Tag: personal opinion

July 11 2024, The original writing was written in my wonderful English class at MiraCosta college.

Religious education requirement in the USA and current situation of Disney films as an instrument of intercultural moral and spiritual education

SooYoung Kim

This essay is personal opinion and not based on research and expertise views.

America is one of the countries that empathize cultural and individual diversities, However, America is a Christian country, so America has a kind of paradoxical situation between religious uniformity and cultural diversity. Paradoxically, there is no religious diversity in the USA, with a percentage of over 58% Christianity although the immigrants are from all other different countries. The cultural and sociological systems do not support any religious activities, and school system has no religion education. According to the first Amendment to the United States Constitution, freedom of religion is guaranteed, and the school system is separated from any religion education and practices. It is believed or considered that religion is a personal one and should be taken from family. There are many immigrants from all over the world coming to the USA. When they step into the USA, they easily adapt to the USA religious uniformity and start attending Christian Church, maybe due to the convenience of easy-to-find Christian churches, and obtain support from them or teach any kind of religion to their next generation easily, not insisting on the old religion practice. Thus, despite of the diverse immigrants the USA is still a region of uniform Christianity.  

               There is a kind of opposite society where there are almost no immigrants, but quite a diverse and dynamic religion mixture. Korea has passed Shamanism over 4,000 years and Buddhism over 2,500 years, and the Last Kingdom Joseon dynasty was established with Confucianism as a moral system. During the late Joseon dynasty, Christianity was imported to Korea, and currently Christianity has become a dominant religion type in South Korea. But South Korea sociology allows religious internal, social, cultural, inter-family diversity and freedom, and they are tolerating to any religion. However, Christianity in South Korea might be different from any other countries because Christianity in South Korea could be a mixture with other religion backgrounds, such as Buddhism and a moral system, Confucianism. It is meant that religion is not separated from society and any religions keeps changing with peoples. Furthermore, there are similarity between Christianity and traditional morality of Korea: Men lead families, wives serve husband’s leadership, and kids obey to their parents. The similarity is one reason that peoples was easy to change their religions. 

               There are crisis and big problems in the current USA educational system, because the most families in the USA do not transfer any religious practice to their next generation, losing their function, and the next generation could not have any religious experiences. Most children do not adhere to any specific religious beliefs that are exemplified by their parents. Religious practices and learning are part of moral education and the deepest roots of harmony with oneself and others. Many Asian countries have moral classes, and the UK included religion education in the 1988 Education Reform Act to reflect the multiculturalist policy. It has taught big six religions-Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism- but is currently expanding to teach more diverse world religions, and at the same time non-religion, and other moral philosophies that are sociological structure (Shaw).  Some countries are more easily accessible to different religious services with friends, and even kid alone, but in the USA, if parents reject attending any religious community, the children are very unlikely to be exposed to any religious system. The educational system does not need to teach religious practice and faith but could teach religious core and historical and broad common views of religion, nurture moral and spiritual sense, and promote religious diversity as well as cultural diversity. There are some comments from UK pupil and teachers for the need of religion education (Shaw).

 “We live in a country with loads of different religions and I think we should learn about each different one, so if you do come across them, you know what they’re on about, and you know who they are” (Pupil)

“Obviously you cannot look at them all, but I think it’s important to look at how people have beliefs but they may not be within a formal religion” (Parent)

“I think they (non-religious worldviews) are just as important to learn as like Christianity because it’s still a form of belief” (Pupil)

“I’d want them [pupil] to think more broadly about what we class as religion too. There are people that dance round Stonebenge naked because the sun’s up. Does that fall under the remit? Definitely it does of spirituality.” (Teacher)

“I think religion lives and breathes, it’s the same with language, it’s eternally changing. We should teach it as that” (Teacher)

“We need to learn about how religion mixes into politics” (Pupil)

The above article shows the learners’ desire for learning about a broader range of religions and an understanding of religion, belief, and interrelationship with society. This is UK schools’ example, but it would be not quite different in other countries. Even atheists would want to learn about more religion. Even If there is a desire to know all kinds of religion, it is not easy for one person to learn and understand even one kind of religion. Thus is another reason for us to give religion education in the school system. Also, there are core similarities among religions and differences that have aroused wars and even current. As global citizens, the next generation need to be prepared for global diversity including religion.

               In the USA, Disney film play a role to teach religion core, spirituality and engaging kids to learn morality. Kids have natural empathy, imagination, and natural animisms to give life to non-alive items (Wonderly). The kids’ spirituality might be something important located before any religion system, and Disney is teaching such spirituality via kids’ animation. The first generation of Disney animation, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, does not, but Disney animation started to adapt or generate the USA or global common shared spiritual mindsets regardless that they have different religions and no religion at all.  See Disney animation of Mulan, Pocahontas, Ariel of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and beast, Moana, Frozen, Elements and If.  Although Disney provides common spiritual moral learning and film is a great tool for an educational tool (Wonderly), it has limitation and could not teach exact meaning and could be mis-conceptualized, it might be the proper time that the school system in the USA provides religion diversity education, global religion view, and political understanding of religion as well as core religious spirituality.

Reference

Shaw, Martha, “New Representations of Religion and Belief in Schools”, Religions 2018, 9, 364, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110364

Wonderly, Monique, “Children’s Film as an Instrument of Moral Education”, Journal of Moral Education, 2009, 38, 1, 1-15