“No one is born hat­ing an­oth­er per­son be­cause of the colour of his skin, or his back­ground, or his re­li­gion. Peo­ple must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”

Nel­son Man­dela

One of the most beau­ti­ful things about our coun­try is the preva­lence of dif­fer­ent re­li­gions and the way in which they in­ter­act, over­lap and co­ex­ist.

In a world where re­li­gious di­vi­sions, pros­e­cu­tions and con­flict ex­ist, T&T has stood out as a mod­el for what re­li­gious rec­on­cil­i­a­tion could look like. In many fam­i­lies through­out the coun­try, there are mem­bers of dif­fer­ent re­li­gious per­sua­sions who live to­geth­er. In every sin­gle school through­out T&T, there are stu­dents who prac­tice dif­fer­ent re­li­gions who learn and play to­geth­er.

It is ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ing that the Pres­by­ter­ian Board of Ed­u­ca­tion took one hun­dred steps back­wards when it is­sued a di­rec­tive stat­ing: “On­ly Pres­by­ter­ian de­nom­i­na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions, (for) ex­am­ple East­er, Christ­mas and oth­er re­lat­ed doc­tri­nal cel­e­bra­tions would be al­lowed on the church-school com­pound. All oth­er non-Pres­by­ter­ian re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions would take the for­mat of ed­u­ca­tion­al ob­ser­vances.”

First, ed­u­ca­tion can­not be re­strict­ed to text­books. The world is chang­ing and here in T&T, we are stuck in the text­book mod­el. Re­al ed­u­ca­tion goes be­yond the class­room. Do you know how many things a stu­dent can learn when they work to­geth­er to or­gan­ise a Di­vali or Eid pro­gramme?

Col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing teach­es con­flict man­age­ment, lead­er­ship, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, co­op­er­a­tion and many oth­er things that a text­book can­not teach. Al­low­ing stu­dents to be ac­tive par­tic­i­pants and to en­gage in ex­per­i­men­tal learn­ing is a valu­able as­pect of learn­ing, one that we should em­brace and im­ple­ment.

Sec­ond­ly, schools should be pro­mot­ing the hid­den cur­ricu­lum —all those valu­able lessons that are learnt in­di­rect­ly, not through text­books but through so­cial in­ter­ac­tion.

Those lessons that stu­dents ab­sorb from what they see and hear, from what their teach­ers do, what the schools al­low or pro­hib­it, and what is cel­e­brat­ed and ig­nored. All re­li­gions teach val­ues and al­low­ing cel­e­bra­tions from oth­er re­li­gious groups will en­force re­li­gious val­ues for stu­dents.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, when schools re­strict cel­e­bra­tions from oth­er re­li­gions, they are send­ing a mes­sage that some re­li­gions are more ac­cept­able than oth­ers, that it is not okay to be­long to an­oth­er re­li­gious group and that di­ver­si­ty should be ob­served from a dis­tance, in this case from a text­book.

Text­books teach in­for­ma­tion that stu­dents might for­get, but the hid­den cur­ricu­lum teach­es life­long lessons!

Third­ly, re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions should be al­lowed re­gard­less of what oth­er schools are do­ing. Al­low­ing stu­dents to ex­pe­ri­ence and par­tic­i­pate in an­oth­er group’s cel­e­bra­tion does not di­min­ish your own faith.

Your re­li­gion is not un­der threat be­cause an Eid event took place, an East­er as­sem­bly was held or Hin­du stu­dents shared sweets for Di­vali. If you feel that the pres­ence of oth­er re­li­gions some­how weak­ens yours, then maybe it is time to ques­tion the strength of your own be­liefs.

I mean, if in­clu­sion feels like a threat, then per­haps it is time to look at how we are teach­ing faith, not how oth­ers prac­tice it. If a school re­al­ly wants to iso­late it­self from di­ver­si­ty, then it might as well on­ly en­rol stu­dents of its own re­li­gion. Once it knows that that goes against every­thing that our coun­try stands for.

Fourth­ly, when we al­low cul­tur­al events and cel­e­bra­tions re­gard­less of re­li­gious af­fil­i­a­tions, we are prepar­ing stu­dents for a life be­yond the class­room.

By mak­ing them cul­tur­al­ly lit­er­ate, they will be able to func­tion as more open-mind­ed cit­i­zens. We are stronger when we co­ex­ist, col­lab­o­rate and rec­on­cile our dif­fer­ences and we need to start teach­ing that from a very young age.

For those who con­tin­ue their stud­ies abroad, it will pre­pare them to be cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors, ready to speak about the re­li­gious di­ver­si­ty in their home coun­try. The world is be­com­ing more and more di­vid­ed, and we should be teach­ing our younger gen­er­a­tions how to bridge dif­fer­ences, not how to re­in­force them.

We need our younger gen­er­a­tions to be bet­ter than us, to make T&T a more in­clu­sive coun­try and there­fore, we need to teach them about co-ex­is­tence and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion from a very young age.

The best way to do this is to en­cour­age them to cel­e­brate to­geth­er, to learn from each oth­er, to ap­pre­ci­ate the di­ver­si­ty in our so­ci­ety. We can­not as­sume that their par­ents, who al­ready hold strong con­vic­tions about their faith, will ex­pose their chil­dren to oth­er be­liefs or ways of think­ing. This is why our schools must be spaces where chil­dren can learn to un­der­stand the wider so­ci­ety and world.

When they are al­lowed to dress in eth­nic wear and par­tic­i­pate in re­li­gious and cul­tur­al events, they will cre­ate life­long mem­o­ries with their friends.

In my opin­ion, re­li­gion should be the last thing we make a prob­lem in T&T. We have far greater chal­lenges to deal with in our schools—vi­o­lence, bul­ly­ing, in­dis­ci­pline, chil­dren strug­gling emo­tion­al­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. In­stead of putting up walls be­tween our faiths, we should be teach­ing our chil­dren how to live to­geth­er, un­der­stand each oth­er and face those re­al bat­tles as one com­mu­ni­ty.

In the words of Ra­bindranath Tagore, “The high­est ed­u­ca­tion is that which does not mere­ly give us in­for­ma­tion but makes our life in har­mo­ny with all ex­is­tence.”