Religious and Moral Studies

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One major difference between education in Scotland and Canada is the extra focus in religion and moral studies. Religion has mostly been left out of the Canadian curriculum. I remember when we had to do a small prayer of thanks or oath of some kind, which included God, everyday in my youngest years in school. I believe that practice was stopped when I was in middle primary due to the increased ethnic and religious diversity in the school. Nowadays, Vancouver is nicknamed Honkouver for the amount of Chinese people that have immigrated there.

In drastic contrast to the ethnic diversity of Vancouver, Glasgow is mostly white with a tiny scattering of Middle Eastern and African. I know there is a small enclave of Chinese here too, but they seem to really keep to themselves and I’ve never seen them except for at the Chinese store. I am one of only two Asians in the whole course of over 500 people; and both of us are from Canada. For those of you reading back home (I KNOW!!!). Not surprisingly, the main religion here is Christianity. Religious and moral studies is its own subject in primary school, along side other traditional subjects like math and English. As much as I agree with the lessons on moral conduct and values in Christianity, the thought of preaching to little children wasn’t very appealing.

My worries about this have been relieved and instead, I’ve discovered that religious and moral studies is about teaching about the many different religions out there. It is a way to bring light to other religions; ones that most of the kids have no clue about. We had an introduction lecture about Christianity and in two weeks my group will be doing a creative/interactive presentation on Hinduism. In a country that is not very ethnically diverse, this is a great way to prevent racism. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to bring some of this course to North America….how we need the module on Islam….

The pictures are from a Sunday afternoon stroll out to the Glasgow Cathedral and the St. Mungro’s Museum of Religious Life and Art. Both were free admission and a two minute walk away from my place.

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Photos

St Mungro's Museum
St Mungro brought Christianity to Scotland.

Old Police Box
These phone booth looking things are all over the city and some of them sell coffee.

Random Statue
That's my Scottish roomate. She was being tourist-for-a-day with me.

Glasgow Cathedral
Inside the Cathedral. It was first built in the 12th century(I think). Since then it's been repaired and wings have been added. It still looks super old and scary.

Original stone piece
It was weird to touch this...to think about how much this thing could tell us if it could talk.

Graves
In the UK they bury their dead in and outside their churches. St Mungro's tomb is in the Cathedral.

View from the Museum
That's the Cathedral and all the green space is a cemetary called The Necropolis. Apparently, vampire wannabees hang out there at night. Great place for Halloween.

Comments

[Karen]

Nice pictures! The one of you in the cathedral is really good!