As I began to think about what to do for my inquiry project, I looked to what I know a lot of knowledge about and what I wanted to learn more of. Going through public school and being in this different environment opened my eyes to a different type of education. One of the things that stood out the most to me was the aspect of religion. There has been a strong separation of church and state for me all throughout my life, but at Marymount they blend together strongly.
Dana and I decided to work on this project together and we started to ask questions and study the influence of religion in the classroom. In my kindergarten class they prayed before both snacks, lunch, and sang a few religious songs everyday. The prayer before eating was, "We thank you god, for all our food, we thank you god, for breakfast lunch and snack and dinner." While doing this prayer the children had to hold their hands together. The teacher made the children hold their hands together but gave them the option to either clasp their hands or hold them flat against one another. The teacher also assigned a student to turn off the lights during the prayer before snack.
The songs they sang were the Hail Mary prayer in song form, and Jesus in my Heart. While singing these the teacher kept an eye out making sure everyone was participating. They sang these in the morning, afternoon, or anytime throughout the day. There was really no set schedule to sing these because they were practicing for their kindergarten graduation.
While watching how the teacher and TA handled the religious aspect of the classroom, I looked for any other religious references. When the children were especially rambunctious one day, the teacher said, "We must respect our classroom, our teacher, our friends, and god. Do you think you all are respecting god today?" She would refer to religion in some of these situations to reach the kids on a different level, at least that's what I took away from the situation.
I analyzed the actions of the teacher, but I also looked to how the children responded. Most of the children took part whole heartedly during the prayers and songs, singing loudly, closing their eyes, holding their hands together, showing a lot of emotion on their faces as they sang, looking up, holding their arms up to the sky, etc. However, there were also children who did not show as much passion for the prayers and songs. One of my students was actually Muslim, and I found this quite curious. I know you do not have to be Catholic to go to a Catholic school, but I was interested to see how the curriculum would be adjusted for a student who did not practice Catholicism. In this case, the teacher made Ali hold his hands together with the rest of the class while praying, but he did not actually have to say the song or prayer. I asked him once if he liked the songs and he said, "They're okay". I don't think at his age he fully conceptualizes religion, as most children don't fully understand until they're older.
The class had religion once a week on Tuesdays, and I would watch closely during the interactions between the religion teacher and the class. The teacher was especially passionate and loud when it came to singing the songs together. And the questions she would ask the class were age appropriate and helped them understand bible stories as well as the teachings behind Catholicism. Their lesson usually included a song, coloring a picture, and hearing a new bible story. I again looked to the one student who was not Catholic to see how they reacted in these certain situations. He would color the picture, and listen to the story but he would not answer questions when the teacher asked, and he would not voice his opinion when other children would.
I asked a few of the other student teachers in older grades how religion played a role in their classroom. The student teacher I talked to in 5th grade said that her class never sang songs or read prayers throughout the day. Overall there was no mention of religion outside of their religion class. This made me wonder if it depended on the teacher, or depended on the age level. So I started asking other student teachers from other grades. What I came across was that the older the grade the less religion was focused on in the classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment