{"id":352070,"date":"2025-12-17T23:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352070\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T23:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T23:12:09","slug":"educators-warn-about-canadas-loss-of-religious-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352070\/","title":{"rendered":"Educators warn about Canada\u2019s loss of religious literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sabrina Jafralie says Quebec\u2019s public schools have lost the quality that motivated her to become a teacher in the first place. She pins this change on Bill 21, a Quebec law that bans teachers and other government workers from wearing religious symbols at work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a Black student growing up in Montreal, Jafralie remembers teachers telling her she could be whatever she wanted to be in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI took that to heart,\u201d she told Canadian Affairs in a September interview. \u201cI became a teacher to pass along the same message.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I have to look in my eyes of my students in high school and at university and say, \u2018I\u2019m really sorry this province says that you can\u2019t be whatever you want.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Jafralie\u2019s view, Quebec\u2019s emphasis on secularism is based on a misunderstanding and fear<\/a> of religion. She expects this misunderstanding to only continue or even deepen. In 2024, Quebec replaced a mandatory ethics and religion course with one focused on citizenship \u2014 that makes no mention of religion at all.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Religion] is completely gone,\u201d Jafralie said of the course\u2019s content. Jafralie has taught in Quebec high schools for more than 20 years, where she often taught religion courses, and has also taught university education students about how to teach religion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Quebec\u2019s opposition to religion is well-known. In November, the government introduced legislation banning daycare workers from wearing religious symbols and banning public prayer. And this March, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear<\/a> a case about the constitutionality of Bill 21\u2019s religious symbols ban.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Education experts say Quebec is not alone in stripping religion from public education \u2014 and that the trend is concerning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of the story everywhere in Canada,\u201d said Margie Patrick, a professor at The King\u2019s University in Edmonton who teaches courses about religious education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about all kinds of diversity,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cWhat\u2019s so scary about religious diversity?\u201d<\/p>\n

Repeated controversy<\/p>\n

Most Canadian public schools no longer teach about religion. If they offer a world religions class, it is not mandatory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Proposals to introduce religion into public school curriculum are often controversial.<\/p>\n

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Religious education is typically a small part of teaching time, but it can cause large public debates, says Solange Lefebvre, a professor at the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al who has written about the history of religious education in Ontario and Quebec.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Quebec, discussions about religion education in public schools often relate to the province\u2019s identity as a secular society, she says.<\/p>\n

But the debates are larger than one province\u2019s history or culture.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe controversies around religious education are never only about, \u2018What should we teach?\u2019 [and why],\u201d Lefebvre said. \u201cIt\u2019s always about a broader [social or political] narrative.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Alberta, tensions flared in 2021 over the province\u2019s proposals to include more religion instruction in social studies curriculum. This included having Grade 2 students learn the basic tenets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n

These requirements were removed after public outcry. Patrick says some of the learning goals were not age appropriate. But the government \u201cswung way too far\u201d in the opposite direction with the new curriculum, which makes no mention of religion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Private sphere?<\/p>\n

In Patrick\u2019s view, students should learn about religion, but that does not necessarily have to happen in a designated religion class.<\/p>\n

\u201cReligion isn\u2019t this little piece of life that we can carve out and then privatize it, put it off to the centre,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Religion] forms and shapes how we see economics and how we perceive sociology and psychology [and] controversial issues and current events.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patrick teaches prospective teachers about how to discuss religion in various subjects. And some do. For example, some have brought religion into English literature classes, helping students understand the religious themes in Yann Martel\u2019s novel Life of Pi.\u00a0 Others have explained how religion influences various historical events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When students do not learn about religion in school, this sends the message that religion is unimportant and irrelevant, says Patrick. And telling students that all religions are the same \u201ccheapens\u201d the differences in traditions, she says, and does not encourage students to be curious about others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laura McCarron, who formerly developed world religions classes when she was a teacher in New Brunswick, agrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ignorance on our part to think that there\u2019s no need for [understanding different religions],\u201d said McCarron, who today works at the New Brunswick Teachers\u2019 Association. \u201cThere\u2019s always a need for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In McCarron\u2019s world religion classes, students learned the tenets of main world religions and how religion impacts people\u2019s perspectives on topics ranging from war and terrorism to medical assistance in dying and LGBTQ issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secularism or pluralism<\/p>\n

According to recent polling, religious \u201cnones\u201d \u2014 individuals who claim no religious affiliation \u2014 now constitute the second largest faith group in Canada after Christians.<\/p>\n

Religious nones may not care about religion enough to form an opinion about it, sociologists recently told<\/a> Canadian Affairs. But that does not mean schools should shy away from teaching about religion, says Alan Sears, a retired education professor at the University of New Brunswick who has studied religious education.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t care about math either,\u201d he said, noting that decisions about what to include in curriculum are political.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you\u2019re religious or not, you\u2019re going to intersect with religious people, and you\u2019re going to intersect with them in the civic space,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Sears\u2019 view, trying to create a secular society, like in Quebec, is the wrong approach to religious diversity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would argue for a pluralist rather than a secular society, a society that allows for a number of ways of understanding the world and the universe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McCarron, of the New Brunswick Teachers\u2019 Association, says religious pluralism is especially important given Canada\u2019s high number of immigrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many immigrants to Canada are religious, and students need to understand religion to have good relationships with their neighbours, says McCarron.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Understanding is key to empathy, she says. \u201cIf we don\u2019t have empathy, we\u2019re not going to have citizenship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The role of a public school is to teach students about what different religions teach, not to encourage students to convert to a specific religion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intention is to be curious [about what people believe],\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Religious education gives students another skill to help them in the world: religious literacy, says Jafralie, in Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not talking about some mass religious conversion,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about arming our students to be critical thinkers and decent human beings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Canadian Affairs is one of the few outlets in Canada offering reported coverage of religion and faith. Our coverage is made possible in part thanks to the financial support of contributing community members. <\/p>\n

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