Laziness told me not to blog

Last Monday I walked in to school worrying about lesson plans what I should have been worrying about was alot worst then kids popping balloons or drawing on themselves.

The school I was in was a catholic primary school which took on children from all faiths. No other religion (that I know of) was taught. On that Monday I sat through assembly. Started off pretty normal until they started reciting the lords prayer and a girl sat next to me obviously a muslim starts reciting it too.

This was then followed by a teacher asking all the children who had made their first holy communion to come to the front. She then went on to congratulating them - fair enough it is a Catholic school after all. Then she said something which shocked me more then the Muslim girl reciting the lords prayer, more then realising that said girl had not been told about her own faith no this was shocking. This teacher prayed that those who had done their holy communion would follow the in the footsteps of Jesus for the rest of their lives and those who were not yet believing in the holy trinity would find the light and start to follow Jesus. At this point I just looked around to see if anyone else was as shocked as me. Why was this teacher encouraging children from a different faith to join her faith? My eyes fell on the little Muslim girl again and I watched as she nodded her head at the teacher with so much sincerity I thought she would convert there and then.

The whole issue played on my mind for most of the day. A sad fact of life had surfaced and made me realise how many parents are ignorant about the schools they send their children to and exactly what is going on in schools. It's saddening to know that people are willing to send their children to a school without caring about what is being taught. The only thing that seems to be a priority is the distance between their home and the school.

After doing some research on the net I came across this its an article about Compulsory Christian Collective Worship and Christian Religious Education (RE) and what Muslims can do about it. The article has a letter which can be printed of and sent to the school asking them to withdraw their child from this worship.

Sometimes parents don't have a choice as to where to send their children due to finances or lack of transport BUT that is not an excuse to sit back and allow your children to know and to a certain extent follow a faith you don't want them to. We as Muslims seem to leave education at the front step of schools next to nothing is taught at home by the parents. Its about time we took responsibility for what we're doing to the youth. If you know of anyone who might not know about the rights concerning collective worship make sure you pass this on.