Teaching children religions

Editorials

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled last week against a couple from Drummondville, Que., who sought to have their child excused from the province’s compulsory Ethics and Religious Culture course, arguing that it forced children to learn material that was counter to their Catholic religious beliefs.

“Parents are free to pass their personal beliefs on to their children if they so wish. However, the early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family environment is a fact of life in society,” Justice Marie Deschamps wrote in the court’s decision. “The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education.”

In British Columbia, there is no such course in the core curriculum. There may be a place for such learning among social studies, comparative civilizations and other classes, but it is haphazard if present at all. In fact, the public school system here and throughout North America deliberately avoids the topic of religious study, for fear of the exact ignorance on display by those Drummondville parents – and the some 2,000 other Quebec parents who have tried unsuccessfully to gain exemptions from the education ministry, according to the CBC.

When the course was introduced for the 2008-09 school year, among the dissenters was a group called the Council on Jewish Education in Quebec (CJEQ). According to a Canadian Jewish News article at the time, CJEQ considered the course “incompatible with Torah law, and that Jewish day schools should forgo government funding if modifications aren’t made to the curriculum.” In the form of an advertisement in the Montreal Gazette, CJEQ argued that the course should permit teachers to “pass a value judgment on the beliefs being studied” because “Torah law requires Jews to epistemologically recognize the prophecy of Moses as absolute eternal truth, which cannot be contradicted by any other prophet.”

CJEQ, which seems to have disappeared from the scene, wanted the provincial course to teach only the Noahide laws. As much as these laws may constitute, according to Jewish belief, a solid societal foundation, this recommendation is based on the same non-understanding as the Drummondville case: the difference between religious instruction and the study of religions. It is as if schools should shy away from the study of European or African history for fear of undermining the students’ Canadianness, or of turning them magically into Europeans or Africans, as ludicrous and impossible as that might be.

People who are confident in their own beliefs and their ability to pass them on to their children – and who understand that a civil, multicultural society requires us to be respectful of and knowledgeable about others – will not have an issue with the intent of the Quebec course. Admittedly, there might be valid concern about how the course is actually taught, but this applies to every subject and just underlines the need for parents to be engaged in their child’s education.

Anyone who has attended an elementary school concert has observed a well-intentioned phenomenon of multiculturalism gone not quite wrong but not quite right either. The not-entirely-satisfactory alternative to celebrating Christmas in the public school system has been to incorporate a smattering of other cultures’ winter holidays, in an attempt to create an inoffensive tableau of diversity. This is a nice thought, of course, but it has severe limitations. Adding “Dreidel, Dreidel” to the musical program not only may serve to mislead about the importance of Chanukah as a Jewish holiday, but it also contributes to a glossing over of the fact that we live in a Christian country, as one quick glance at the list of statutory holidays proves. Just as a little “Dreidel, Dreidel” doesn’t absolve the dominant culture from learning about another, neither does a Christmas concert impart to the non-Christian any real information about Christianity or the diversity among its believers.

A religious cultures course should help students understand each other – and appreciate diverse peoples’ contributions to the world, their languages, foods, beliefs and customs, and perhaps how to respect another person’s rituals at a wedding or a funeral, to travel more comfortably around the world, to understand business cultures in an increasingly small world, and so forth. Above all, education should teach us to think critically about our own religion and others.

Of course, critical thinking about religion is not every parent’s ideal, as expressed by the mother involved in the court case, who described the course as a religious buffet that trivializes her faith. She complained to the CBC that her son, in fourth grade, is asking questions about his religion and said, “I find it sad that it’s happening at such a young age.”

At eight or nine years old, if a child isn’t asking questions – and a parent isn’t answering them, and engaging them in a deeper understanding of theology – they themselves are trivializing faith. Successful transmission of faith and values is not about delaying theological questions past Grade 4. It is about engaging young people in a genuine understanding of and commitment to the traditions and richness of their religion from the earliest possible moment. But that is not the issue here. Learning about another religion is not the same as practising it, and it doesn’t take away anyone’s right to practise their own. Religious studies is not the same as proselytizing. The only conversion religious studies promotes is that from ignorance to understanding.

At a time when charges of Islamophobia and antisemitism are almost daily occurrences in the public realm in North America – and when Christians are being slaughtered in Egypt and Nigeria – a more accurate understanding of religion and its impacts on society is desperately needed everywhere. It is time to confront our national queasiness about religious learning and address religious difference and religious studies with the academic rigor it deserves and not leave it to the kitschy approach of the elementary school’s winter concert.

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