with the course so they don't do much...I'd take that over a teacher that makes the year a living hell any day.

Here in Denmark in public schools/high schools and such, we have a obligatory class called Christianity. But the last 5 years its actually been world religion, with 40% being christianity and the rest mostly on 'muslinism' (Why cant i remember that word? ), hinduism and budhism.
And right now they are having a major political debate wether the class should be called Christianity or Religion... The later being due to the fact that ~9% of the danish population is first, or second generation emigrants.

Back in my young days (Im 21 now), the christianity class was aproximately 95% christianity and the remaining 5% 'religion as a whole'. But in high school it was about about 30% christianity and 40% 'muslinism'...

[Edit:] Oh yeah, Islam!

At my school they offer tons of classes..psychology, sociology, world sports, anatomy, shakesperian studies.....

Note: I sad they OFFER these classes, but only about 5 kids sign up, so nobody ever gets to learn any psychology. It got so bad this year...we didn't even have DEBATE. I think only 13 other people and myself signed up for the class.