The courts' role in educational disputes is much researched, but while the legal and socio-political implications of judicial decisions are often scrutinised, judges' pedagogical assumptions have generally been overlooked. This paper focuses on educational competency by considering judges' understandings of the pedagogical effect of religious symbols in classrooms. The formal judgements of two key cases in the European Court of Human Rights are treated as textual data for qualitative analysis: "Dahlab v Switzerland," concerning a Muslim teacher's right to wear hijab; "Italy v Lautsi," concerning whether the classroom display of crucifixes breached atheist pupils' rights. Four approaches emerged: unmediated didacticism -- a direct emission of meaning by the symbolic objects; mediated didacticism -- when the symbols require a spoken explanation to convey meaning; contextual factors -- then other factors determine or limit the symbol's meaning; dialogical pedagogy - when education is conceived as an open encounter with different points of view. The wide variation in the judges' pedagogical assumptions is discussed, including the implications of how educational competency affects the variable radiating effects of the courts' decisions. Further, the concept of educational competence is developed, particularly in relation to issues of religion and belief.