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Teaching Religions (Plural) in Public Education
The Texas Board of Education, the nation's second largest purchaser of public school textbooks, is revising its K-12 social studies curriculum and deciding how to characterize religion's influence on American history. Three consultants have recommended emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and civic virtue of religion. As America's children go back to school, how would you advise the Texas board? How should religion be taught in public schools?
When I was growing up, history class pretty much skipped religion. There were three exceptions to this silence: we were given a cursory introduction to ancient Egypt's gods; we learned that the Church of England split off from the Roman Church because King Henry wanted to divorce his wife; and we heard ad nauseum the unexamined statement that the Puritans came to America to escape religious persecution, thus our country enshrined religious freedom. Oh, and we got a smattering of Greco-Roman Mythology in English class.
As far as an education goes, it didn't even come near to giving a well-rounded or even moderately accurate portrayal of the forces that shaped human history. To teach history without reference to religion is simply to skip part of history. At the same time, we cannot let the advocates of certain religious doctrines rewrite history as a mirror of their own desires or understanding.
In particular, when discussing American history, a textbook that does not address the role of religious belief and the dynamics between religious and governmental establishments leaves gaping holes in its depiction our country's formation.The religious landscape of early America is fascinating, with a wide range both of practice and governmental enforcement.
Yes, the pilgrims left Europe to escape religious persecution, but that doesn't mean that Massachusetts Bay was some bastion of religious pluralism, or even a colony that celebrated freedom of personalized religious belief. Far from it!
The intermingling of governmental and religious authority seen in colonial Boston, along with the intimate intrusion of the government into religious belief, is counterbalanced by other colonies like Virginia, which had a Bill Establishing Religious Freedom (penned by none other than Thomas Jefferson) which explicitly protected an individual's right to believe as his mind dictated, and to attend, or not attend, religious gatherings as he desired
By neglecting the religious landscape of early America and the importance the founding fathers placed on preventing the ills they saw in Christian Europe (and some of the colonies one might add), my history classes did me a disservice.
But to portray America as a Christian nation, whose values were derived from the pages of the Bible would equally be a disservice to our children. It not only neglects the diversity of approaches to religion in early America, but it sets the stage for modern day discrimination against people who do not adhere to a particular brand of Christan theology.
So too, a history that portrays only the religious sentiments of abolitionists, without making reference to how slavery and racism was justified by churches does a disservice to our children. And so too, would a history that does not discuss the role religious discrimination played and continues to play in anti-immigrant sentiment. (It's not all about jobs, accents, food choices, and skin color.) Or the role religion played in prohibition.
Religion needs to be included in history texts, neither being relegated to the realm of parental education or Sunday schools, nor being depicted in partisan or triumphal tones. Religious beliefs and forces need to be seen for the role they have played in shaping this country -- for better and for worse -- as does the impulse to keep government out of individual religious liberty so eloquently expounded by Thomas Jefferson.
Similarly, given the impact religion has had and continues to have on global human history, a curriculum that does not teach the basic beliefs of major world religion is an incomplete curriculum. Students need to understand the basic tenets of the various religions they are hearing about on the nightly news, whether it be Tibetan Buddhism, Sunni and Shiite Islam, Conservative and Reform Judaism, or various Christian denominations. Just as with religion in American history, those lessons must be taught with impartiality, neither denigrating nor lionizing any religion.
By
Pamela K. Taylor
|
September 1, 2009; 9:40 AM ET
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Posted by: abhab1 | September 4, 2009 10:18 AM
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Religion 101 - Islam
Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the massacre in Mumbai, the assassinations of Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.
And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
Current crises:
The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.
Analogous chapters on the foundations of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism are available and free for the asking by school boards anywhere around the globe.
Posted by: ccnl1 | September 3, 2009 12:10 AM
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Does the local or national population of every religion need to be considered when implementing curricula? What percentage should be the cutoff for inclusion? If every religious stripe has an equal say in curriculum, wouldn't that carve an enormous time out of instructional minutes?
It ain't so simple. The fact is that Christianity has a large, direct impact on our nation and culture today. Others, including my own, less so.
Posted by: edbyronadams | September 2, 2009 4:46 PM
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Of course, we should also teach the differences between the role of the Bible in America compared to that of the Koran in the Middle East.
Posted by: WmarkW | September 2, 2009 11:38 AM
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The main thrust of the imam’s wife diatribe is that Christianity played a role in bringing about the ills of slavery and discrimination, and that Islam should be recognized as a legitimate American religion just like Christianity and Judaism.
The paragraph that discusses Islam in American schools' history books should explain it as such.
“Islam is not a religion as much as a totalitarian ideology, not unlike Fascism or Communism, except without any of their redeeming features. It is a primitive ideology that calls for domination and subjugation according to a sliding scale of strata, with the Arabs as the imperial masters.”