Harmful Tools and Methods in Religious Education and Training of Schoolchildren

This paper is trying to shed some light on reasons behind failure of religious training system for new generation of the Iranian schoolchildren. Discovering weaknesses of that system is a genuine wish of most religious people. Weaknesses nagging religious education and training system can be found in basics, principles, contents, methods and tools. The present paper will first review major concepts before focusing on the last two categories of weaknesses.Major harmful methods include: monotonous and passive education; lack of skill; teaching religion through commands rather than analysis and thinking; ignoring the useful method of argument and respect for opposite views; using exotic stereotypes; limiting training to direct, superficial and discontinuous methods; and insufficiencies in models.Out of harmful tools, we will focus on the distance between arts and religion and harmful expression.