I went to a European School. Note the capitalisation: I went to a school that taught the children of people who work for EU institutions. There are a few of these scattered across the EU, with four in and around Brussels. I attended the first one, the European School of Luxembourg, which was set up way back in 1953 for ECSC fonctionnaires. The school has 11 language sections, though I should imagine things will be different at the start of the next academic year.

The RE took up 1 hour a week (an hour lasting 45 minutes. Don’t ask). The religious education offered differed from language section to language section. The French-speaking section had Catholic and the Greeks had Orthodox, but that’s about all I can remember. In the English-speaking section, we had a choice between Catholic, Protestant, and Ethics. There was also an all-section Jewish class, which in my year had about two people in it.
I attended the Protestant class, which was taught by the local Anglican priest. Good thing I’m a Scottish Episcopalian, technically. Did you know there’s a C of E diocese covering continetnal Europe?
Aaanyway, our classes weren’t very serious. Everyone was pretty laid back, and we didn’t get much done in the way of spiritual fulfillment. One or two people joined our class to avoid doing actual work in the Ethics class. We never even found out in what way we differed from the Roman Catholics, apart from getting to ignore the Pope. Which the Catholics did anyway.

Not surprising when 90% of Brandeburg’s population is not Kirchensanh?ngig.

Not surprising when 90% of Brandeburg’s population is not Kirchensanh?ngig.

In Primary School the emphasis was very much on straightforward Catholic cathechism, for about 40 minutes every morning, yes every morning. I mean, we did the usual kiddies things like paint pictures and nake up stories as well, it wasn’t all dry and didactic.

In Secondary school we had 35 minutes of RE every day until age 16. From 14-16, this was heavily focused on bible study and textual criticism for state exams at age 16.

Then after 16 it was just twice a week and focused on ethical discussions (AIDS, suffering, sex, unemployment, all the usual stuff).

At the time I did it (1993), there was a seperate syllabus for the state exams at 16 for Catholic and Protestant schools, although even then about 80% was the same. About 3 years after than the churches devised a common curriculum for all schools, although it is still weak on non-Christian religions and does not cover non-religious philosophies at all.

Most of the pupils at the school didn’t go to church regularly, so it was hardly terribly effective.

In primary school Religion was obligatory - depending on the teacher it might be an hour a week or half an hour every day. It was taken a bit more seriously in first class - when we’re about seven - and sixth class - when we were twelve, as those years saw us being prepared for our First Confession and First Holy Communion and for our Confirmation, respectively. Religion for us consisted of very basic Catholicism; we knew Bible stories and the basics of the sacraments, but little more.

Secondary school religion classes were a joke. In a fairly liberal Catholic school run by Marist Brothers, we had three forty-minute classes a week. Aside from occasional visits from the local chaplain, who was more interested in Gaelic football than religion, we basically did well-meaning agnosticism rather than religion of any sort.

I suppose our Religious Education consisted of a general class on Christianity, but considering that I remember spending ages on Ghandi, it must have been a bit broader than that.

Everything I learned in secondary school about other faiths and anything concrete I learned about my own I learned in History class, or in English too.

The way it was taught wasn’t particularly deep: here’s a story from the Jahwist, here’s the corresponding Elohist version; repeat ad lib; note the consistency of the differences. We had simply to listen. Nothing rode on the class. There would be no exam.

Looking back, given that under the Butler act the school had to do something, this was probably a good thing to do. It had some intellectual content. Indeed, working it out was one of the triumphs of 19th century scholarship. And it’s hard to know where else one might have learnt about it.

The schools in the Netherlands are divided in two groups: Public and Special. With the latter being a euphemism for schools based on a Religion, a Teaching or a Philosophy (of teaching). As I understand it Public schools are required to teach an even curriculum whereas Special schools have more freedom for an emphasis. This is especially pronounced in Primary schools, which owing to their generally smaller size, can afford a little more sectarianism.

I grew up in a 1400 people strong village in the south of the Netherlands. Inhabitants were mainly Catholic, but most of them little or non-practicing (more so when I got older). The one and only primary school in the village was nominally RC (special thus). However they were open to everybody. I attended this school from 1985 till 1992. RE consisted of being read (early years) and reading (later years) from the Bible once a week or so. Usually this was done in the forlorn hours at the beginning or the end of the day when attention spans were shortest. The local Priest would visit the school in relation with the First Holy Communion and the ‘Coming of Age’((?) ‘Heilig Vormsel’). Furthermore it was quite a normal thing to help in services and mass as an acolyte. In relation to the Old Testament, some attention was given to Judaism. I can’t recall any other religions being mentioned in anything more than a cursory way.

Secondary school I attended in a nearby city of several hunderd thousand. Again predominantly catholic. I went to a catholic school (’Onze Lieve Vrouwe Lyceum’) there from 1992 till 1999. RE was obligatory from first till fifth class IIRC. It was neither obligatory nor optional in the last year. But secularisation had already progressed quite a bit when I got there. Actually it wasn’t even called Religious Education. It looses a lot in translation but it was called something like ‘Contemplation of Life’ (’Levensbeschouwing’). The first year dealt with religion on a more structural and systematic level (internal/personal vs. external/social side of religion, symbols, writings, etc.) and an introduction was given to some of the major religions (as in: ‘these exist:…’). The second and third year were mostly devoted to giving a closer insight into, as far as I can recall, Christianity (RC, Protestantism, Orthodox), Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism as well as Hedonism/Epicurianism, Eudemonianism (sp?, Humanism, Agnosticism, Atheism, New Age and Animism. (Noteably absent were such things as Taoism, Shintoism and Confucianism, I mean _Animism_ for the love of Jhwh.) The fourth and fifth year were basically spend analysing religious, ethical or otherwise philosophical questions in regard to one or more of the previously mentioned ‘religions’. Also these later years even more ‘exotic’ things such as Liberalism, Marxism and Social-Darwinism entered the fray.

The classes though obligatory had very little weight in determining whether one passed or failed a year and were thus not very hard and not very active. Seeing the background of most of the pupils and teachers (either catholic or secular with a judeo-christian heritage) the baggage with which most people came to class did make it a somewhat lob-sided learning experience. It is hard to have a constructive discussion about Jainism when 9 out of 10 in the class hadn’t even heard about it before. However the aim was to give a balanced course and I think in general it wasn’t alltogether unsuccessful.

I’ve had an issue with Guido Westerwelle over his public support for fingerprints in IDs and the reply I received from his office also sheds some light on the true meaning of “professional” in “professional politics”…

There’s one additional element of RE I forgot to mention above: In denominational schools, which constitute roughly 10% of all German secondary schools, because of the people who teach it, protestant as well as Catholicm, “RE” often provides a forum for discussion about some real-life issues. When I was publisher of the pupil’s magazine back in the early 1990s we weren’t allowed to sell an issue about sex education on the school’s property because we had obtained a free condom from the Federal Agency for Health Education. Even a deal with the headmaster to limit the sale of copies with an attached condom to pupils of age 14 on didn’t help. Of course, the scandal was great for our circulation, but the point I want to make is that all RE teachers with the exception of one old man came got together and organised an ‘ecomenic’ debate about Sex, AIDS, love and honesty that took place during the RE time.

I suppose much of this comes down to the people, teachers, management, and pupils. But to me, RE always was a subject that proved to me that religion does indeed have something meaningful to add to our school’s curriculum as long as it is run in an appropriate way. And in my opinion, and experience, it usually is. More often than not, teachers for RE are chosen as “trusted teachers” by the pupils in the annual school elections. And they probably have a reason.