Religious schools

[Muravyets]

I disagree with religious schools. An insular upbringing is harmful to the child and prevents them developing a rounded, nuanced view of the world and importantly, it's other inhabitants.

This.^^ I do not believe a child should be trained to accept and one way of thinking but should be exposed to and encouraged to examine with critical judgment many ways of thinking. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is by open social interaction with people having differing views, beliefs and experiences. Public schools are better for that than any insular school, whether it's religious, military, a class-based private school, etc.

[Codawa]

some people are saying. Ohh Ohh, better education. If you call learning about Jesus math! It makes for a better person to be in a private school. Many people that go to private school are weird since they are unsocial. I say no to religious schools.

[Muravyets]

My kids are now too old to go to school (unless they want to). But, if I had had the money at the time, or if I had been aware of scholarships, I would have sent them to a religious school in a heartbeat.

Where they grew up, the quality of education in public schools was abysmal. It would have taken less effort on my part to counter the religious propaganda offered in the private schools than it took for me to counter the effects of incompetent teachers, crowded classrooms, inadequate supplies and books and schoolyard violence in the public schools. <snip>

Heh, where I grew up, the Catholic school kids were the first on the block to get STD's and pregnant. Yeah, I'm glad I went to good old P.S. 90.

[Muravyets]

Do you think it's good to send your kid to a religous schools and would you do it?

I think to many people brainwash there kids and I would never do that to my child.

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6865just in case you want to see

Even if I were Catholic, the nearest Catholic school is probably the foulest nest of drugs and debauchery in the area. No, that's not enough to sell me on it.

Little Goofball starts 2nd grade this September and I intend to continue supplementing his and my younger children's educations myself despite the outrageous suggestion by his 1st grade teacher last hear that I not so my son doesn't get too far ahead. Can you believe that shit?!?

You were advised to hold your kid back? Holy shit! But yeah, I can believe it. I had all kinds of trouble in the NYC school system because I was too far ahead of my grade average. But I was lucky in that at least a third of my teachers were smart enough to know that was not a mark against me -- it was their fault as much as my family's anyway. But my mom was constantly discussing gifted programs with teachers and whether they would be worth the effort for me and, later on, teachers lamenting to my mom that I had come into my grade already having covered all the materials the state would allow them to teach, that they despaired of keeping me engaged, and one who said she worried about how I would react when I got out of the school system and realized just how stupid most of humanity really are. I think NSG knows how I reacted.

[Muravyets]

It wasn't so many decades ago, but my parents got in the same sort of trouble with both me and my older brother. In the latter case (and this is, by itself, probably a big part of why I didn't get sent to public school), my mother actually got called in to talk to my brother's first grade teacher because he read books for fun, and, in her mind, this was a sign of a problem child. I wish I were kidding.

Geez-gods, seriously? I can't even imagine how my mom would have reacted to a teacher saying a thing like that but I'm fairly certain it would have resulted in me getting detention and that we'd still be laughing about it. What a frigging idiot.

[Muravyets]

Okay, parochial school anecdotes:

I have several friends who went to Catholic school (and oddly, I notice their level of disbelief - from agnostic to atheist - is related to how long they were in Catholic school; hm). One of them told me her war stories.

The one about the priest who instructed the kids that they were not to take communion unless they really meant it and really wanted to, and who got transferred to a parish in the South Bronx as punishment.

And the one about her brother who was sent home with a report card informing his parents that their son's "soul was black."

And my favorite, the one about the take-home religion test that included the question "If Jesus were alive today, what would his theme song be?" Her brother (the one with the black soul, who, btw, became a cop) told her to put down "Blue Suede Shoes".

[Muravyets]

Not necessarily.. And besides, a natural fear of God to keep the child from misbehaving never hurts.

How strange. You needed to be made afraid of a god in order to make you pay attention in class? Your religious school must have had shitty teachers. In my god-free public school, most of our teachers kept us in line by keeping us busy and interested.

[Anti-Social Darwinism]

My kids are now too old to go to school (unless they want to). But, if I had had the money at the time, or if I had been aware of scholarships, I would have sent them to a religious school in a heartbeat.

Where they grew up, the quality of education in public schools was abysmal. It would have taken less effort on my part to counter the religious propaganda offered in the private schools than it took for me to counter the effects of incompetent teachers, crowded classrooms, inadequate supplies and books and schoolyard violence in the public schools. <snip>

Heh, where I grew up, the Catholic school kids were the first on the block to get STD's and pregnant. Yeah, I'm glad I went to good old P.S. 90.

Well, one of the keys is parental involvement. You don't send a kid to any school and leave it up to teachers - secular or religious - to teach them how to behave responsibly.

It's pretty evident, from the variety of posts, that the quality of schools varies from one location to another. In one place PS 90 is better than St. Johns Parochial School, in another St. Francis of Assizi is better than Fremont Elementary.

[Muravyets]

Me, I was reading at 4, and in the first grade corrected the teacher on the length of the year (365 1/4 days, not 365). It didn't do much to endear me to my teacher of course.

You were one of those guys who ran around telling everyone that the 21st century started in 2001, and not in 2000, "because there's no Year Zero, you know" weren't you?

I read Catch 22 when I was 8 years old, cover to cover, in a single day, and - hey, Poli!! - I did it for FUN. *preen*

I was a "problem child", too, for SOME administrators. And my mom was a "problem parent" ("Can't you people keep up with her? She's just a child!").

[Muravyets]

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...

Unfortunately, from my experience as both a student who "got too far ahead" and a teacher, it's a very common position for teachers to take.

In my first year of teaching (which just ended... a month ago), I had some enormously talented, brilliant and energetic students that threw me for a loop. Had they all been on that level, it might have been easier, but it's difficult to engage and teach 20 children at the same time when some of them are reading chapbooks and some of them still can't write their names. The school curriculum provides very little help---their "challenge" work is usually about a centimeter above the "normal" work. The whole of the public education system is designed to get the lowest-performing students to a certain level, to the great detriment of students working far beyond their peers.

The answer to this, of course, is not to chide parents for feeding their child's appetite for learning, but to work WITH parents to combine resources and try to keep lessons in the class and at home on the same level. It can be difficult without the help of the child's parents, but with them, it can make things easier and more rewarding for teacher and student. And it keeps accelerated students out of trouble a lot better than "busywork".

The problem is compounded by the fact that teachers (at least in my district) aren't allowed to use textbooks from higher grade levels. One of my kindergartners was doing 2nd grade math at home, so I asked the office for second and third grade math books. I was taken to task for it, told it would make things harder for the kid's future teachers, and instructed to just "use the challenge work provided". I ended up just buying commercial workbooks from higher grades and making up my own problems and projects.

/rant

Another option is to work with the parents to pressure the school board (or equivalent authorities) to permit a kind of mentoring system whereby the more advanced children could help the teacher raise the levels of the other students. I have heard that in some places such systems have worked well for both sets of students. And to allow for extra credit work for the more advanced students so they can work at their own level on their own time. I do not believe that restraining the minds of the more advanced students to maintain the state mandated levels is good for anyone, though.

EDIT: Of course, it can be impossible for a teacher to cope with if the school authorities will not cooperate, but personally, the teachers I was lucky to have worked around just as hellish (or more so) restrictions, even if all they could end up doing was being honest about it with me and my mom.

[Muravyets]

Well, one of the keys is parental involvement. You don't send a kid to any school and leave it up to teachers - secular or religious - to teach them how to behave responsibly.

It's pretty evident, from the variety of posts, that the quality of schools varies from one location to another. In one place PS 90 is better than St. Johns Parochial School, in another St. Francis of Assizi is better than Fremont Elementary.

Of course. I just wanted to balance out the thread's posted expectations and anecdotal evidence. Lots of people have been talking about parochial and other private schools offering better education. I was just reminding people that is not always the case.

In my neighborhood growing up, Holy Child Trinity School was just up the block from PS 90. Both sets of students walked to and from our schools together every day. Warring, most of the time, but anyway -- The neighborhood was religiously mixed, but there were plenty of seriously Catholic kids attending PS 90. They went to Holy Child once a week for catechism classes (just like the Jewish kids went once a week to a local yeshiva for Hebrew classes). So, thinking about it now, I wonder what made some of the very Catholic families send their kids to the parochial school, while others went to the public, secular school? It wasn't money -- economic bracket was the one constant in the neighborhood. If the issue with the Holy Child children getting into more trouble than we at PS 90 did was parental involvement, maybe there was something else in that particular neighborhood that was more common among the Holy Child families -- maybe they were the ones who sought to "outsource" their parenting more - maybe they expected the nuns to carry more of their burden for them? And maybe that would be different in different places.

[Big Jim P]

Me, I was reading at 4, and in the first grade corrected the teacher on the length of the year (365 1/4 days, not 365). It didn't do much to endear me to my teacher of course.

You were one of those guys who ran around telling everyone that the 21st century started in 2001, and not in 2000, "because there's no Year Zero, you know" weren't you?

I read Catch 22 when I was 8 years old, cover to cover, in a single day, and - hey, Poli!! - I did it for FUN. *preen*

I was a "problem child", too, for SOME administrators. And my mom was a "problem parent" ("Can't you people keep up with her? She's just a child!").

I like that one.

[Heinleinites]

I read Catch 22 when I was 8 years old, cover to cover, in a single day, and - hey, Poli!! - I did it for FUN. *preen* I was a "problem child", too, for SOME administrators. And my mom was a "problem parent" ("Can't you people keep up with her? She's just a child!").

Yeah, I was an early and voracious reader as well, and a "problem child", in more ways than one. I was the "You'd do well if you'd just apply yourself and quit screwing around" kid. Who knows, maybe they were right, maybe I should have paid more attention to the blackboard, and less attention to Kathleen MacDonall.

But things seem to worked out alright, irregardless.

[Surote]

Not necessarily.. And besides, a natural fear of God to keep the child from misbehaving never hurts.

How strange. You needed to be made afraid of a god in order to make you pay attention in class? Your religious school must have had shitty teachers. In my god-free public school, most of our teachers kept us in line by keeping us busy and interested.

Brainwash kids into fearing a man that doesn't exist

[Grave_n_idle]

I read Catch 22 when I was 8 years old, cover to cover, in a single day, and - hey, Poli!! - I did it for FUN. *preen* I was a "problem child", too, for SOME administrators. And my mom was a "problem parent" ("Can't you people keep up with her? She's just a child!").

Yeah, I was an early and voracious reader as well, and a "problem child", in more ways than one. I was the "You'd do well if you'd just apply yourself and quit screwing around" kid. Who knows, maybe they were right, maybe I should have paid more attention to the blackboard, and less attention to Kathleen MacDonall.

But things seem to worked out alright, irregardless.

Which would have been a convincing story, if your last word hadn't been 'irregardless'.

I'm just saying...

[Muravyets]

I read Catch 22 when I was 8 years old, cover to cover, in a single day, and - hey, Poli!! - I did it for FUN. *preen* I was a "problem child", too, for SOME administrators. And my mom was a "problem parent" ("Can't you people keep up with her? She's just a child!").

Yeah, I was an early and voracious reader as well, and a "problem child", in more ways than one. I was the "You'd do well if you'd just apply yourself and quit screwing around" kid. Who knows, maybe they were right, maybe I should have paid more attention to the blackboard, and less attention to Kathleen MacDonall.

But things seem to worked out alright, irregardless.

Oh, yeah, I got the "would be an excellent student if only she would apply herself" rap, too. But then, one teacher wrote on the behavior assessment part of my report card once (this is true): "Does not suffer fools lightly." What a nice way to put it!

[Muravyets]

Which would have been a convincing story, if your last word hadn't been 'irregardless'.

I'm just saying...

Actually, "irregardless" is an accepted word and correct usage, interchangeable with "regardless." I got into a fight with someone who used "irregardless" once and had to look it up. Turned out they were right.

[Grave_n_idle]

Which would have been a convincing story, if your last word hadn't been 'irregardless'.

I'm just saying...

Actually, "irregardless" is an accepted word and correct usage, interchangeable with "regardless." I got into a fight with someone who used "irregardless" once and had to look it up. Turned out they were right.

Not really. Most dictionaries give it as 'incorrect'. It's also etymologically nonsensical.

[Ryadn]

Which would have been a convincing story, if your last word hadn't been 'irregardless'.

I'm just saying...

Actually, "irregardless" is an accepted word and correct usage, interchangeable with "regardless." I got into a fight with someone who used "irregardless" once and had to look it up. Turned out they were right.

Not really. Most dictionaries give it as 'incorrect'. It's also etymologically nonsensical.

If "smelt" is an acceptable past-tense of "smell" (according to dictionaries, not me---as far as I'm concerned, you're discussing fish), then I think a case can be made for common usage.

[Tao Qin]

>They are
No they're not.

Of course they are. A 'religious' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'religious' - which is it's bias.

No they're not. A 'public' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'public' - which is it's bias.

[Grave_n_idle]

>They are
No they're not.

Of course they are. A 'religious' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'religious' - which is it's bias.

No they're not. A 'public' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'public' - which is it's bias.

So 'public' is a bias?




How?

[Dyakovo]

No they're not.

Of course they are. A 'religious' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'religious' - which is it's bias.

No they're not. A 'public' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'public' - which is it's bias.

So 'public' is a bias?




How?[/quote]
By not being rabidly pro-christian?

[Grave_n_idle]

No they're not. A 'public' school is intrinsically more biased, because it is 'public' - which is it's bias.

So 'public' is a bias?




How?

By not being rabidly pro-christian?

Not just me, then? It didn't add up right in my head...

[Hydesland]

I went to a catholic school, as far as I can tell, there was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was the best performing non-private school in the area, and excelled in the sciences. I see no reason why a school like that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Religious schools provide such a huge amount of free schooling, that costs the government [edit]almost[edit] nothing.

[Chumblywumbly]

I went to a catholic school, as far as I can tell, there was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was the best performing non-private school in the area, and excelled in the sciences. I see no reason why a school like that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Religious schools provide such a huge amount of free schooling, that costs the government [edit]almost[edit] nothing.

Aye, there's a fair difference it seems between the, mainly Catholic-run, 'religious' schools in the UK and the religious schools peole are discussing in this thread.

Perhaps the experience is different in the US?

However, I'm not too happy with what are often called 'faith schools' in the UK; 'academies' kick-started by private funds, financed ultimately by the taxpayer, but with a relatively free hand on curriculum and teaching methods. Leads to some weirdness...