Teachers sometimes have a hard time with subjects covered in the Ethics and Religious Culture (ECR) course. Faced with content deemed more “delicate”, in particular religion, some have “the impression of walking on eggshells”, reveals a report produced by the Ministry of Education in the wake of the overhaul of this course.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
At the start of the 2023 academic year, the ECR course will be replaced by the Culture and Québécois Citizenship course. As part of this overhaul, the Ministry of Education conducted a consultation in schools and produced a report dated March 2021, but made public recently following an access to information request.
The document lifts the veil on certain difficulties encountered by teachers who have to deal with “complex and sensitive subjects” in class, sometimes a “source of tension”, we read in this report, which quotes a dozen teachers while preserving their anonymity.
Among these delicate subjects is “the theme of tolerance, where the problem of racism is approached with the tension that the N-word can generate…”, observes a teacher.
Another believes that talking about tolerance “is a feat”. ” […] Several students and their parents are downright racist or xenophobic and this is reflected in the responses of several students… On the other hand, tackling bullying is difficult when the aggressors and the victims are found in the classes themselves,” he testifies. in the document.
A certain “discomfort”
If the ECR program is compulsory from the 1D year from primary to 5and year of secondary school, the government report shows that the perception of religious culture is very different depending on the level at which it is taught.
In primary school, teachers consider that religious culture is “too abstract” for students and a majority considers that it “does not contribute to the role of school”.
The majority of students who do not have a religious affiliation, or do not even know that they have one, are not ready to receive this knowledge.
An elementary school teacher quoted in the Quebec report
A pedagogical adviser believes for her part that the “unease” of certain teachers with regard to the teaching of religious culture is “comparable to that aroused by sex education”.
Some have “very little religious culture and do not feel competent to do so; others have the wrong idea of this component; still others misunderstand it. Some have had a negative personal experience in connection with a religion. Some fear religions and even hate them,” said the councillor.
Teachers are afraid of “offending certain sensitivities”, we also note in the Quebec report.
“In this sense, the social and family context is an obstacle for some: either we fear that the discourse of the school on the religious phenomenon confronts family religious life; or the absence of a religious dimension in family life renders the subject obsolete”, it reads.
An undervalued course
Among the other difficulties encountered in teaching this course, secondary school teachers cite too many students, the heaviness of the task and the lack of time to teach well.
A Montreal teacher notes that some of his high school colleagues have up to 14 groups to follow. “How do you put forward, implement a program, when you have more than 450 students with whom to follow up? It’s impossible,” said the teacher.
Another considers that the lack of time devoted to this course makes the material “garrochee”.
Half of the secondary school teachers who responded to the Ministry of Education questionnaire indicated that they had no initial training in ethics and religious culture.
The ethics and religious culture course is devalued, note the authors of the report, who report “frustration” in this regard among teachers. A teacher mentions a “contempt” for the course, while others deplore that it is perceived as a “soft material”, a “catch-all material in which we send all the school staff to do their little number “.
The new Quebec culture and citizenship course will focus on Quebec culture and citizenship, as its name suggests, as well as dialogue and critical thinking. The Ministry of Education intends to include notions of media education and sex education. The student will also be led “to address moral dilemmas as well as to examine cultural, moral, religious, scientific and social references”.
The Ministry of Education indicates that “a set of elements and considerations were taken into account in the process of revising the Ethics and Religious Culture program”.