Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"Donna Metler" wrote in message
...
I have a question:

Why do parents send their children to school?

My point of view is that the primary reason to send children to school is
to
give them an education. I want my child to learn materials appropriate to
his age and maturity in areas like Mathematics, English, Foreign Language,
History and Government (US and International), Sciences, and Arts.

I don't see that religion is relevant to much of this. In areas where it
is
(such as world history, art, and music) it would be imperative that the
basic concepts and beliefs of any religon related to the subject at hand
be studied-but not practiced.

Is the curriculum really so much different in a religious school?

In the religious school I went to, there were four main differences.

1) Religion was viewed as an important academic subject on par with the
others.

2) We had a "chapel" service every day with a brief devotional followed
sometimes by a longer religious talk and sometimes by some kind of
entertainment.

3) Religion was part of the "background noise" - public prayer before lunch
and sometimes at the beginning of the day, religious content in some of the
wall decorations, occasional inclusion of religious perspectives in
connection with other subjects, and so forth - and also played a central
role in discussion of moral issues.

4) The students were mostly people from the same religious background, which
meant that peer pressure to act in ways contrary to my beliefs and values
was relatively limited.

So while the academics were very similar to what they would have been in a
public school (aside from the fact that Bible classes displaced time that
could have been used for a "study hall" or for taking some other class as
an elective), the background environment was far more different. The Bible
classes could, at least in theory, have been replaced some other way if I'd
attended a public school, albeit not as effectively and efficiently. The
background environment could not possibly have been replaced.

Nathan
------------
Not for the purposes of brainwashing, but then I'll bet you
can't possibly defend your twisted little religion logically,
what do you bet, hmmm?
Steve