You will not be surprised to hear that my first podcast of the 2024-2025 school year is about religion in schools. It's a topic I'm always coming back to and it never ceases to amaze me of how many different angles you can find from it. But what I want to explore in this episode is what do most schools mean when they talk about religion. Maybe a better title would have been, "What we talk about when we talk about religion in schools."

Hello?

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Hello.

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You're very welcome to if

I were the minister for

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education from unsharp dot Nat.

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What do most schools mean when

they say religious education?

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It's 20 24, 20 25.

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Back to school time.

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And I'm delighted to be back

for another year of if I were

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the minister for education.

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For those of you who don't know,

this is a regular podcast, a produce.

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Hosted by me, Simon Lewis

from onshore dot Nash.

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And if you are listing for the very

first time, I hope you enjoy it.

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The premise of the podcast is

that I take an aspect of the

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Irish primary education system.

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And I look at it in detail.

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And let you know what I would do if

I were the minister for education,

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I hope you all had a lovely summer

and maybe I've got the energy buckets

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was very energy sapping year, last

year with all the stuff going on.

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I'm not sure how much of

that is going to change.

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But my first episode

is based on an article.

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That I saw of in of all papers of

all the newspapers that I would see

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an article from the Irish Catholic.

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So you will not be surprised to hear

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2025 is about our religion in schools.

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The topic I'm always coming back to.

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And I'm never ceases to amaze

me of how many different angles.

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You can find fromage.

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But what I want to explore in this

episode is what do most schools mean?

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When they talk about religion.

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In schools, I think, and I don't

know if this is deliberate or not on.

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And I'm not saying it.

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I suspect it is.

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But when you hear about religion

in schools, What do you think now?

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Many people.

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We'll think that religion

means faith formation.

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So that's, what some people

would call indoctrination.

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So it would mean prayers.

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It would mean staging, religion.

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As a fact, and teaching children

had passing on the word of God.

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Some people think religion

means teaching about religions.

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Learning about whatever the

various faiths around the world.

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And I think.

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That's that certainly happens

in some schools, but not as many

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as I'd say most people think.

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And where is that balance?

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Where we're, where is that balance

between religious education?

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Religious instruction.

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Are they the same thing?

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And they aren't by the way.

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And what is the difference between

them and why do we have so many ways

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of describing what a religion class

or a religious ethos looks like?

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So that's what I'm going to explore today.

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I'm going to be helped very

much by an article that I

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wrote my, that I wrote on this.

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Back a few days ago on my medium blog.

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If you are interested by the way in

subscribing to this podcast, you can do

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by going to your favorite podcast and.

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Subscribing.

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As you do, but if you're interested

in reading along to some of the

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articles that are, that I base my

podcasts on, I published most of

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them onSimon@mlewisdotmedium.com.

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And this one is called, what do

most schools mean when they say

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religious education that was

published around the 18th of August?

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I got worse.

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So maybe you're into 18th,

19th, or 20th of August.

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Anyway, you'll find it.

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You'll find it there.

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One of his writing, the article.

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I always have a cover

image, a featured image.

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And I usually use AI to generate

that image and the AI prompts that

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I used to generate my image was

religion class in a primary school.

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And I was really surprised

to see what came out.

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Of the AI generator, which was a

classroom, but as you would expect,

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the children are sitting in rows and

it's quite a multicultural classroom.

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Actually, I found something interesting

was the children are in uniforms.

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They're all wearing the same clothes.

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But the thing that stood out to me

most was across at the Christian

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Cross at the back of the classroom.

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And I felt, this is an AI generator that

doesn't know that I'm in Ireland that

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doesn't know very much about me at all.

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Doesn't know anything about where it is.

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As such is the prevail.

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Of religion in schools.

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I just thought it was interesting

that just that prompt, maybe that I'd

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said religion class in primary school.

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At the top was the religion.

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Data was decided upon adds despite,

if you look at the picture of

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yourself, Ah, on the medium blog.

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You may wonder why.

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Looking at the children in the

class, but the reason I wrote this

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article was on the back of the

front page of the Irish Catholic.

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On the Irish Catholic reported more

religion, please say school children.

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Now.

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The first thing I thought.

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When I saw this.

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Was where are they get?

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Not from, I thought.

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An amazing thing to hear young children

say that they want more religion in

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schools ad surely they have enough

fish with 10% or 20 feet is in

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sometimes a lot more than that, of

their school day dedicated to religion.

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Both.

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I read the arch.

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The front page of the article

that I read the I carried on.

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Reading it and it seemed to come from.

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A study, a survey from the

20th anniversary celebrations

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of the ombudsman for children.

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What they did was they released a survey

about young people's thoughts on a

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number of issues, including education.

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And as I said, the Irish Catherine

reported that the survey showed that young

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people want more religion in schools.

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I have to delve further.

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I'm most people, I think we'll be

surprised at such a finding so surprised.

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I would say that none of the mainstream

newspapers cover this survey at all.

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I didn't see any articles in the Irish

times, or I shouldn't abandoned or

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the RTE or anything like that because.

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I guess there's a reason

when stories like that.

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Aren't covert.

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And I decided I'd find out because.

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On surprisingly, it turned out the

headline was at best misleading.

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When look, when one looked at the

survey results in closer detail.

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Because when the question actually

asked to students is what subjects.

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So you said you think there should be

more subjects available in schools.

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What new subject would you like to see

added to the curriculum now showed out

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this was secondary school students.

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So this is what they did.

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The options were Languages practical

life skills, computer science

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and engineering, sports science.

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And then they lumped religion, psychology

and drama into one of the options.

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I don't know why all three,

how the three are interlinked.

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But essentially that was the most popular.

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And the Irish Catholic.

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Took from that.

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They ignored the psychology and

drama Vish, but they said that most

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children want more religion in schools.

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Which is an interesting.

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View of it.

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But I guess.

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I guess that's I suppose they

have to be the eternal optimists.

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However, if you were tasked me.

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If I believe, and I think this

is where I want to come to is.

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I'm not really interested in the, in

giving age about the Irish Catholic

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and how they've, made a kind of

manipulated the data from the survey

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to suit some sort of agenda with

the the Catholic agenda in schools.

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The children wanted now as it goes on in

the article, you should read the article.

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It's quite it's very, it takes Sasha

a statistic and really runs with it.

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To the point of.

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Yeah.

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To, to beyond the point of seriousness.

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In my view, but anyway, I'm

not interested in taking tests,

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slagging off the Irish Catholics.

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R-squared they're going to

do what they're going to do.

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What I'm interested in

is actually looking out.

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W what does this actually mean?

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I think some of the students, and

if I, in fact, I'm absolutely sure.

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Many students do want

more religion in schools.

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And if you were tasked me,

if I believe there should be

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religion taught in schools.

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Despite my campaigning for a

separation of church and state and

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irons, I would emphatically say yes.

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I believe.

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We should be teaching religion in schools.

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Now as many of, I don't subscribe to a

particular religion, but I believe it's

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very important to learn about religions.

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And from them too.

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Because if you look at, if you

look at the world, as it is.

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I don't subscribe to a particular

religion, but I'm in the minority.

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I'm one of the 15% of the world that

doesn't have a particular faith.

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About 85% of the world.

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Has a religion has a faith of some sort.

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And to me.

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I could sit there and go I'm right.

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And everyone else is wrong and

everyone else is stupid and

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all the rest of it, I don't.

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I don't believe that I

genuinely don't believe that.

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And I've often talked about how sometimes

I feel a bit jealous of people that have.

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You have a faith.

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And I told the story of

my mom when she was dying.

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Has she genuinely believed she would be,

at least hopefully going to heaven in her

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view but genuinely believing that would be

the case and that she would see us again.

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And I, as I've said before, I would

dearly love to have that faith.

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Unfortunately I don't but it makes

sense to me that I should understand

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why people believe, what they believe.

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And I should respect those wishes,

even if I don't share their beliefs.

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And I, if you look at the size

of major religious groups, it's.

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About 10 years old now at this stage.

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Christians are about 30 odd

percent Muslims, about 23, 20 4%

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Hindus, about 15%, 7% Buddhists.

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And then you've got, other religions

taking providers ones 2% and then folk

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religions, as they're known at about 6%.

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And then you've got about 15, 16% who

are on affiliated to a particular faith.

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So more people believe in odd God.

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Or S or gods than don't.

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And I think it's important that

and I know we're raising our child.

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W without origin, but we're also raising

him to try and learn and understand why.

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About religions.

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Why people do what they do so that

we can respect them for what they do.

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Being religious is not a bad thing.

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I think some people who are, who, not

all people with religion, I think.

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But some people, the religion

thing, those who don't have

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a religion are anti-religion.

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I have no M I have no ill feeling

towards anyone who has a religion at all.

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My, my kind of line in the

sand is you just don't try

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and convert me to your faith.

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I don't want that.

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I also feel that if you have a faith,

you should keep that to your own family.

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It's a private matter.

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And this is why I campaign against it in

the ma in schools, in our end, because

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that's where it does cross the line.

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So for example, I cannot teach in

the vast majority of schools because.

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I cannot uphold.

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A religious ethos because

it is not an ethos I share.

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It is not a faith that I share.

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I have no problem, obviously with

conflict people being Catholic.

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But but when that is used in a way

that excludes me from employment

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or excludes children as part

of the school day, And so on.

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That's where there's a line.

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You can run schools without a

religion permeating through it, or a

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particular faith at running through

it at, there is no I, the argument

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dash, you need Catholic schools or.

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Church of Ireland schools or Jewish

schools or Muslims goes is not,

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is, has no grounding whatsoever.

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We teach children.

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I had to be good people

and we don't need religion.

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And to to change that, I think I've often

said we have far more in common when

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it comes to multidimensional schools

and religious NGOs have far more in

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common than they do differences and

we focus entirely on the differences,

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but going back to why I think it's

important to learn about religion.

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I want you to give an example that

if I meet an Orthodox Jewish woman, I

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believe it's up to me to know and respect

that she can't shake my hand, whether

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or not I think that's silly or not.

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It's not my business, whether she

wants to shake my hundred nosh.

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I just have to respect that.

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That's what she believes.

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And it's no skin off my back if if

I don't shake this person's hands.

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Just for those who don't know, I've

made a link in the article it's called

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it's from a concept called Nikia.

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And it's it explains why.

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I don't have to agree with it.

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I just have to respect it.

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And similarly, I believe it's up to me to

learn why many Muslim women choose to wear

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a hijab or another head covering rather

than deciding myself that it's oppressive.

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As many people do.

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And again, I've linked to an

article about the of Muslim women

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speaking about the reason they

choose to wear or head covering.

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However, learning about religions.

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Is not what happens in the vast

majority of Irish primary schools,

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religious education in most Irish

primary schools is faith forming

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or confessional to use the term.

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In fact, in Ireland, the subject of

religion and faith schools uses the

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terms, faith, formation, religion,

religious education, and religious

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instruction interchangeably.

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If you if you're, if this is where I think

the confusion comes from all these terms,

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even though they mean different things.

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Are used interchangeably

in denominational schools.

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However, they are not the same.

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If you read that survey from the the OCO.

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The ombudsman.

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And you read the comments

from the students.

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It's really clear.

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To me, at least again, it's my

interpretation that students aren't

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interested in faith formation.

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When they say religion, it's

learning about religions.

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I read one of the quotes, more

education about different cultures

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and religions instead of only

studying Christianity in schools.

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I think schools that are based on one,

religion discriminate all the others.

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It's a very.

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Some people will find dash.

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A statement abrasive.

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And it is, but it's pretty

factual, when you teach one.

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Faith, one worldview as.

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As fact to a group of people that don't

share that faith, you are discriminating

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them on the basis of religion is one of

the grounds of discrimination that you

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shouldn't be allowed to do any religion.

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The only one to get onto explaining.

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Maybe those terms and what they

probably what they do mean.

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And religious education, as

opposed to religion, religious

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education should be objective.

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Critical and pluralistic.

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So it needs to be all three of

those things to be religious

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education and religious instruction.

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Is different.

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It's faith forming in one belief.

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In other words, only one perspective

is presented as the truth.

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With other beliefs, if they're mentioned

at all, as alternatives to the truth

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that you, tolerate, or maybe respect.

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But it certainly isn't what we

do in our denominational school.

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And that can be very isolating to someone

who is not of that faith of that school.

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If they spend eight years in primary

school listening to messages of a dash

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Catholicism in most cases is the truth.

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And yeah, we're nice to the rest of you.

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We tolerate you wherever,

and I don't mean that in a.

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I'm not trying to be mean or

rude or anything like that.

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Tolerance in the nicest possible way.

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I think tolerance is another

word that has been bought.

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Turn, it has been come a bad

word, have some sort of tolerance

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is actually not a bad thing.

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It's good to tolerate people.

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But a tolerance is not seen as a

good thing when it comes to religion,

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but that's what you're doing.

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It's not inclusion, let's

say it's tolerance anyway.

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So if we look at the current Catholic

primary program and it's eight

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years syllabus, so you look at the

current coffee program, which is

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called, I think it's growing love.

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There are two weeks in total in the

whole of the eight years, not two weeks,

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every year, two weeks in the full eight

year program dedicated to learning about

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other fates I'm one week is on Judaism

and the other one is on Islam and they're

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presented from a Christian point of view.

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And for the rest of the entire eight

years Catholicism, or maybe more widely

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Christiana, she has such as a concept

is taught to the children on critically.

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There is no room for anything

critical or objective.

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Nevermind pluralistic in it.

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There is no uncertainty in the

lessons offered to the children.

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So you might wonder why a country

like Ireland, which has a very low

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percentage of practicing Catholics.

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I know there's quite

a number of Catholics.

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But in name, but practicing

Catholics is a far lower number.

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I would accept the 90% of primary schools

teach their children messages that they

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themselves don't particularly believe.

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So you have, I think you would,

the statistical moment is

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people are around parent to age.

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This is about 50 odd,

50, 53% apparent aged.

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Irish people.

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R a.

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Identify as Catholic and the

census and the most recent census.

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Yet.

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Most of them have absolutely no problems.

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Sending their kids to a Catholic primary

school where they receive faith formation.

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And I find that really

difficult to understand and.

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I can only resolve.

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To me.

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That I think the blurring of

what religion means when these

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schools talk about religion.

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Is where this is coming from.

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For example, if you look at any of

the Catholic agencies in Ireland,

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they will always refer to religion.

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They never refer to.

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Religious instruction really?

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They were fair to the religious

instruction, his skills,

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his religious education.

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They refuse to accept it as faith forming.

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And I've said this, your faith for

me is that we're not faith forming.

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We're inviting the children to

learn, and they become a ghast if

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I describe it as indoctrination.

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And by the way, just for those of

you who find the word indoctrination,

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absolutely appalling as well in her ears,

seeding an anger at me at the moment.

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Indoctrination just means the process

of teaching a person or a group to

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accept a set of beliefs on critically.

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Which is exactly what happens

when it comes to faith formation

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in Irish primary schools.

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It's just, it's not that you're forcing

something down the throats of children,

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as people think indoctrination is,

it's just teaching something without

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criticism, that's indoctrination.

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And if one looks at most Christian run

primary schools in Ireland, which is

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basically which is basically most of

the denominational schools bar three,

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one will see a sentence similar to this.

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It will be, it won't be exactly this,

but something similar in our school.

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We believe in a Christian God, but

we are happy to accept other faith.

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And none in our community and on the

surface, that really seems very welcoming.

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Doesn't it?

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We're happy to accept

everybody into our school.

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We don't mind what you believe.

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In fact, if you don't believe at all,

you are very welcome in our school,

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but it doesn't take much to break down.

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What I can only describe as

animal farm language here.

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All animals are equal, but some

animals are more equal than others is

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a way of doing it of saying it didn't

schools call themselves inclusive.

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So they talk about, we are an inclusive

Catholic school and some of them go

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further if they're a single sex school

and say they're an inclusive Catholic

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girls school, despite excluding.

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Boys and yeah.

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But they in call themselves

inclusive to all fates and none.

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And I've written about this and

loads of lots of different ways,

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because I don't actually think they

know what inclusion really means.

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And I'd recommend if

you have a bit of time.

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Too.

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It's one of my biggest bugbears

about what does inclusion actually

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mean in a Catholic school.

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And I don't think they actually, I suppose

what they actually mean is tolerance.

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Because, at the end of the day, no

Irish primary school, including the

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multidimensional skills can be fully

inclusive for a number of reasons.

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And I'm not just talking

about religion here.

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I'm talking about special education.

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I'm talking about lots of

different issues, but any school

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that calls themselves inclusive,

isn't working hard enough.

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Anyway, the blurring of the definitions

of religious education and religious

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instruction has been wildly successful.

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In my view for denominational

education, by doing this, it's,

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they've managed to retain an illusion

that Irish primary schools are not.

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Contravening, any equality laws.

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It's successfully high.

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He's buying the fact that they

see absolutely no difference

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between instruction and education.

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And this allows faith

formation to continue.

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And about 95% of Irish primary schools

supported by this kind of thin veil

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of proof that this is what parents.

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And now students, once you'll often

hear about that's a parents want these.

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Religion religious schools.

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And there's no real proof of that big.

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And to be honest with it, there's

apathy by the looks of things.

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But certainly not certainly not a want.

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Advocacy groups do try their best to try

and help parents and students understand

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there is a difference between religious

instruction and religious education.

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But it's a really difficult task and the

parents aren't in the classroom, they

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don't S they don't know what goes on

all the time in this, in the schools.

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I do I've holes in these skills

and it's, if you were there, you

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would shirk a number of times.

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Maybe he wouldn't.

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This is the thing I think the whole

cultural Catholicism that exists is a

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lot of things are seen as totally normal.

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Do you know what I mean?

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You look at.

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You look at the idea of most Irish

people will, be appalled at, let's

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say arranged marriages, where you see

little girls wearing wedding dresses

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in countries like India, Pakistan,

where there's where this can happen.

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I, and yes, they don't see that.

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Communion dress is it's a mini

wedding dress, these kinds of things.

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And I know that.

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That might sound trite.

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And maybe it's not a good

example, but I think.

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We see things through certain eyes.

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And I think a lot of Irish

people who have gone through the

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Catholic system themselves, I

don't shirk at certain things.

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I don't know a picture of a

man being nailed to a cross.

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And, children being asked to color

a man, these kinds of things, or

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do you know the famous one that.

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That did seem to make people sure

was that there was a lesson in senior

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infants or first costs were an angel

comes through the window to a young

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Marriott and are served, to you.

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And, I don't do not be afraid.

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And it's like a stranger coming

in my window kind of thing.

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But, you it's amazing

how blinkered I would be.

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I would have been guilty of this in

my own faith upbringing of things that

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just, I wouldn't, I would shark out now.

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But so I can see, I suppose

I'm laboring the point here.

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It is a very difficult task.

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And when a society has been instructed in

the same message for so many generations,

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it can be hard to get a different

message through particular, most believe.

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Even if they don't like it.

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They feel it didn't do them any harm.

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Sure.

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What harm?

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I don't believe in it anymore.

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Anyway.

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Sure.

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Look, isn't the best.

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It's no harm anyway, to

send the kid in there.

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They're not going to be diva either.

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However, I would argue that people

might look beyond themselves and

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their own experiences go and maybe

for maybe try and put themselves in

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the shoes of children teachers where

the system of religious instruction.

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Does cause harm.

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And I think this is where this is probably

the key here that I think a lot of Irish

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people, particularly Irish people, and

maybe people who are in countries who come

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from countries where Catholic education

is the norm, is that they see it as no

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harm because it did damn no harm, but

they need to, in my view, you need to put

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yourself in the shoes of other people.

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So these are the children that have to

sit at the back of classrooms every single

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day, while faith formation is going on

while they're excluded from the rest of

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their task, their visitors in their own.

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And costume.

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These are the teachers that have to

pretend to be practicing Christians,

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to be missionaries, to lead worship, to

ensure they pass on that faith that you

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don't take very serious for yourself

to the children, whether or not they

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believe in that message themselves.

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And if they can't do this, or if it's

perceived that they can't do this,

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they're on able to get a job or they

could be fired from their job where

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they could be disciplined for it.

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From the job where they could be

looked over for promotion and so on.

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And there's many stories of those of

these things happening and coming out.

470

I don't want to give a shout

out to education equality.

471

A lobby group, who's percolating

these stories and they're well

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worth a visit on Instagram.

473

If you're on them and have a look at some

of the stories that teachers and parents

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are sending in of the harm that is caused

by religious instruction in schools.

475

And if parents and students understood

what religion actually meant in their

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child's primary school, isn't religious

education, it is religious instruction.

477

Perhaps it would make a difference.

478

And as you can see from the Irish

Catholics interpretation of the

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Children's ombudsman survey.

480

They are masters.

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I presented information

in a particular manner.

482

And by leaving at psychology and drama

and by failing to define religion.

483

At best their headline is misleading.

484

Perhaps to borrow their own phrase, it

better, it might be better described.

485

As sin.

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By omission.

487

So there you have my

first episode for 24, 25.

488

I always like to talk about this

topic and if you have any comments

489

yourself and you're interested

in contribution in any way to the

490

discussion I am still on Twitter or axes.

491

I.

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I do feel I want to leave it.

493

I'm what I am trying to do is I'm setting,

I've set up a newsletter which I'd

494

love you to subscribe to on shaw.net/.

495

Slash subscribe where I'm going to

be, giving people, subscribers the

496

opportunity to talk a little bit more.

497

I also get bonus and material for

anyone who's subscribed to the

498

newsletter, which is I look for

a newspaper articles that appear.

499

And in the media.

500

That I find really interesting and

I get some comments on them, but

501

it's also interesting to know for

you to maybe have a look yourself.

502

And I also give because I have

a background in technology.

503

I also give some technology tips

which you can have a look at, and

504

there are also on the YouTube channel.

505

The podcast is no longer

going to be on YouTube.

506

I've decided after looking at the views.

507

For all the effort of videoing myself

and actually having to be dressed.

508

What I do this in, in, in decent

clothes, I am dressed when I'm doing

509

this as a podcast, just for the record.

510

It'd be probably wasn't Worth the effort.

511

So you're going to have to go

back to listening to the podcast.

512

Anyway, that is it for me.

513

Love to hear from you.

514

As I said, please subscribe on

onshore.net/subscribe or go to your

515

favorite podcasts and talk format.

516

And please leave a review.

517

If you've enjoyed this episode because

it helps other teachers and other

518

people find, add the podcast more easy.

519

That's it for me from this week.

520

Thanks so much for this thing.

521

All the very, very best bye-bye.