Grading Religion

[fakeitormakeit]

Please do not respond if you don't read all of my post, your planning to post something disrespectful or immature or if your going to say something like "I'm an atheist and I think all religion is wrong anyway", although I still would enjoy hearing an option from atheists & everyone else. Please, everyone do not make this a religious arguement.

 

 

 

Well, I always did well in religion but I'm making this thread because I was talking with a sophmore at my new high school and we both agreed grading religion isn't really logical because its what you believe and you can't really have a right answer on your own beliefs. True, we of private schools are lucky that we are able to learn our own religion in our school, and I believe your religion should be taught to you, I just believe you shouldn't have graded tests. The only tests that you could truthly grade would be about the religion's history, and teenagers & children don't really seem to catch onto a religion if they are learning the history and not the true beliefs. I think it should be graded upon participation of the class, and the tests are so very easy, it sometimes distracts the students from the real meaning of the class, to further your knowledge and understanding and feeling of your religion.

 

 

 

I was talking with my teacher for the last month before 8th grade finished, and I asked why he graded us upon religion and I thought it was about your own beliefs and whats mostly important is your relation to God, your fellow humans, and a way of life. I was answered with one of those angry "blah" responses.

 

 

 

 

 

Please I would like to hear everyone's opinion, just please don't start arguing with the hundreds of quotes of quotes of quotes of quotes and insults to each other. I appreciate all mature posts.

[Giordano]

I personally don't get these tests.

 

If the question was "Do you believe in God?" and write down "No" you got it wrong? :|

[PeaceBoy]

I think they shouldn't test you on religion because religion is what people believe and what if some people don't believe in anything does that mean they get a "F"? Well I think grading you on religion isn't right because everyone has a different look and opinion on it.

[fakeitormakeit]

I don't mean if you don't believe in X-being, because if you don't you don't even take the class, but I mean if you believe in it but your tested on your own views, does that really make sense?

[Errdoth]

You're right. Most of our grade this year comes from our "Journals", where we take questions from the book (all of which break down to the generic "How can I be a better person?"), and write our answers to them. I've also noticed how all of the answers can be "Pray, go to church, and love god"

 

 

 

That was last year, though. I'm not sure how it will go this year, because all we have done so far is get into a huge abortion debate where we spent the whole period having the teacher and some other people in my class try and convince me to be pro-life. (Same thing happened in science when the teacher found out I don't believe that we're causing global warming, and that I thinks it's all just a natural cycle...)

[Craiglowery]

Umm I dont think any religion class is graded on your views of religion, I mean dont you guys use a textbook? I would think thats where most of the questions come from, right?

 

 

 

In my world religions class, a majority of the questions on a test come from the book but sometimes she may throw some questions about our own views of a religion or something like that, but thats just filler. Nothing to worry about if you think you might put the wrong answer.

[Adventurer]

^

 

Yeah, mostly. Even in elementary years, I didn't get anything out of textbooks though.

 

_______

 

 

 

Guess what? My Bible teacher shares this view, and he structures his class on it. I find that he teaches far more practically than pretty much any other Bible teacher that I've had.

[Ambassadar]

I went to a private Christian school for a couple of years when I was in elementary school. They would make us memorize these massive chunks of verses in first and second grade and we would get graded on it. I hated it. I don't think having classes where you get grades or doing what we had to do is the right way to go about it.

 

 

 

I think the way schools were originally set up is the ideal way to teach Christianity in the classroom if a school is so inclined. The class would be English but for their reading section they would read classical literature as well as excerpts from the Bible. That way the grade isn't about the religion. The grade is for English and reading comprehension.

 

 

 

Whatever a person's views are things like "Love your neighbor as yourself" are always a good thing for kids to be reading.

[warri0r45]

I'm trying to remember how they tested christian studies at the highschool I went to...

 

 

 

Can't really remember at the moment. I do remember doing a few assignments relating to religions in general. It was pretty interesting. It was mostly about understanding different points of view from the major world religions. I did mine on Buddhism.

 

 

 

Oh now I remember something else, we did a unit on ethics. It wasn't like 'what is right or wrong' then just dictating the Christian view, it was more looking at different views like situation ethincs, utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics, deontology and some others.

 

 

 

It was a very liberal christian school in the above respects.

[BlueTear]

I'm curious as to how these tests are laid out. What kind of questions are asked, what kind of preparation you do beforehand. Are the questions mostly about you memorizing something from a class or textbook, or is it about discussion around a certain issue?

[Guest]

Yeah most of the grading I did in religion was about assignments and more to do with the history of the religion. We didn't have end of semester/year exams on religion.

[ashozzy2]

Well in the UK they do RE exams that you have to give to opinions to one arguement.

 

 

 

For example they say "Abortion is wrong discuss showing youve thought of other opinions".

 

 

 

So you could take the Roman Catholic stance its completely wrong, but then you would have to use say the Quakers view that there are xcpetional circumstances to it.

 

 

 

Its more a case of morality than religion, and shwoing you can see others points of view

[Ginger_Warrior]

I dunno if that's the system for religious studies in the US, but in the UK we're actually taught about two or three religion's stance on a certain topic. It's actually called Philosophy & Ethics, and it involved looking at something like Environmentalism or Vivisection and looking at how Christianity or Islam would view that topic, and how they would use their own literature to back that up.

 

 

 

Our exams are mostly asking "What would a Christian think to scenario X". Only a small percentage of marks are awarded for being able to form our own opinion, and no marks are awarded for the opinion itself, but the ability to justify and support it.

 

 

 

In other words, it's not religion that's graded, or our beliefs in religion, but rather our ability to recall and understand how certain religions view an ethical topic, and our own ability to formulate and justify our own opinion.

[Bubsa]

The idea of academically marking something completely spiritual is farcical enough for me.

[NightHawK]

I dont think religion should be a subject, its something that you have to learn and decide for yourself what path you would wish to choose. The subject in schools itself it a bit misleading, it should be called Religious Studies instead of just religion. In my opinion I think it should be made optional.

 

 

 

There are two sides to religion in schools. The first is learning about different religions and how they work, then there is religion about your chosen god, i.e going to church, praying and believing in god.

[fakeitormakeit]

I believe religion should be a subject, just not that they kill you with memorizes large chunks of grade you on your view IN THAT RELIGION CLASS if you're thinking I mean another class, I don't.

 

 

 

I went to a Roman Catholic private school and earlier years, like kindergarden and 1st we learned to pray then in 3rd grade we had to memorize all the large prayers.

 

 

 

Then 4th and on we used a textbook and memorized the stuff and the tests looked like this:

 

 

 

1. Where was the first council held?

 

 

 

2. What did the first council discuss?

 

 

 

3. Who was the Roman Emperor to start the Great Persecution?

 

 

 

and so on and so forth till like question 20,

 

 

 

20. What do you believe Jesus's message was in ------.

 

 

 

 

 

See I don't like that people would memorize and not learn it

 

because there is a difference.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Well, I know for a fact that religious 'indoctrination' isn't allowed in any of our (UK) comprehensive schools, since they are state run and our state doesn't actually have a state religion (and before anyone fights me over that with technicalities, too all intent and purposes we haven't since Elizabeth I advocated Free Religion). Therefore, the style and the language is completely different.

 

 

 

If we were being taught a Christian viewpoint, the language would be something like, "Christians believe that ... althought there are some branches of the Chritian fiath that believe ...", as opposed to making it sound like it is the viewpoint and no other viewpoint equates its dominance.

 

 

 

Nor are we taught the History of religions, but rather their viewpoint on the modern day world. TBH, I find that much more relevant. It allows us to see through what the media says about a minority, and allows us to actually gain a perspective of a religion before we judge them. For example, when people talk about this Jihad nonsense, it allows the majority of this country to turn round and say, "Well, actually, there is nothing America's done to initiate Jihad, so in the eyes of most Muslims, there is no Jihad". It's just healthy for an overall better tolerance of other people's cultures, traditions and opinions.

 

 

 

As for the matter in hand, I don't see why it can't be marked. I'm marked in History for my ability to recall information about the past and to use that information to justify an interpretation - why is it suddenly wrong not to mark a subject that requires learning another group's general beliefs, and using those beliefs to see how they could justify their viewpoint?

[StrOwez]

I did 2 religious studies papers (one on Marks Gospel ) and the other on (issues in life i.e. abortion, euthanasia and other problems and what the Bible teaches you about those problems and how to deal with them)

 

 

 

I don't regret learning about it I did have to memorise huge chunks of the bible but albeit helps you understand what makes religious people tick. Also it teaches you to think from both sides of view, which is always good in any given situation.

[ltb2006]

Religious Eduction at my school had nothing to do with whether you believed in A god at all. You just needed an opinion. It wouldn't make any sense grading something like christian studies etc.Thankfully that stayed 1000 miles from my school.

[assassin_696]

I dunno if that's the system for religious studies in the US, but in the UK we're actually taught about two or three religion's stance on a certain topic. It's actually called Philosophy & Ethics, and it involved looking at something like Environmentalism or Vivisection and looking at how Christianity or Islam would view that topic, and how they would use their own literature to back that up.

 

 

 

Our exams are mostly asking "What would a Christian think to scenario X". Only a small percentage of marks are awarded for being able to form our own opinion, and no marks are awarded for the opinion itself, but the ability to justify and support it.

 

 

 

In other words, it's not religion that's graded, or our beliefs in religion, but rather our ability to recall and understand how certain religions view an ethical topic, and our own ability to formulate and justify our own opinion.

 

 

 

That's what I did, and I don't see what the problem is with it. You're marked to a small extent on having your own opinion, justifying that opinion and showing that there is an alternative. But the examiner can't be biased in terms of which opinion is best. As with any exam, as long as your opinion is justified it gets the marked. And with the higher end exams (i'm thinking Oxbridge entrance exams) the more controversial opinions will often get the higher marks, you need to make your paper stand out.