Released Time, yea or nay?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Religious ed period changed my life. And I never took part in it.

The suburban high school a couple of miles away had three classes of AP American History. My working class high school had four … people sign up. The minimum for a class was five. Then the chair of the history department figured out a workaround. Students were released for religious ed last period on Mondays, with the rest going to homeroom. That left the time open since none of us four left. Even more impressively, he invited us to his home one evening a week. (Ironically, he lived in that suburban school’s district.)

We used Morison & Commager’s college textbook. Opened my eyes to the patriotic lies in high school history. Made me interested in history for the first time. Several decades later, that’s all I would do.

Even at the time, though, I thought religious ed in school time was outrageous.

22

Students getting religious instruction on their own time is fine.

Schools choosing to let parents take their child out of school for a limited amount of time, for whatever reasons the parents like, is fine. Well, permissible, at least, though it might be an unwise idea.

Schools choosing to let parents take their children out of school, but only specifically for religious purposes, is not at all fine.

23

Same here in the 60s, NW side of Chicago. Tho I bet it was closed to 85-90%. Thinking back on that, it seems inconceivable.

At some point maybe around 70, they switched to either Mon eve or Sat morning - not sure when, but no longer during school time.

I’m a strong NO WAY WRT releasing kids from school to be indoctrinated in some mythology. Some church or some parents want to feed their kids that BS, either pony up and send them to religious school, or figure out how to do it during evenings or weekends.

24

Children need age-appropriate instruction ABOUT religion to understand history and culture. Anything beyond that is the parents’ job to arrange, and have it be done outside regular school hours.

p.s. We always had minimal or no homework on Wednesdays.

25

It’s a bad idea. Our schools are in enough trouble without taking time out of the school day for religious instructions. Nationally, only 29% of 8th graders were proficient in reading ability and comprehension: The Nation’s Report Card: 2022 Reading Snapshot Report: Nation Grade 8
That’s an average, meaning some states are significantly worse. The scores for math are similarly sobering.

If the parents want the kids to have religious instruction, that should be before or after school or on weekends.

26

That’s yet another reason why we shouldn’t be doing this.

Regarding the 10 Commandments posts in Louisiana, I also said, "But will the kids be able to read them?)

27

I was in Junior High, grades 7-9, in New York City, in '58-'59. I remember the “Catholics” leaving about 1PM once a week. But it was only for a month or two if memory serves. So maybe 8 or 9 weeks.

28

When I was in elementary school, the Catholic students had CCD after school on Wednesdays. My mom worked on Wednesdays, and if my friend’s mother wasn’t available, I’d go with one of my other friends to CCD and hang out in the lobby.

The Korean students had Korean class on Saturdays. If there were any Jewish students, they might have had something after school as well, but I don’t remember having any Jewish classmates in elementary school.

29

I grew up in Mordior (the “Mormon corridor”) where seminary/released-time was ingrained in the culture. It’s only offered for grades 9-12, however; kids younger than that had after-school singing/lessons in the church across the street from the elementary school one day per week, though that was done away with once the “everything on Sunday” idea was implemented. (Around 1980, I think, after I aged out of the program.)

How it worked: we’d enrol through the church and request the “release time” course when registering for classes for the school year. It was just like any other class period, but we’d have to walk across the high-school parking lot to the building just off of campus. There’d be five or six classes running there in the building each of the seven class periods of the day. Kids were separated by grade so we didn’t mix the Juniors with the Seniors, for example. (Heaven forbid!)

Originally you could earn high-school credit for the release-time class. These numbers may be off, but I seem to recall that there were 24 “hours” required for graduation (4 x 6) and seminary was included. Then one year one of the rebel kids hadn’t gone to seminary all year and (of course!) failed it, meaning he couldn’t graduate! The parents took the case to court and the UT supreme court said “no way” to getting actual high-school credit for those classes. This resulted in the highly mormon legislature changing the graduation requirements down to 21.5 (vague remembrance; probably wrong) credit hours so you could still go for five or six classes per day and take seminary and graduate. (Seven periods per day but not much was offered for seventh period; I had seminary both 10th and 12th grade during seventh period and just left early during 9th and 11th.)

Overall, it was ok. I participated fully for the first three years but then only about half-time my last year because I had a math class at the college that I went to because I took calculus in 11th grade. However I actually felt more pride in my seminary graduation than I did my high school graduation. I mean, I was a top student in both arenas, but given how low the bar was for graduation from high school my diploma felt kind of “cheap”. Meanwhile the other diploma felt more exclusive, like I was part of the “few there be that find it” club. Not that it matters now, of course: I’ve pretty much “graduated” from the church altogether at this point of my life! :blush:

How I feel about it now: I think our system worked. Release time was just another class, meaning no one was missing out on any secular instruction by leaving in the middle and coming back. Kids outside of Moridor didn’t have that option, though. They had to wake up WAY TOO early and have daily classes before their regular school day. That would have been hell! Have to admire the ones able to do that for four years straight!

30

I say nay. You might as well offer release time for flat earthers.

My elementary school certainly had nothing like that. I did spend a years and a half (from 11 1/2 to 13) going to Hebrew classes, but they met 4-5:30 Tuesday and Thursday. There was a Catholic school a couple blocks away. If a Catholic went to my school, then any religious education was outside school hours.

I realize this thread is US-centric, but let me digress a bit and talk about the situation as it is and was in Quebec.

When we moved here in 1968 school boards were religiously based. There were Catholic and Protestant school boards. Somewhere, there was at least one Dissenting school board; I have no idea what that was about. By 1968, there was no religion being taught in the Protestant schools and they had become totally secular. That hadn’t always been the case. The Shapiro twins, one of whom was president first of U. Mich. and then Princeton while his brother became principal (= president) of McGill, were not allowed to enroll in their local schools and had to go to private schools.

Eventually, the province realized that students enrolled in the Protestant schools were getting more education and decided to even things out by instituting compulsory courses in “moral and religious education”. They were generally a total waste of time. Although my daughter said they would sometimes discuss things like the trolley switching question. (If you had control of a switch that you could use to divert a runaway trolley to run over 1 person instead of 5, what should you do?)

Eventually, schools were reorganized on the basis of language and religion largely dropped. Although a provision was made that if a majority of parents insisted a school could adopt a relgious “vocation”. Since my kids finished school and all moved to the US, I haven’t tracked this, but I suspect it is pretty much a dead letter.

The big issue now is whether teachers can wear religious symbols. Mainly hijabs and yarmulkes, but any symbols except, of course, a cross. That is defined to be a symbol of Quebec history, having no religious significance.

31

When The Daughter was in high school, she had late afternoon classes (after school) for her Confirmation.

She was in Drama, and enjoyed performing in the school plays. Cast members were expected to stay after school for rehearsals and the teacher made a big to-do that anyone missing rehearsals would be dropped.

The Daughter vehemently objected. There had been a recent announcement that schools were not to interfere with religious education which was not on school time. The teacher wanted to argue.

The Daughter prevailed.

She got an A in drama.

There was another confrontation when she took a literature class and the instructor wanted to use the influence of Christianity on European literature. To me, that’s a legitimate approach, because from the Dark Ages through the Renaissance, religion was a major factor in people’s lives.

But when The Daughter came home and said the teacher was putting forth HIS interpretation of Catholicism, I made an appointment with the school counselor.

The teacher waltzes in to the conference and said his major objection was when The Daughter spent the class time giving big sighs and rolling her eyes at everything he said. I tried keeping my temper, and explained that it wasn’t his place to pass judgment on any faith.

He slouched in his chair, exhaled a big sigh, and rolled his eyes.

I slapped the conference table so loudly, it startled everyone. Then I turned to the counselor and said, “I want my daughter out of his class.”

The counselor said, “No problem,” while the teacher slunk out of the room.

In public school, don’t force your faith on others. But do not prevent those who have a faith from believing what they do.

~VOW

32

Good for you, that’s the way I feel.

Some people are against any mention of religion in public. I remember, of all things, a mini-series titled “AD”. It centered on history in Rome in the first century, you know, the early period of Christianity. I knew a person who said it would have been good if it hadn’t mentioned Christianity. How could it not?

On the other hand I am against current developments in Texas and Oklahoma that are mandating Bible teaching in public school classes. If I had children I would want to supervise their religious education, not someone I don’t know.

33

Grade school kids cannot handle the Bible being taught in public school. They’ll believe that Methuselah actually lived to be 969 years!

Don’t you just know Texas is using a King James bible? Or perhaps, God Bless America, a Trump bible?

~VOW

34

I didn’t realize that it was that easy to prevent someone from believing in their religion.

35

@markn_1

Oh, snark, snark.

No, adversarial teachers don’t necessarily prevent someone from believing in their faith.

Instead, the student is a target for bullying. Especially since the teacher generated the first shots fired.

~VOW

36

I always wondered what CCD stood for. My town was roughly 85% French immigrant Catholic, so most kids went to it. But they never told me what it stood for. Thanks for informing me 40 years later.

37

You’re welcome! To be honest, I’d wondered what it stood for for 50+ years, and looked it up when I wrote that post. :smiley:

38

Well, LifeWise had a surprisingly diplomatic response to The Satanic Temple :grin: