Educate a Better Future with World Religions by Peyton

Educate a Better Future with World Religions by Peyton - August 2015 Scholarship Essay

I am embarrassed to say I don’t know much about the Bible. I grew up with a spiritual mother who stopped taking me to church after we moved and couldn’t find another that we liked so I never learned about the Bible. I grew up to dislike organized religion like Christianity because I felt so excluded by the kids at my school who had their closest friends from youth groups and Bible studies. I hated the fact that in AP English we would spend days talking about the allegorical references to a book I had never read. It was like I had missed half the assignment and felt like I was an idiot if I participated in the discussion. I would identify as Atheist just to shock the 90% of kids at my school who did believe in God. But then I went to college. Everyone was doing their own thing and honestly no one cared what I believed about religion. Without the constant reminder of being so different, I let down my defenses and slowly started to really evaluate at what I believed. I still don’t believe in God; I still don’t know what I am, but I know I am grossly under educated in the aspect of other religions, and I would venture to guess many other high school students are as well. High schools should add world religion into its coursework to create more well-rounded, knowledgeable students. I don’t mean indoctrinating kids to follow the Qur’an or Bible, but really educating students about the different religions in the world to better unite our future society.

High school is supposed to be a time where students start to branch away from their parents and find themselves. They start to decide who to vote for and who they love.Why shouldn’t they have the knowledge to choose new beliefs and truly understand theirs? Educating students about the variances from one religion to another will help society as a whole to better understand each other. Even very religious students usually only know a lot about their own religion, which can lead to misunderstanding others. In a classroom with an impartial instructor and no one trying to persuade students to believe one thing or another creates the perfect setting to be educated about something that touches the lives of so many people around the world. Wars have been fought because of the differences in religion. Better understanding exactly what those differences are without the manipulation of the media or religious leaders will lead to clearer understanding of the similarities between them. With the world becoming so connected through technology, it stands to reason students should learn about more than just their own society. Adding world religions to high school curriculum will help bridge the cultural gaps that no other aspect of life will.

In standard religious lessons taught to kids, only one religion is focused on and a biased party usually teaches it. If other religions are brought up, they seldom are presented fairly and accurately, which creates a stigma towards other religions and those practitioners. If world religion class was taught, it would not exclude or focus too heavily on any one religion to avoid favoritism. Plus, having an educator teach the different aspects of religions justly would help student to better understand more of the student body by better understanding the beliefs of other students. Understanding is the first step to accepting; having a more understanding and accepting student body can only lead to a better future.