Davidf
I don’t subscribe to your view of value free education. I suspect it would be valueless. Our state government has been trying to bend over backwards lately to insert more perceived values into the education system.

But value free education doesn’t really exist. It’s part of the myth of neutrality. Nobody is neutral (except those in a coma). I don’t expect my kid’s teachers to be that neutral. I doubt they ever could be.

I can’t imagine a teacher standing in front of a class explaining plainly that we’re going learn a body of facts that might or might not ever have any practical application for you later in life. You will be tested on it in two weeks, and then it’s up to you what you do with this knowledge.

When I teach my kids maths or language or music or faith or philosophy, I hope they’re sensing a bit of the passion I have for these interests, and understanding why they’re important. If my kids learn French, it would be best if they learned it from a native speaker, or at least a competent speaker that appreciated its usefulness. If they learned maths, be it from someone who loved numbers and manipulated them regularly. If they learned about the Christian faith let them hear it from a Christian. If they were being taught about the fasting month of Ramadan, let them hear it from a Muslim who knows what he’s talking about.

Dan S de Merengue wrote:

"Davidf
I don’t subscribe to your view of value free education. I suspect it would be valueless. Our state government has been trying to bend over backwards lately to insert more perceived values into the education system."

I never advocated value free education. I am in favour of inculcating a love for learning, analytical ability, democracy, regard for the rights of others and many other values. I advocate education as a value in itself.

An important part of education is to learn what motivates people. People are motivated by religion, but a religious believer may not know the history of his or her religion and may not know the similarities and differences of that religion to other religions. A person who has studied comparative religions would be better able to put a religion in context.

People believe in many different religions or no religion. To teach any of those ideas as truth is almost certainly spreading error.

Therefore, indoctrination in a particular religion is not education.

I favour the value of critical thinking in religion as in other areas. Religious indoctrination sets forth a particular set of unprovable propositions as truth. That is not education.

Relda. Preternatural has to be questioned. An open mind can only see.

EVO

EVO,
It has always been a part of my tradition where it is important to question the preternatural, the other side of this tradition is that I get an answer - now, that surely contends, the mind must remain open.

Re. "People will convince themselves of absolutely anything", if it is, as how its put in its right context.Its funny that imaginations controls what we are.

But what is new! nothing! the same circle keeps going around and around.

EVO

david f,
Thanks for sharing your and your family's personal experience with languages and mathematics though I am sure you understand that I used these only to illustrate my point about RE for small children. Also, I am well aware that you yourself did not invent the term "indoctrination" to describe RE offered to small children, and also that the analogies I suggested can go only that far. Nevertheless,

>>One can be aware of the beliefs and claims of various religions and either subscribe or not to those beliefs.<<
True, but, again, we were talking about small children, c.f. my reference to having had to start with counting apples and bunnies before I was aware of various ways of doing algebra. Also, you can know a lot about swimming techniques, but unless you actually swam you would have an outsider only knowledge of them.

>>Religious indoctrination tells about the beliefs of one religion as though they are valid.<<
Education in a child's mother language usually tells the child about how to speak properly without reference to other languages, and if, then only as “foreign“. A child is taught about geometry as if Euclidean geometry was the only one "valid", and one would not introduce a child to physics by discussing the difference between Newton and Einstein, etc. All these examples are regarded as legitimate ways of teaching, not indoctrinating, a young child. The emphasis here is again on "child". Of course, an adult can be informed, instructed or brain washed.

>>she is uncontaminated by Christianity<<
I would not call contamination any extra knowledge, insights or skills I gained, even if it was against my or my parents' wishes. The same analogy: I had to learn Russian, everybody had to, but now I have the extra skill of enjoying e.g Lermontov's poetry in its original instead of relying on translations, which with poetry (as with religion) is never the same