Religion, self -employed and optional, which is taught in all school years, from preparatory to the last high school, should be reformed from the ground. The education experts say, the parents of the children say it. The reason? The teaching of religion in schools is a social failure, and the 13 years of religious education did not bring any benefit, considers Ciprian Mihali, the director of the Philosophy Department of Babeș-Bolyai University. Marian Stas, an expert in education, comes in this regard with a proposal.
Education for spirituality should replace the regia that does not educate, but indoctrinates
Religion, a optional matter among compulsory. Specialist: “a legal aberration”
The religion is in the common trunk of the schedule, where the compulsory subjects are found for all students, but this discipline has a special status: it is optional. The decision belongs to the RCC and cannot be appealed. Although, opinions against will always exist. “There are two legal aspects that go head to head: one is the aspect of unconstitutionality of the obligation to teach the religion, as the Constitutional Court of Romania has decided, and another is the presence of this discipline in the common trunk of the framework plans. It seems to me a legal aberration ”, told “Adevărul” Marian Stas.
“The law says it is mandatory for the school to make such a subject at the disposal, but is it not mandatory that the students study it? How’s this coming? And then, on this principle, why not apply the decision in the case of other subjects in the common trunk? For example, the school to offer mathematics, and the students only follow if they want ”, he continued. Therefore, from the beginning, we are in front of a legal conflict, explains the specialist.
“I do not want my boy to believe that if he is not good to reach hell.”
Religion is a subject that is taught by indoctrinating, most of the times, the children, said for “Adevărul” Miruna Matei, the mother of a first-class student, who told us how the child was influenced “to believe in the basons without any scientific support ”:
“I did not ask to register Theo at Religion, the child was from the start. I should have made a request if I didn’t want him to participate. That’s how I was told from the school secretariat. But it seemed too big to me if I wanted to withdraw it, and that’s because the boy should have come out of the hour and had no place to stay. “explains the father.
“But over time, I realized that I made a big mistake. The child began to speak more and more about God, Jesus, crosses, death, angels, churches, to play prayers on the street, to worship for no reason – a gesture that had become almost a tick.”
The woman told that she tried not to consider such gestures. “Instead, we began to explain to him why we do not sing prayers in the big mouth on the street, why we only worship at the church, I explained honestly, honestly and how well we could what death is, what happens after Death, who was Jesus, how the world, man, etc. But what I told him was canceled why the Lord of religion told him in the classroom. ”
The woman really worried when the child told her she would like to worship the night and say our father to stop dreaming: “Because he had a nightmare in one night, the child began to pray to God not to give him ugly dreams. I explained to him again that you can worship, you can pray, but that does not mean that you will not dream bad. I talked a lot then. I told him that we all have nightmares sometimes, I explained to his meaning why this happens, what is happening in our brain, we slept together for a while. “
The woman told us that she wants to withdraw her boy from the religion time because she wants a child in reality, a child inclined towards science, “Not one to believe that sinners arrive in hell, and if it is not good, God will beat him. ” However, she also recognizes it, it will be very difficult, because the child has the time of religion in the middle of the program. In this context, very common in the Romanian schools, Professor Ciprian Mihali draws a great alarm: “The transformation of religion into optional discipline is a failure. A discipline is optional when the student has the opportunity to choose between her and another discipline, as is the case with other school or university disciplines: for example, four optional courses you have to choose two. But in the case of religion, the alternative does not exist: as a student, or you put your headphones on your ears and listen to music in the hour of religion, or do your homework, or stay on the school halls. None of these alternatives is actual educational and beneficial to the students ”.
Ciprian Mihali, director of the Philosophy Department within the UBB. Personal archive
Secialist: “Religion in schools, an experiment to catechize children”
Miruna’s story is just an example that shows us how to teach, in fact, the religion at school in small classes, when the minds of children is the easiest to model. “The thirteen years (from the preparatory class to the 12th grade) of alleged religious education does not contribute to a better knowledge of the religious phenomenon or the history of religions, but they do not form a more moral, more in mind and citizen. lighter to others. She does not even educate believers who better understand their own religion, its fundamental texts or their own faith ”, he considers Professor Ciprian Mihali. “With rare and happy exceptions, Religion teachers They continue to be poorly prepared theoretically and are bordering on a failed and long -term dogization experiment ”, the specialist continues.
Marian Stas strengthens the idea explaining that religion could remain as a subject in school, but in another form: “Instead of this discipline we could introduce an education component for spirituality. For, at the moment, as this subject is taught now, there are two great risks: first, there are multiple signals that say that people entering classrooms are not professionals as they should be and, in Al Second, we face the risk of proselytism and indoctrination ”. And not necessarily religious, if we remember the case of the teacher from Buzău accused of non -elegious proselytism.
Marian Stas, Education Expert. Archive
An arrangement, a game of power and influence
Therefore, he considers Marian Stas, religion, if we keep it in schools, to be at least real use: “It is clear to me that this arrangement, which generates conflicts of legal and pedagogical nature, has a source that no one speaks of. Namely, this tendency to play power and influence from the majority religious cult. And this is not accused. It’s a fact. “
Marian Staș compares this power game played by the BOR with a true GO GAME: “In which the goal is for the pieces of each player to encircle as many of the opponent’s pieces as possible.”. And pTo a limit, says Marian Stas, can accept this from the church. “But what I will never agree is this risk of proselytism and indoctrination. Because this does not mean a free society, but a tributary society to an Education of Middle Ages, not to a 21st century education ”, says the expert.
One is the deep faith, which each of us we carry in more or less, and the other is what is taught at school, considers the two experts in education. In this context, Marian Stas invites the Patriarch of Romania to an honest exercise for what the spiritual education of children today: “Let us think contents with relevant, neutral themes, which will balance pedagogically and educational ideas and religious beliefs, to invite self -knowledge, self -control, self -knowledge, etc. This, avoiding the two profoundly-educational competitions, namely proselytism and indoctrination. ”
In addition to eliminating religion from the schedule and introducing in its place the discipline education for spirituality, Marian Stas also comes with a proposal: piloting this subject in certain schools:“In order for the change not to be done suddenly, so that this novelty is easier to accept. And where it must be adjusted, intervened, to be able to help and intervene ”.
Appeal to responsibility
The university professor Ciprian Mihali also appeals to the Romanian Orthodox Church, saying that the BOR has the right to do religious education, but the way it does is questionable. “Let’s understand ourselves: BORON And the other churches recognized by the Romanian state have every right, enshrined in law and recognized by society, to do religious education. We do not want to, religion is a fundamental dimension of our individual, collective and historical existence. But the way this education takes place and the place where it happens, its duration and its actors bring great service to religion in general, but also to relationships between people and society as a whole ”.
