Today's education

I'm not up to date on the public school bullshit, but what curriculum (specifically, which classes)? Are those creationists back for an ass whooping in court?

And this class isn't an elective? If not, this is in the U.S.?

Like Rbz I'm not sure which country you're referring to, and I can't really argue without some elaboration on specific issues, but I don't think the US or the UK have sub-par systems per se; you can argue that elements of curriculum, methods of teaching or motivation etc are dated or ineffective, but the systems evidently work as a whole. As for the 'injection of religious beliefs' that you speak of, surely the idea of teaching about various religions is to maintain neutrality and present choices? You talk about 'Christian Living' and its instructors being biased, but if you're living in a largely Christian area/state you'll have influences way before school, and if you learn about other religions it still opens the floor to scepticism and choice. An inability to question what the teachers are saying would only boost that.

Let's say it was not an elective, you'd agree with this class being part of a student's education? I don't know about the U.K., but in America, we don't tolerate shit like this (At least some of us don't. The religious folk love that shit.).

Depends on the content, but in principle, yes. Religious Education is compulsory in Primary and Secondary schools in the UK; there is no set national curriculum, so local authorities choose, but it's generally the basics of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism; later on you spend two years on two specific religions if you choose to continue the subject. Faith schools are also required to teach it, although they would have other faith-specific lessons etc. The parents have a legal right to withdraw their children from these lessons, mind you, as with sex ed. Fun fact while we're on that subject: it recently became compulsory to teach about homosexuality as part of those.

I'm not saying that it's ok to teach one religion by force, merely that I see no harm in an obligation to teach several. What this has led to here is diminished knowledge and interest in Christianity, of course...but there is a general apathy anyway. You'd never get away with an opt-out in the US because a lot of people would take it, where as here, the vast majority aren't religious, don't mind, or (children included) absolutely don't care.

My high school and middle school were highly religious. The whole area was. While teachers didn't put it in their lectures, they were still obviously Christian (most of them, at least) and sometimes added comments. The worst was a 7th grade teacher that said that the class was old enough to start reading these Christian romance novels she had on a bookshelf. She said that they had good values (I think there was a big "CHRISTIAN" label on the front of each of them) and nothing bad. I was incredibly insulted, because I had already been reading Stephen King for years, and 7th grade is a good time to get into the deep books that actually say something, not light romance that isn't going to challenge the students at all. Anyways, my point is, the area was religious, and it was just a fact that many teachers and students were, too. Nothing I could have done except move. Of course, as I said, they did do a good job of not discussing topics from a stereotypical Christian viewpoint, so I didn't have much of a problem with the teaching, just the teachers themselves.

What I find more interesting in regards to current public education (since any religious stuff is localized) is the quality of education, which as you said, is mostly subpar. It seems that you want to discuss religious stuff in schools more than that though, so I'll keep my mouth shut for the moment, so as to not derail the thread.

For me, school was a mixed bag. In my experience, the educational quality totally depended on how motivated the teacher for any given subject was.
For example, school didn't have much left to teach me in those "general knowledge" subjects like history, geography, or several nat-sci classes. My command of English at age 16 was better than that of my English teacher.
Conversely, my teachers in Latin, French, Chemistry and Music were extremely motivated, highly trained professionals, all with professional careers outside of school, and I learned a shitton from them.

P.S.:

School for me was mostly based on who taught that given subject. My math teacher taught me in a way where I could appreciate the subject and find it fun at least during that time. But nowadays teachers do tend to give up on students too easily if they don't meet "their standards". I think this very train of thought isn't right to begin with.

There was a christian group at my high school that met durring lunch and after school, but they were not connected to the school it self. as far as i know, it falls under seperation of church and state. public schools can have no religion taught, and have to respect all religous needs(muslim praying schedule, kosher cafeteria food, etc.). all the private schools i can think of are sponsored by a specific religion. so i don't think they'd be too eager to show people other options.

as for the education system being sub par, i agree. i dropped out of school at around the middle of my third year of high school. many of my teachers were just waiting for retirement. i wasn't learning anything new so i took the GED and started taking community collage classes. even then, i got teachers that were more concerned with where people were sitting and wearing hats in class.

It's not the education that's the problem.
It's the people receiving them.

Sure, at my school there are teachers who can't even spell proper English ('Why does the sonog have these lerics?' - Ms. Tarasweicz) or have no idea what they're talking about ('The salt is insoluble because it is an insoluble acid' - Mrs. Ahmed).

But the real problem is that idiots are not willing to learn and they're the ones who spoil it for everyone else.

I'm still in compulsory education, so I'm still experiencing this first hand. There are 5-6 people in nearly every class I'm in (except maths, but I'll elaborate on that later), who always talk, don't do the work and treat school as if it was a place to kill time with boring old people who annoy you in between.

Which is why I can't wait to come into power and have selective education; only the people that have motivation to learn and such will be allowed into different schools depending on their ability.

i think its so too....
since we have the right to choose our religions....

The only class close to religious that I've heard from my previous school was Bible Literature, which focuses on the story part of the bible, not how to interpret it for "hidden meanings".

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the bullshit that's going on in Texas.

How bad is it? From what I have seen, there are foreign martial arts(Karate?) school that chant religious prayers in every bout.

If its a private school, you can't do squat. Their school, their rules, their curriculum. They can be as closed minded as they want to be.

I have to agree with this. A lot of teachers are very stressed out (from elementary through high and maybe even college), and it's not just because they get paid shit. It's because they have to deal with people who simply won't try. A college professor once said it like this: "I teach college because I don't have to try to reach any students. I don't have to waste my time trying to get them to learn something they don't want to."

I remember high school very well. It wasn't that long ago, after all, not even a decade. A ton of people didn't do shit. They didn't try or care at all. Ask ten 15-year-olds how they feel about school, and at least 7 of them will say they hate it, I'm sure. And the problem is, teachers cannot say, "That child doesn't care, let's just forget about him." They have an obligation to try to teach every child, and even if they don't feel obligated, the parents sure do.

I don't think the fault lies solely in the unmotivated students. A lot of teachers don't try hard enough either. But it's the combination of those two that really affects the public school system. Both problems need to be tackled.

I believe the Texan school district requested that a textbook tweak it's information a bit. So basically they can insert their own biased information, or something irrelevant. The issue with that is that they have the power to do that, only because they're a large state. I'm sure every other state can't do it besides California, there's not enough buying power behind it. :[

Also, the issue with our education is yes, the younger generation as we go on are starting to get accustomed to the life style that is the product of necessity. So used to convenience, they become lazy. There's also teachers, a lot of bad teachers often don't get fired because they're in a union, and can't be fired. For example, my schools curriculum is quite easy, but my friend in another is taking all these college level courses already. Makes me envious :[.

The hardest part is unifying the whole curriculum to one high standard, if we're talking the U.S. we used to be one of the smartest countries in the world of education, and then plop.

Also, materials used for learning are really not fair, I get the ratty old text book, boy who lives in the rich neighborhood gets a laptop to use [that their teachers can use to spy on them via webcam]. And that's because schools get funding based on property taxes, if the buildings aren't worth a lot the school is obviously not going to get enough funds. Leading to underpaid teachers, being understaffed, it's really unfortunate because the majority of kids who attend terribly funded schools end up in a bad place.

In 4th grade there was a kid who skipped 2 grades, but at the end of the year was held back because he wasn't "ready" for 5th grade. I can see where that might make sense, but the fucked up part was that he was put in a 4th grade special education class, when all the other kids his age were going into 3rd grade.