(Humanist) Ethical and Worldview Education

I can't help wit Zedenleer Bregje. I went to a catholic school.

Bregje, I don't know how it looks today, but an "ethics" course was for those who wouldn't go to religion classes for world view reasons (parents decision mostly, a child can't decide on such things until you hit the age of 16).

I had obligatory Ethics classes in classes 1 and 2 in high school. They weren't good and not only because the teacher was rather zealously religious, but also because he just couldn't teach.

Well, technically speaking 10000 years they were

Seriously, you do have a point here.

OK. Did you get religion as a subject there?

That's really helpful!
So, you went to a public school?
Do you remember some of the things the lessons were about? What did you have to do, learn, talk about? Did you use a certain book for that subject?

Ooh, christ. It was a long time ago, so I can't remember a lot to be honest. Any ethics we were taught was taught in RE, but even then there wasn't much of it. Pretty much "You should respect everyone and everyone's opinion." (Which I don't agree with.)

OK, thanks, I'll search for Religious Education then and see what I can find.

No, no, we were supposed to prepare a speech, but usually it was in form of a lecture with no bokk whatsoever.

Yup. We sometimes focused a bit on other religions and 'the questions of life', but the answer was always found at religion. I think it overlaps sometimes with ethics (that is, as far as I know what it is)

So... I posted this in March and now I'm finally finishing this %^$#$#@#$%^ paper....
It is interesting, but lots of stuff to read and I'm in the summer mood already... besides, I always read much more than I should, so it's hard for me to stay focussed on the actual topic and to keep it simple.

Anyway, I found two relevant articles.
One by Peter Schreiner: Religious Education in Europe
One by R. Jackson: Is Diversity Changing Religious Education? Religion, Diversity and Education in Today’s Europe

What they both emphasize in comparing countries is that there is usually difference between teaching about religion, teaching from religion and teaching into religion, the last one being indoctrination really. Also, it's very difficult to compare because it has to do with history of the country, state and religion, and with who is responsible for education.

I think 'religious education' (I'm not happy with that word as you may understand because it includes humanist and life view education, moral and identity development and ethics) is important because young people have to be prepared for society and they are going through important developmental phases so they should think about these kind of questions. This subject also has to do with who you are and who you are in connection with other people, the world, the environment, everything, so I think it's an important subject. School is not just about knowledge and 'RE' fits many of the standard aims all schools have when it comes to a full and complete development of young people, cognitive, emotionally, socially, morally, the whole thing.

So, basically I think it's important that people know something about religion (ABOUT). And it's important they develop their own life view and their own values (FROM). This last way of learning and teaching is what I do in my work. And it fits the neutral and public identity of the school which is based on humanist principles.

The links open as PDF documents.

Peter Schreiner (2005)

R. Jackson (2009)

That won't be very interesting... you can hardly call it a paper.
I'll just write down that I've taken notion of the above information. Then I have to describe what lessons could be given in Dutch HVO, as well as in Lebenskunde Germany and NCZ Belgium.