Another example of Religion in Public Schools

[blackbird]

28 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

So you are suggesting that the school week be Sunday through Thursday then?

No.

[Michael Hardner]

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

No.

Why are you conflating mandatory public Christian prayer for all students and private prayer clubs for some ?  Do you not understand the difference, or are you looking to muddy the waters of discussion ?  Are you interested in having a real discussion around culture or not ?

[Queenmandy85]

For those who say religion has no place in schools, how do you explain all of the Catholic School boards we elect every few years? 

[Boges]

4 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

For those who say religion has no place in schools, how do you explain all of the Catholic School boards we elect every few years? 

It'd be Political Suicide to get rid of them. Also most parents that send their kids to Catholic Schools see them as Poor Man's Private Schools. 

[blackbird]

6 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Why are you conflating mandatory public Christian prayer for all students and private prayer clubs for some ?  Do you not understand the difference, or are you looking to muddy the waters of discussion ?  Are you interested in having a real discussion around culture or not ?

Not sure what you mean.   I believe no religion should be accommodated in public schools whether you wish to call it prayer for all students or private prayer clubs.  Neither should be permitted on public school property.  If you provide public property for one religion, then you have no argument for not providing it for any other religion.  That is not the function of public schools, which taxpayers are paying for.   Yes, I will discuss issues around culture.   I don't see this however as a question of culture.  It is a question of what public schools should be used for.  Since it is no longer possible to have christian prayer or teaching in public schools, certainly no other religion should be permitted to operate on the premises either.

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

For those who say religion has no place in schools, how do you explain all of the Catholic School boards we elect every few years? 

I should have said religion has no place in public schools.  Private schools can practice their religion.  If people want religion in school, they have the option of sending their kids to a private school.  Catholic schools are private schools.   Catholic schools must still be considered as a private school even though it may receive public funding and you vote for the catholic school board.  It might even be the most common school in your area.  But it still is a private school and does not have to accommodate the practice of non-catholic religious exercises.

Edited March 14, 2017 by blackbird

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, Boges said:

It'd be Political Suicide to get rid of them. Also most parents that send their kids to Catholic Schools see them as Poor Man's Private Schools. 

Catholic schools are a form of private religious type of school even if they receive public funding.  They can't be considered as public school.  So again they have the right to teach only catholicism and can refuse to allow other religions to be taught or practiced in their schools.  People get public and catholic schools confused I think.  They are two different entities. 

Didn't the government in Ontario or Quebec sign an agreement with the catholic church authorities way back in history to provide funding for them to operate catholic schools?  This creates a strange situation where catholic schools in some provinces where the most common school is catholic, but isn't there still public schools in the same cities?  I think people in Quebec or Ontario who do not want to send their kids to a catholic school have the right to send them to a public school.  Is that correct?  Or how does it work?

Edited March 14, 2017 by blackbird

[Boges]

17 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Catholic schools are a form of private religious type of school even if they receive public funding.  They can't be considered as public school.  So again they have the right to teach only catholicism and can refuse to allow other religions to be taught or practiced in their schools.  People get public and catholic schools confused I think.  They are two different entities. 

Didn't the government in Ontario or Quebec sign an agreement with the catholic church authorities way back in history to provide funding for them to operate catholic schools?  This creates a strange situation where catholic schools in some provinces where the most common school is catholic, but isn't there still public schools in the same cities?  I think people in Quebec or Ontario who do not want to send their kids to a catholic school have the right to send them to a public school.  Is that correct?  Or how does it work?

Yeah there are two separate school boards with completely different administration. And the Catholic Schools are often the nicer ones because they have access to other funding streams. 

And they aren't all that religious, but you do have to wear a uniform. 

Pragmatism would suggest that we don't need Catholic School Boards anymore. But in Ontario we've had a Liberal party in charge for going on 15 years and they haven't even hinted at scrapping the system. 

Edited March 14, 2017 by Boges

[?Impact]

2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

For those who say religion has no place in schools, how do you explain all of the Catholic School boards we elect every few years? 

Unfortunately our country started out with religion in schools, and that is enshrined in the Constitution (article 93). When I went to school in Quebec we didn't have public schools, we had Catholic schools and Protestant schools. They were both supported by the province. Quebec started to change this system about 20 years ago to reduce the number of school boards. They needed to request an exemption from article 93 by the federal government, if you look at the current constitution there is an article 93A which states that article 93 does not apply to Quebec. For a number of years after that there were religious education classes still offered, and then they created the Éthique et culture religieuse class to become part of the standard curriculum for all (including private education). The controversy continues, with various religious groups still wanting their own religion in schools.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

Not sure what you mean.   I believe no religion should be accommodated in public schools whether you wish to call it prayer for all students or private prayer clubs.  Neither should be permitted on public school property.  If you provide public property for one religion, then you have no argument for not providing it for any other religion.  That is not the function of public schools, which taxpayers are paying for.   Yes, I will discuss issues around culture.   I don't see this however as a question of culture.  It is a question of what public schools should be used for.  Since it is no longer possible to have christian prayer or teaching in public schools, certainly no other religion should be permitted to operate on the premises either.

I have never heard anyone propose prayer be banned from schools, in private clubs.  By your last sentence you certainly seem to misunderstand what is and isn't allowed anymore.

[Queenmandy85]

Saskatchewan has a separate school system. The Sask (conservative) Party has no intention of changing that. The Catholic system is not a private school. When we pay our school taxes, we check off which system we use. There are no uniforms.

Ontario is not the centre of the universe. 

[Boges]

2 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Saskatchewan has a separate school system. The Sask (conservative) Party has no intention of changing that. The Catholic system is not a private school. When we pay our school taxes, we check off which system we use. There are no uniforms.

Ontario is not the centre of the universe. 

Says you 

[overthere]

13 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Saskatchewan has a separate school system. The Sask (conservative) Party has no intention of changing that. The Catholic system is not a private school. When we pay our school taxes, we check off which system we use. There are no uniforms.

Ontario is not the centre of the universe. 

Alberta and Saskatchewan -and Ontario in a slightly different way-are quite different from other provinces, in that the right to a Catholic education at public expense is a constitutional right.  Polticians there have two problems: having the gonads to try to change, and having the authority.

 

For what it is worth,the  public school board in Edmonton  has taken some interesting and exceptional measures to keep public education alive and funded.  They have no influence on the Catholic board, but the Public system has many other 'religious schools'- Muslim Jewish, Christian- all running on public funds.  Its a big tent, and the net result is that there are very few private schools in Edmonton.  The Public Board feels that better to have all those groups- and ,any, many more interest groups inside the system,  

 

This is possible because in AB, parents can send their kid to any school in the province they want, if there is room in that school.  The schools or rather boards have two things they all must do: employ only certified teachers, and every school must teach the provincial curriuclum.  That mandatory ciurrilculum takes up about 60% of every day, after that schools can offer pretty much anything that parents want.  The system has hockey academies, fine arts, a whole bunch of language focused schools, ballet, soccer, military , academic achievement, and many others. Or they can offer, as many do, the usual mix of art, phys ed, languages etc that is more traditional.  It works well.

Edited March 14, 2017 by overthere

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

The Catholic system is not a private school.

I'm not sure how you define a private school.  If the school is under the control of a denomination or church, people generally do not think of it as a public school.  It is a church-run school, although they must teach a certain minimum department of education curriculum.  Because they are classified as a "catholic school", they are free to teach catholicism as well as the required curriculum.  If it were classified as a public school, it would not be free to teach one particular religion.  There is a distinct difference between a catholic school and a public school.  Do you understand the difference?

Also, you said you check off which school system you want your taxes to go to.  So one is the Catholic school system and the other is what is normally called the public school system.  Trying to call the catholic school system the public school system doesn't make sense.

Edited March 14, 2017 by blackbird

[?Impact]

52 minutes ago, overthere said:

For what it is worth,the  public school board in Edmonton  has taken some interesting and exceptional measures to keep public education alive and funded.  They have no influence on the Catholic board, but the Public system has many other 'religious schools'- Muslim Jewish, Christian- all running on public funds.

Just a bit of history. A long time ago in Quebec (before my time) there was an attempt to create a Jewish school board. There is, and has been for a long time, a large Jewish population in the Montreal area. In the days of the 'confessional' or religious based schools it would have made sense to have a Jewish school board. The problem they ran into is the great disparity within the Jewish community (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Hassidic and I'm sure much more subtle differences as well) that they couldn't come together to form a single Jewish school board. Are we going to have Sunni and Shi'a school boards, and let's not forget Sufism and all the other results of schisms. 

[overthere]

16 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Just a bit of history. A long time ago in Quebec (before my time) there was an attempt to create a Jewish school board. There is, and has been for a long time, a large Jewish population in the Montreal area. In the days of the 'confessional' or religious based schools it would have made sense to have a Jewish school board. The problem they ran into is the great disparity within the Jewish community (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Hassidic and I'm sure much more subtle differences as well) that they couldn't come together to form a single Jewish school board. Are we going to have Sunni and Shi'a school boards, and let's not forget Sufism and all the other results of schisms. 

Interesting, but sadly it has absolutely nothing to do with what you quoted from me or the situation in Edmonton Public School Board.

 

 

[H10]

On 3/14/2017 at 1:00 AM, blackbird said:

I think public schools have banned christian prayer and distribution of Gideon bibles from their premises.  Years ago in Canada, there were public schools where christian bible stories were taught or read and christianity was given a prominent place.  With the gradual immigration of many non-christian peoples, people started to demand that out of respect for our immigrant friends, christianity would stop being taught in schools or given any special recognition.  That is where we are at now.  So why should school boards in London Ontario have turned gymnasiums into mosques on Fridays?   I don't agree that people have that right.   There is a limit to rights.  Because of the very reason that Canada is made up of many cultures and religions, we cannot favour one over another in a public institution.  Everyone should understand that and respect the principle of public institutions being secular.  That is another reason why someone's face should not be covered in the citizenship ceremony.  There are certain things that define Canada.  Favouring one religion in public institutions is not something we should acquiesce to.  Public schools, universities, courtrooms, and anywhere police and government serves the public should operate in a secular way. 

Yeah but the christian prayer and bible stories were being forced. You are talking about  a time when kids got beat for refusing to pray, even if they were not religious.  The muslim stuff is all voluntary and done in the gym on students own extra time. Christians were never asking for prayer after school programs, they were asking for in class religious teachings as part of the curriculum and the government largely caved to them by agreeing to give them publicly funded religious schools like catholic schools and protestant schools, etc.  Alot of muslims are asking if the catholics and protestants get my tax dollars to have their own schools, why can't we?  Where is the equality?

Canada was never found on a strictly secular basis like the USA which has a constitution which specifies seperation of religion and state.  Rather, Canada's constitution explicitly guarantees the rights of religious groups and entangles them into public funding.

 

I don't think people should be allowed to cover their face in any government ceremony, I don't think people should be permitted to testify in court behind a shield, I don't think a person's identity should be hidden in any court action except minors.  I think it needs to be all in the open.  You accuse a man of rape, well you need to show your face too.  None of that man's face is lambasted through the media, but no one know who this woman is.

We have religious public funded universities, religious publicly funded schools, etc.  I don't agree with eliminatingreligion from government.

[blackbird]

5 hours ago, hernanday said:

We have religious public funded universities, religious publicly funded schools, etc.  I don't agree with eliminatingreligion from government.

Private religious schools are only partially funded by government.  The reason is because people pay tax dollars for education.  If they send their kids to private schools, the government provides some funding and the parents must still pay a monthly tuition for each child.  In one school I know of, I think it was $400 per child per month.  That is a lot of money. 

Some provinces might be different where the Catholic church has some kind of historic agreement with the government to provide catholic schools funded by the provincial government.  But this is an exception and there is no such agreement for other religions. 

I'm not sure why you don't agree with eliminating religion from government.  Not sure what you mean by government.  Government cannot favour one religion over another.  Can you see the unfairness of government favouring one religion over another?  The best way they can be seen to be fair is not allow any religion in public schools or public universities.  If people want religion in schools, they are still free to send their kids to a private school which has their religion.  They can also go to their church after school.  They shouldn't ask the school to provide a place for worship.  Taxpayers are not paying for that.

[dre]

On 1/31/2017 at 0:37 PM, PIK said:

There is a reason why people go to church or mosque. Keep it out of schools. This non stop immigration is goiong to kill tyhis country. In 50 yrs canada will not be the country that is was known for,it will be just a mess.

OH MY GOD THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      There has been "non stop immigration" for a hundred years, and the whole time, xenophobic dimwits have been claiming the end of the world is nearly here.

Get a grip on yourself.

[dre]

Let sky god worshiping retards have their lame ass little rituals, whether they are worshiping that whiny, lazy unemployed carpenter Jesus, or Mohammed the pedophile, or that maniacal mass murdering dirt bag that Jews are stupid enough to still believe in. 

[Rue]

On ‎2017‎-‎03‎-‎14 at 3:49 PM, ?Impact said:

Just a bit of history. A long time ago in Quebec (before my time) there was an attempt to create a Jewish school board. There is, and has been for a long time, a large Jewish population in the Montreal area. In the days of the 'confessional' or religious based schools it would have made sense to have a Jewish school board. The problem they ran into is the great disparity within the Jewish community (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Hassidic and I'm sure much more subtle differences as well) that they couldn't come together to form a single Jewish school board. Are we going to have Sunni and Shi'a school boards, and let's not forget Sufism and all the other results of schisms. 

I am from Montreal and Jewish and do not remember the above at all but I can tell you our community has traditionally believed Jewish religion rituals  do NOT belong in any public school. Its against our religion to proseltyze or force its practice on others. I do know when specific religious groups asked for publically paid schools in a debate against the Catholic School Boards in Ontario, during the election campaign between Tory and McGuinty,  orthodox Jews said they wanted the same rights as Catholic schools but only because they were  lining up with Envagelical Christians, Muslims, Siekhs at the time arguing if you allow favouritism for Catholicism you should allow it for  other religions. If you remember Tory lost the vote by saying he would end Catholic schools. McGuinty was Catholic, his wife taught in a Catholic school and McGuinty said he had no conflict of interest with the issue. The majority of Ontario is still Catholic so it was no surprise Tory lost that issue and the election.

A similar argument happened during the McGuinty reign  when Muslims asked to be allowed to opt out of family law in Ontario and follow Sharia law instead. When they did that, Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews then jumped on the band-wagon demanding the same rights to opt out to their religious courts if McGuinty allowed it for Muslims. Well McGuinty backed off real fast after that trial balloon caused a huge backlash.

Traditionally the majority of all Jews in Canada have been and will always be against religion in schools precisely because we are a minority that does not proseltyze and have been the open target of hatred for our religion in public settings. It aint rocket science.

Individually, as a Jew I believe strongly my religion does NOT belong in public school except in a comparative religious studies class. I feel the same way about all religions. That said, I did not freak out when the Lord's prayer was said when I was in public school and I had to then go to a private Anglican school and I didn't burst into flames although I suspect certain Anglicans may be vampires.

Again I am not aware of the incident you talk of and I am 61 but I can say Its highly doubtful you would get the majority of Jews to agre on apublic school board for the reasons you stated. also in Quebec our population  would not have warranted it from a practical perspective of collecting and re-routing tax money. As well in Quebec, the primary concern in education has been since after WW2, based on language. The Protestant and Catholic School Boards up to the 70's were really defined by the language you spoke more than the type of Christian it was. Its a little different than say in Ontario and Newfoundland and more similar to New Brunswick and parts of Manitoba.

That said studying religion is one thing. Engaging in religious practice is another issue. Once you ask the public schools or any public place to accommodate one religion but not all others, that is discrimination. That said I am not rigid on it. I don't see a big deal about Christmas displays or the Lord's prayer.  I have said many times, Christians are weird people. They eat white bread, like Buicks, golf and checkered pants. True. But I can handle them. Most of them are o.k. They just need to stop puttingsalt,  mayonaisse and ketchup on everything without tasting it first. Secularism or non secularism. That remains the question.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Rue

[H10]

23 hours ago, blackbird said:

Private religious schools are only partially funded by government.  The reason is because people pay tax dollars for education.  If they send their kids to private schools, the government provides some funding and the parents must still pay a monthly tuition for each child.  In one school I know of, I think it was $400 per child per month.  That is a lot of money. 

Some provinces might be different where the Catholic church has some kind of historic agreement with the government to provide catholic schools funded by the provincial government.  But this is an exception and there is no such agreement for other religions. 

I'm not sure why you don't agree with eliminating religion from government.  Not sure what you mean by government.  Government cannot favour one religion over another.  Can you see the unfairness of government favouring one religion over another?  The best way they can be seen to be fair is not allow any religion in public schools or public universities.  If people want religion in schools, they are still free to send their kids to a private school which has their religion.  They can also go to their church after school.  They shouldn't ask the school to provide a place for worship.  Taxpayers are not paying for that.

What about in Alberta where they get full funding, and ONtario where many of them ie catholics and protestants ones get full funding and many of the religious universities are fully funded here in Ontario.  I have many friends who went to religious schools, myself partially included, our so called tuition consisted of zero dollars a month right here in ontario.

Its not just catholics. 

 

Religion already is in government, you already admit that the catholic CHURCH has speciall agreements with government so how the heck can we eliminate it short of constitutional amendment?  You are right, government cannot favour one religion over another, not secularism, not catholicism, not athiesm nor islam, so the obvious choice would be to have school choice and permit people to form any kind of charter school within the public system they want so as long as demand exist to support it.  Not allowing any religion violates the constitution and violates the principle of tax payer choice and the principle of favouring athiest and secularist over religious groups.

 

Religious people belief that religion is so entangled in life they cannot separate education from religion.  As such they formed their own private schools.  Eventually, religious people figured wait, why are my property taxes supporting  a school system my kids cannot even go to, and they demanded public funding and got it.  This is democracy.

 

Tax payers are paying for worship in schools.  The religious taxpayers.  Why should religious people fund a school system they don't even believe in?

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, hernanday said:

Tax payers are paying for worship in schools.  The religious taxpayers.  Why should religious people fund a school system they don't even believe in?

If what you say is true, that taxpayers are paying for denomination schools, it is unacceptable.  We have freedom of religion.  Anybody can go to any church they wish and believe what they wish.  I just think taxpayers should not be funding any religious schools. 

[Charles Anthony]

Folks, 

Please avoid posting obnoxious racist comments. 

[GostHacked]

On 1/12/2017 at 5:42 AM, kimmy said:

People can pray in school if they choose.  They don't get to make everybody else pray, and they don't get to disrupt everybody else while they're praying.

 -k

This was an easy issue to observe almost 15 years ago. There was Muslim prayer room (only group that had one) and when it was time, those individuals left their desk to go pray. While people like me continued to do the work.