There has been a lot of vigorous public discussion recently over
religion and education centering around such general matters as prayer in
school and recently focusing on the specific issue of the teaching of
Creationism versus Evolution in Kansas and the Georgia State Board of
Education's consideration of introducing a Bible course with Christian
fundamentalist overtones into the public school curriculum. As an
educator, I'd like to offer my quick take on this issue of religion and
public education.
I may not be religious in a strict ritualistic or ceremonial or
attendance at synagogue sense. But, I personally struggle to live the
moral and ethical principles of my faith every day, not just at Temple
Israel, but wherever I am, including at the university. Part of my strong
faith that I practice is a belief that every person is a sacred creation.
Another part of my faith is that I stand puny before the Lord. So puny am
I that I just do not have such herculean strength with which I can cast
out the Almighty from the public schools or any person's heart as if the
Divine were a mere mortal money changer. On the other hand, I do not see
in any Scripture any close-minded Divine commandments that say, "Thou
shalt force all others to read the Bible that thou dost" and "Thou shalt
have organized prayer in the public schools for every function," or "Go
among the multitude in the schools and force them to believe the Bible as
thou dost." And, I am okay with that.
I feel very comfortable daily practicing the principles of my
faith. I don't remember anyone ever telling me that I shouldn't or can't
be honest, that I must steal and covet and dishonor, that I can't have
faith and hope, that I can't be charitable, that I can't use the golden
rule as a standard of living. I am comfortable with any student who wants
to practice the morals and ethics of his or her faith, to say a quiet
prayer before school, say a silent prayer during school before a test, say
a little grace over lunch, read a Bible story, have a discussion about
theology, or do a project involving the role religion plays in the
American experience.
I am a professional educator. I do not think that any stone
should be left unturned as we struggle to find something, anything, to
turn a student on to learning. I do not believe in dousing the flame of a
student's interest in anything: Moses, horses, Bible, clothes, Koran,
cars, race, Buddha, sports, religion, science, sex, Allah, hunting,
Confuscius, drugs, fishing, Siva, the opposite gender, Jesus, anything
that encourages a student to read, search, inquire, discuss, discover,
write, think, listen, understand, reflect, respect, express. What kind of
a teacher would I be if I squandered such opportunities and squashed such
excitement.
I have no problem with teachers including religious history,
religious music, religious art, religious literature, religious drama,
religious philosophy, and even theology in appropriate classes (that
doesn't mean I believe that Christian Creationism has any appropriate
place in biology classes. It doesn't)---as long as no one faith or no one
sect of a faith is presented as the one and only true "church."
Like it or not, believe in it or not, religion has played a
significant role in political, social, cultural, scientific, and economic
lives world over. It is the cornerstone of our American individual and
national character. It's in our colonial beginnings, our revolution, our
founding documents, our great reform movements, even in the reason we are
told to eat our corn flakes. Without it where be would our and the world's
literature, art, architecture, music, dance? World over, more good and
more harm have been done to people by people, more people have been united
and divided, more people have been hated and more have been loved, more
people have built and more people have torn down, more has been created
and more has been destroyed, more has been elevated and more has been
perverted in the name of religion than in the name of anything else. To
leave out the role any religion has played and still plays in any
individual, local, national and global life would leave a very "holely"
story.
I also have no problem with any and all religious clubs being
welcomed at any school and having volunteer faculty sponsors, as long as
they are not officially sponsored by the school or any public funds are
used in their support. It is an unacceptable extreme position to say that
just by merely providing space and the insignificant cost of utilities
that the school is supporting and promoting such gatherings. These clubs
offer needed sense of community, places for making contact, ways of
reaching out and connecting for students no less than do sport teams,
academic clubs, theatrical productions, sororities, and fraternities.
I have yet to see a legislator's law, a judge's decision, or some
bureaucrat's regulation discourage religious belief, prohibit practices of
moral and ethical principles, stop the wearing of any religious professing
shirt, forbid individual prayer, bar the personal carrying and reading of
any religious work. If you think it does, you're not paying attention.
You're reading and hearing only what you want to read and hear or are told
to read and hear, and you're are being taken for a contribution ride
courtesy of the cottage industry in this country that profits from the
fiction that God has been banned from the schools, that all religion has
been blacklisted in our schools, that children are murdering children and
this great country is in moral decline, all because of a lack of
practicing the rituals and ceremonies of a particular religious faith in
the public schools.
Maybe the situation would be much improved if we each practice
religious inclusion rather than exclusion, just follow the ethical and
moral principles of each of our faiths regarding human relations without
worrying about particular rituals and ceremonies or celebrations of
particular holidays, be more respectful (I don't like the word,
toleration), be trusting of others, and be far, far, far less
self-righteous and arrogant. I bet we would find that we would have far
more in common than supposed and agree more often than not, and feel a
presence that has gone unnoticed.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of History http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
912-333-5947 /^\ / \ / /~\ \ /~\__/\
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