technology

Chapter

9

Religious Pluralism in Secular Classrooms

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Focus Questions

Do you remember a time when you attended a religious service with someone of a different denomination or faith? What was it like? Did it feel strange to you? Why?

Do you know anyone who attended, or did you attend, a parochial school? How did it differ from a secular public school?

How and in what ways do you think religious knowledge should be a part of public schooling?

Do you believe public funds should be used in support of parochial schools?

Why do you think the framers of the Constitution prohibited the establishment of a state religion and also guaranteed the free exercise of religious beliefs?

“Without knowledge, the people perish.”

BOOK OF PROVERBS

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Case Study

Religion in a Secular Classroom: The Power of Symbols

Several weeks after Esther Frank returned from her experience on the Semester at Sea (in Chapter 3), she began a spring semester field study in Mrs. Morgan’s fifth-grade class at a school near the University where her friend, Carla, was a student in the diversity class. Esther had taken the same class last year.

On Esther’s first day, Mrs. Morgan welcomed her to the class and told her a little bit about the students she would be working with (there were 27 students) and what she would be doing in the class.

“It’s kind of a long story,” she warned Esther, “but please bear with me. It will help you understand the students better.”

“It all started last year when I took a children’s literature course, taught by a colleague of my husband’s,” she began. “The professor was a woman who, prior to coming to the university, had been a youth minister in Chicago. One of her course assignments was to select several books written at the upper elementary level that could be used to introduce common themes from several of the world’s major religions. From class discussions, I began to develop an idea that seemed to solve one of the recurring problems in my own class.”

“Here is the problem,” she continued. “Because this school is in a university town, my students often represent a greater variety of cultural and religious backgrounds than you might expect to find in this area. In the past 4 years I’ve had students from Japan, South Africa, and Ireland as well as a number of students from various parts of the country—all were children of university faculty or graduate students. As a result, my classroom sometimes reflects the same split between local people and university people—the ‘town and gown’ split, it’s called—that now and again causes misunderstanding and strife in the community.”

“But there is one element of the cultural differences in my classroom that has stumped me, and that is the differences in religion that has created a number of conflicts over the years.”

“I can see how it might,” said Esther. I’m Jewish, and our people are not strangers to discrimination and harsh treatment.”

“I know that, and I can empathize,” said Mrs. Morgan. “So, last fall, the students and I talked about how we could increase our knowledge of other religious ideas, and the students suggested that we build models of different kinds of houses of worship—a project that surely would result in more knowledge, and also be fun! And, because we had such diversity in our own class, it would take advantage of the religious diversity in the class.”

“But, now spring is here, and I’ve found that this current class represents a wider variety of religious backgrounds than was the case last year. Along with the usual Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, there is a Catholic student who came to the United States 3 years ago from Brazil, two other Catholic students raised here in town, three local Jewish students, five African American students who attend the African Methodist Episcopal church in town, four Muslim children from Iran whose parents are professors at the University, and two children who have been schooled at home until this year by parents who belong to a conservative evangelical church. And, there are two students whose families are part of a small Unitarian Universalist congregation made up almost entirely of University faculty and their families. I’m a bit worried that this might be a little too much diversity for what I want to do.”

Esther was curious. “Is it that you want me to get involved in all this?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” said Mrs. Morgan. “Between now and the end of May when we have our spring Open House, I want the students engaged in building models of different kinds of houses of worship. Each model will be displayed in front of a map of other parts of the world where such a building might be found, and each display should be surrounded by pictures and books related to that particular place of worship. And they will need lots of help!”

“What a great idea!” enthused Esther. “Where do we start? What can I do?”

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The project began with efforts to weave information about various religions into class discussions as students were studying different subjects. For example, Mrs. Morgan invited a Muslim parent who was a professor of architecture to come into the class and talk about both the mathematics and the art in Islamic mosque architecture. Another parent who was a history teacher in the high school came to describe the role of Quakers in early American colonial life, and to show them pictures of Quaker meeting houses. Esther and Mrs. Morgan visited parents of the children in class, got to know them a little bit, told them about the project, and tried to find out something about their religious beliefs. With help from a number of people, inside the school and outside the school, this process went very well.

All through the last week of January, all of February, and the first 3 weeks of March, Esther, Mrs. Morgan, and the students worked to research and assemble the display. Altogether, there were nine models of houses of worship: a Methodist church, an Islamic mosque, a Baptist church, a Hindu temple, a Jewish synagogue, a Catholic cathedral, a Congregational church, an African Methodist Episcopal church, and a Quaker meeting house. A group of three students was tasked to construct the building and collect other information for each house of worship, but help was available from any student who could help at any time.

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Mrs. Morgan structured the work and the lessons from the regular curriculum so that they meshed. They even worked gym class into a study of the original Olympics in Greece, when looking into exactly what was the Greek Revival style of the Congregational church.

One major glitch in the process happened when no one could figure out how to build the Hindu temple. The basic problem was how to handle a design that seemed to be crucial to the temple—it was the bent-armed cross called a swastika! All pictures of Hindu temples seemed to have incorporated that design, but to Americans, and especially to Esther and the other Jewish students in the class, it was the hated symbol of the Third Reich, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. When this issue came up, Esther remembered her own horror at seeing the swastika in India, and also remembered what Danika Chowdhury, a Hindu woman she had met in India had told her about the symbolism of the swastika in India and other middle and far eastern countries.

Esther spoke to Mrs. Morgan and asked if she could give that same explanation to the class; Mrs. Morgan was delighted. So, the next day, Esther began to tell the students a little about Hinduism and the role of the swastika in its architecture and culture.

“In researching this project, what have you discovered about the Hindu religion?” she asked the class.

One student volunteered: “It’s the major religion in India … it’s polytheistic … it’s called the oldest living religion …” he said. Then, “What does polytheistic mean?”

“That’s very good!” responded Esther. “Polytheistic means that it’s a religion of many deities … Gods … or, many different forms of practice—from yoga to festivals. Basically, Hindus believe that the Vedas—which are their scriptures—tell many stories of the ‘supreme being’ influencing the world in the form of avatars, all of which have names, characters, strengths and weaknesses, and who are responsible for various aspects of human life” (Michaels, 2004; Jones & Ryan, 2007).

“The name swastika comes from the Sanskrit word svasti (sv=well; asti=is), meaning good fortune, luck and well-being,” continued Esther. “It’s an ancient religious symbol that can be seen in the art of the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Celts, Native Americans, Persians as well as Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists (Religion Facts, 2016). For Hindus, the symbol is a happy and hopeful one—that’s why they use it so often and on so many things.”

Another student asked, “Well, we think of it in terms of the Nazis, of concentration camps, and of the death of millions of Jews, gypsies, and people with disabilities. How can this be?”

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“It’s a tragic story,” said Esther. After World War I, a small group of German nationalists were looking for evidence of a “superior” racial identity, based on the idea of a shared Greco-Germanic heredity that could be traced back to an Aryan master race. They knew that the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, was famous for discovering the remains of the city of Troy in what is now Turkey, and they knew that he had found the swastika motif hundreds of times in the rubble. Similarly, they knew that the motif had also been found in the archaeological remains of Germanic tribes. Putting these two things together, Hitler and his collaborators imagined an ethnic identity and a belief system—Arayanism—which, by 1920, became the symbol of the National Socialist Party in Germany (Nazis). In so doing, the positive themes surrounding the swastika in central Asia and northern Africa became a symbol of the superiority of the German people, and hatred of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities, and non-Europeans in general, who were targeted for lawful discrimination, deportation, and death” (Atkins and Land, 2018).

Esther’s voice became very soft. “It’s hard to think of a move that was more misrepresentative of the meaning of a symbol … but, as we learned to our sorrow, it was for a time very powerful.”

After Esther’s talk, the students voted to include the Hindu temple in their project after all, swastika and all, saying that maybe they could help educate some of the adults who came to the Open House. And they went back to work.

Finally, it was the day of the Open House, and the display was ready! The school was crowded with parents and grandparents and neighborhood folks who had been a part of the various projects prepared for the day. Everyone thought it was a great success.

About a week after the Open House, Mrs. Morgan’s principal asked her to stop in the office at the end of the day. After a little small talk, the principal got to the point: “We’ve had some calls about the fact that you’re dealing with religion in your class.”

Mrs. Morgan was astonished. “Who’s complained?” she asked, “And about what?”

“It seems,” continued the principal, “that there are two kinds of complaints. Some parents object to their children talking about religion at all, and others believe their children are being exposed to ideas that they believe are not Christian. And everyone objects—or at least questions—the presence of swastikas on the Hindu temple. One family wants to come in and look at the books we have in our library to see if there are any offensive materials there.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Morgan, “you know what the children and I have been doing; you’ve seen the models and maps. You knew about the swastika—you were even in the room to hear Esther talk to the students. Did you explain our project to the people who called? I really didn’t intend to upset anyone, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” said the principal, “but I’m afraid we’ve got something of a problem here. At least one of these families has a history of suggesting that the school might not be ‘purely’ Christian. They’re part of a small group of parents in this school who objected so strenuously to celebrating Halloween because they felt it encouraged pagan beliefs and devil worship. As you know, several years ago we did away with the Halloween party in favor of a ‘Dress Up As Your Favorite Book Character’ Day every fall. And the swastika sent this family over the top!’”

“What do you think I should do?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied the principal. “Perhaps you should put your models away and let it just die down.”

“What will I tell the students? They have been so interested in this project and learned so much!”

“Perhaps you could just say that you all need the space in the classroom,” answered the Principal, looking somewhat aggrieved.

A little shaken, Mrs. Morgan went home that evening wondering if all her ideas about building on religious diversity would be stalled. She certainly hadn’t intended to find herself in the middle of a battle over religion! She also didn’t want to stop the discussions and activities in the class that had led to such a good project as the models; her students were learning a great deal and seemed to be loving it. On an impulse, she called her own minister to talk about the problem. She asked if Rev. Thomas could suggest anything.

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“Indeed I can,” said Maggie Thomas. “The clergy in the area all belong to a regional clergy council that meets next week. Let me bring this up and see what they say. Perhaps you’d like to attend and tell us about what you’re doing in class so everyone can hear it at the same time.”

Mrs. Morgan agreed, and the next week she met with the clergy council, where she carefully explained that although she wasn’t teaching any particular religious beliefs, she did think that learning about other religions was a good thing for students (see the words of Justice Clark, who wrote the majority opinion in the Supreme Court decision in Abington v. Schempp (1963) later in this chapter). She told them that the idea for building the models had come from the students, and that she had been able to bring art, science, mathematics, and geography as well as both reading and writing into the project, and she told them how proud the students were of their work. At the end of the meeting, each member of the council agreed that what she was doing was a good thing, even if it had never been done before. The Rabbi in the group noted that perhaps they could have left the swastika off the temple and thus avoided that particular issue, but, on the whole, she was glad they had included it, because it gave people a chance to hear the whole story. And it showed how powerful such symbols always were.

Several expressed a desire to see the models for themselves, and Melissa promptly issued an open invitation to all. She was pleased that one of those who wanted to see the exhibit was the pastor of the church attended by several of the families who had complained. “Perhaps,” she thought as she drove home, “there might be an ecumenical spirit in this town after all.” And then she found herself thinking about other holidays. “I wonder if we should talk about the many December religious celebrations in addition to Christmas that are held around the world!”

Case Analysis

Educators who have been involved in school disputes about religion might think that this Case Study has an improbably positive resolution. Certainly, many schools have become the center of highly emotional and long-lasting acrimony about issues such as using counseling techniques to build self-esteem in children and have experienced major attempts at censorship of library and other materials.

Yet Mrs. Morgan demonstrates several attributes of a good teacher in a religiously sensitive classroom. First, she has an idea that will involve all students in an activity—building models of houses of worship—as a way to get them to cooperate in a hands-on activity and to encourage individual students from different religious backgrounds to bring their own specialized knowledge to their class­mates. Second, she skillfully integrates several aspects of the curriculum into the project so that students can see that knowledge is interrelated. Rather than listening to dry lectures about different religions, the students learned about various religious beliefs by studying the meaning that underlies different parts of the place of worship itself.

When objections come, Mrs. Morgan does not try to withdraw, nor does she get angry, nor does she dismiss the objections as unreasonable. Rather, she goes to her own minister as a way to perhaps create linkages with the religious leaders of the commu­nity. That there happened to be a clergy council meeting the next week and that she happened to be a persuasive speaker might be viewed as fortuitous. However, many communities have organizations to which various clergy belong, and the notion of enlisting help from community members is always a good one.

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As diversity of all kinds is increasingly prevalent in schools and as teachers like Mrs. Morgan learn to appreciate and build on those differences, experiences like Mrs. Morgan’s will also increase. Thus, future teachers will want to consider both the opportunities and possible implications of being an educational leader in the classroom and in the community.

Rationale for Attending to Religion in Public Schools

Citizens of the United States have, since our national beginnings, been deeply concerned with the role of religion in matters of state. Some of our earliest settlers came to this continent to escape religious prejudice, and all who have come in the years since have brought with them their religious ideas, beliefs, rituals, and habits of mind. Even those who profess to be agnostic or atheist have formed their spiritual values in expressing rebellion against varieties of formalized religion that exist or existed in their particular cultural worlds.

In addition, much of the cultural capital of human societies emerges from philosophical, literary, musical, and artistic attempts to answer fundamentally religious questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? What is our purpose on earth? and What happens when we die? Thus, whether individuals see themselves as “religious” or not, religious references and allusions permeate our lives. In most if not all societies, religious references are used in everyday language; families, schools, and other institutions organize time around religious observances; and places of worship exert influence in community affairs. Even money often has religious symbols and language on it.

In part, this connection to religious ideas and symbolism emerges from a seemingly universal human need to be associated with a spiritual dimension. In some societies that connection permeates not only the ways in which the society is organized but also nearly every minute of daily life. When religion plays a large role in society, as it did in our own history in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and as seen recently in such places as Afghanistan and Iran, the society is called a theocracy. In other societies, the connection is looser, with some degree of separation between secular and religious life. That was the intention of the founders of the United States, who wrote such a separation into the Constitution in the First Amendment, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [establishment clause], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [prohibition clause]; or abridging the freedom of speech, of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (1791).

Notice that while the writers of the Constitution did not establish a religion as a dimension of the state, they also were careful to ensure that religion could be freely practiced by individuals, that religious speech (as well as other forms of speech) was protected by the Constitution, and that peaceable assembly to practice religious beliefs (as well as for other purposes) was guaranteed. It was, however, passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, which granted to citizens of the states all the rights they had as citizens of the nation, that caused the issue of separation of church and state to have a direct influence on schooling (Uphoff, 1993, p. 95).

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Definitions of Religion

Uphoff (1993) noted that religion is a concept that seems easily definable until one actually tries to define it. We have available to us definitions of religion that are both universal (those that apply to all religions) and sectarian (those that apply only to a specific denomination or sect). Yinger (1970), for example, defined religion broadly as “a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggle with … the ultimate problems of human life” (p. 7). The sociologist Durkheim (1969) defined it a bit more concretely but still in a universal manner when he said, “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church [sic], all those who adhere to them” (p. 46). Similarly, Berger and Berger (1972) viewed religion as “an overarching view of reality concerned with ultimate meanings which provides a cohesive view of the world, explains evil and prosperity, and offers guidelines for social action in the secular realm” (pp. 348–352). Most broad definitions of religion encompass concepts of a deity, of shared values and an orientation toward the sacred, and of a sense of community.

On the other hand, narrower, sectarian definitions of religion (e.g., Presbyterian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Seventh-Day Adventist, Mormon) will have relatively different answers to the following questions:

What theological outlook or point of view does this religion acknowledge?

What kinds of religious practice do the people who belong to this religious denomination accept as expressive of proper worship and devotion?

What kind of religious experience—feelings, perceptions, and sensations—ensures that some contact will be made with ultimate reality (i.e., a supernatural agency)?

What knowledge about the basic tenets of faith, scriptures, and traditions are necessary to the practice of this particular religion?

What are the consequences of this religious belief, practice, experience, and knowledge on an individual’s daily life?

What are the consequences of falling away from the practice, experience, and knowledge of this particular religion?1

Answers to these questions in large measure determine the differences between one religious group and another. Furthermore, it would be a mistake to regard these differences as simply “interesting” variations on a theme. Rather, a person’s very identity and relationship with one or more deities and other human beings are vested in these beliefs, which are generally regarded by members of a particular faith as true in some ultimate sense. Thus, for example, religious beliefs about the proper kinds of food to eat, the proper way to prepare and eat it, the relative place of males and females in society, and the kinds of rituals required to receive the deity’s blessing as well as the number and relative importance of deities themselves, all have a bearing on how an individual conducts his or her daily life. These ideas are so strongly held and so central to a religious person’s sense of individual and collective identity that conflicts of belief among different religious groups can—and often have—led to war.

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As is clear from today’s news, going to war for religious beliefs is just as likely to happen now as it has been throughout history. Indeed, for some contemporary Muslim extremists, terrorist actions are based on and justified by long-remembered people and the battles they fought during the Crusades 700 years ago, as well as by perceived injustices perpetrated more recently. Indeed, it is not unusual for some extremists to refer to all modern Westerners as “Crusaders.” Similarly, historically violent insurgencies in Northern Ireland based on centuries-old disputes between Catholics and Protestants, and the torture and horrific murder of thousands of Muslims by Serbian Christians in Kosovo speak to the potential depth and danger of religious identity. Sadly, religious persecution by members of one religion against members of another religion is an old theme in the story of humanity.

The experiences of religious pluralism in the United States are not new, but some things have changed over time. First, the degree to which religious belief has been deemed a necessary part of public life has changed. In periods of fundamental social change, such as we are living in today, human beings often turn to the comfort and security of an organized faith and set of absolute values, and many believe that these values should be actively incorporated into the larger society. Second, the advent of digital technology—means that it is no longer necessary to actually attend a religious service other than your own to obtain knowledge of it. Indeed, many if not most American religious congregations used various forms of digital technology, particularly streaming, to provide worship services for themselves and others during the worst part of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Most faiths, and many individual synagogues, mosques, and churches, have numerous websites on which they can display and promote their religious ideas. Third, the increasing interdependence of the world’s social systems means that what happens in one part of the world quickly affects what happens in another part of the world. This connectivity is no less true of religious systems than it is of economic ones.

Religious Pluralism in the United States

Religious pluralism in the United States is so great that a complete accounting is not possible in a short chapter, but it is possible to describe major religious groups that flourish here and to give a brief summary of their histories. Prior to colonization by Europeans in the 16th century, the Americas were home to a wide variety of religious practices by native peoples. Although Native American societies differed widely in various aspects of culture, in language, and in appearance, all shared a fundamentally religious outlook that emphasized the centrality of a Creator, a reverence for the natural world, and a belief that human beings were a part of nature and were obligated to preserve and protect it. Interestingly, this focus on the human condition as a part of nature, and the importance of living in such a way that our natural world is both preserved and conserved, is, as the 21st century unfolds, being adopted by a number of contemporary religious groups, including many members of evangelical denominations.

European Influences on Religion in the United States

As Europeans began to explore and colonize the Americas, they brought with them another set of religious variations—Christianity and Judaism—as well as a belief quite contrary to the native religions: that human beings were apart from nature and were intended to conquer and control it. This difference in worldview with respect to the place of human beings in the natural world is perhaps the most significant and profound difference between so-called Western religions and most indigenous or “native” ones.

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In New England, a puritan form of Protestantism took hold as a dominant theme; in the middle colonies, greater diversity of religious belief, including Catholic, Quaker, and Anabaptist, as well as others, meant that no particular denomination prevailed; in the South, the dominant religion stemmed from the Anglican Church of England. Jews also were among the earliest immigrants: first came Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal and then German Jewish immigrants; by the American Revolution, there were about 3,000 Jews in the colonies (Sowell, 1980, p. 77). Religious diversity continued to expand in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, large numbers of Catholics from Ireland and Italy and Jews from Russia and eastern Europe immigrated to the United States, each group containing within it great diversity of belief and practice. In the 20th century, particularly since the 1960s, the United States has experienced increasing Catholic immigration from Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Similarly, pentacostal congregations in the global South—South America and South Africa—have experienced a rapid and exciting growth in recent years, and some of these folks have come into the United States as well (Cox, 2009).

African Influences on Religion in the United States

In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, large numbers of Africans were brought to the United States as slaves, and they brought with them not only a large set of their own African religions, but Islamic influences as well. As noted in the Amherst College Documentary History Project on African-American Religions:

Working its way down from the Sahara long before Christianity began to touch the West African coast, Islam like Christianity interacted in complex ways with the traditional religions of Africa. Brought to the Americas by enslaved African Muslims, Islam struggled with difficulty to preserve itself in an inhospitable, Christian-controlled environment. Meanwhile, ordinary believers of all sorts, eager to mobilize any resources that might aid them in coping with life’s daily hardships, everywhere tended to borrow freely from one another’s traditions of religious practice. In sixteenth-century Mexico, for example, there was a complex intermingling of African, Mesoamerican, and European practices of divination (AARDOC, 2006).

Indeed, the creativity with which Africans interpreted and utilized Protestant scriptures and music to make their daily lives more bearable and to further the cause of freedom produced a unique contribution to American religious and political life. Negro spirituals, for example, were very often used as a form of clandestine communication to spread news of slave activities. After slavery was finally abolished in the middle of the 19th century, African American churches continued to have an immense influence on the cultural and educational lives of their members and are today still central to African American culture and African American social and political struggles.

Middle Eastern Influences on Religion in the United States

Although the importation of Muslim African slaves brought Islam to the Americas very early, it was in the late 19th and 20th centuries that a growth in the Muslim faith in the United States reached influential proportions. This was the case in part through conversion and in part through immigration. In fact, Islam is presently one of the fastest growing religions in the United States.

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The converted Muslim population is primarily African American and often identifies itself as the Nation of Islam, a group whose history in the United States goes back to the 1930s and grew out of the works of W. D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad. The Nation of Islam was, and in some respects still is, a separatist group that emphasizes freedom, justice, and equality for African Americans and actively discourages intermarriage with whites. Perhaps its best-known leader was Malcolm X, the converted son of a Baptist minister who, as a result of his experience during a pilgrimage to Mecca (a hajj) and shortly before his assassination in 1965, began to shift his beliefs away from separatism and toward kinship among all human beings (Al-Ani, 1995).

The earliest Muslim immigrants—largely rural, poor, and uneducated—came to the United States between 1875 and 1912 from what was known as Bilad ash-Sham, or Greater Syria—an area that after World War I became Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria—and also from Turkey, Albania, India, and elsewhere. The second wave, that immigrated after World War II, particularly from the Middle East and North Africa, were primarily educated professionals uprooted by political changes including the creation of the states of Israel and Pakistan.

The third wave, which continues today, began in the 1960s with the liberalization of American immigration laws (Al-Ani, 1995). These individuals came not only from the same areas as their earlier counterparts, but also from the former Yugoslavia. In addition, beginning in the 1970s, the oil-producing countries of the Middle East have sent many Muslim students to study in the United States, and these students have played an active role in Muslim communities. Like their European counterparts, many Muslims have come to the United States as a result of social and political unrest in their native countries.

Today, Islam in the United States—like Christianity and Judaism—has a global face. Highly educated Sunni and Shi’ite Arab Muslims comprise a large proportion of the Islamic community. In addition, however, Muslims from Turkey, Eastern Europe, and many African nations continue to enrich the Islamic community, and serious challenges continue to face Islamic residents. Life for Muslim Americans has never been particularly easy, but the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased both attention and a backlash of negative feelings toward Muslims in general. Jane I. Smith (n.d.), professor of Islamic Studies at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, wrote about other challenges facing American Muslims:

Questions of identity, occupation, dress, and acculturation are particularly significant for many American Muslims. Other major issues include the relationships among different racial and ethnic Muslim groups as well as with other American Muslims; how and where to provide an Islamic education for one’s children; and appropriate roles and opportunities for women. Many are moving from a phase of dissociation from mainstream American life to much more active participation in political and social arenas. American Muslims appear to be moving into another stage of identity in which these kinds of issues are being confronted and resolved in new and creative ways. The result may well be that a truly American Islam, woven from the fabric of many national, racial, and ethnic identities, is in the process of emerging.

In the United States, any discussion of religion must include a willingness to concede the complexity of American religious ideas and practices. An introduction to a report on their recent national survey on religion conducted by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, Bader et al. (2006) stated:

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In fact, under the surface American religion is startlingly complex and diverse. Americans may agree that God exists. They do not agree about what God is like, what God wants for the world, or how God feels about politics. Most Americans pray. They differ widely on to whom they pray, what they pray about, and whether or not they say grace. A vast majority of Americans are Christians, but attitudes amongst those Christians regarding the salvation of others, the role of religion in government, the reality of the paranormal, and their consumption of media are surprisingly diverse.

Clearly, while the United States has always been a religiously pluralistic country, today that pluralism is greater than it has ever been. Along with ethnic and racial pluralism, to which it is closely related in a variety of ways, religious pluralism has become a daily experience in classrooms all over the country—a fact that has educational implications in terms of curriculum materials, subject matter, school rules and customs, student services, school calendar decisions, scheduling of student activities, cafeteria offerings, holiday celebrations, teaching methods, and school financing (Uphoff, 1993). Rather than looking at these educational implications as problems, however, some teachers and schools are finding that such diversity of religion offers unique opportunities for teaching and learning.

Characteristics of a Classroom That Attends to Religious Pluralism

How, then, might an educator design a classroom not only to affirm religious pluralism but also to build on it?

Teaching in the 21st Century: Who Are the Students?

Good teaching in a classroom that is sensitive to religious diversity, like good teaching in any classroom, is in large measure a matter of getting to know the students with whom you are working, their families, and the communities in which they live. Most teachers quickly learn the individual idiosyncrasies of their students with respect to psychological issues and traits: attention span, motivation, perceived intelligence, and so on. What is often less well known is the sociocultural background of students. Yet we know very well that the best context for learning is when students are able to build on what they already know. Knowing as much as possible about your students’ back-grounds is also central to everything else that happens because you will be designing your classroom around your students and the experiences they bring with them to school.

So, who are today’s students? Well, religiously, they are becoming more varied. In part that is because many are coming from different areas of the world than did previous immigrants. Indeed, the country that is sending us the most people at this time is India (Radford, 2019), which is the birthplace of four of the world’s major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. In addition, although immigration of Spanish-speaking peoples from Mexico and South America is declining somewhat, they are still the second largest number of students in American schools who speak a first language at home.

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Because formal religious teachings and values may or may not be a part of each of your students’ lives, it is important to know something about the religious composition of your class. Chances are good that you will not have an overwhelming number of different religions represented in one room, so you need to know something about only those that are represented at any given time. However, you do need to know something about the worldview of those particular religions as well as the worldview of those students who do not subscribe to any religious tenets, particularly with respect to issues of gender and to the relationship between young people and elders. It is also wise to know whether a particular religious group values such skills as critical thinking and questioning for their children because some do not. In some religious contexts, a child simply does not question authority, religious doctrine, or their elders.

Teachers who want to build on religious diversity must vary the instructional methods used in the classroom. The culture of the traditional American public school stresses certain teaching methods, patterns of instructional interaction, and assessment strategies. For example, teachers talk while students listen; individual students answer teacher-directed questions; individual students give oral reports to their class; students follow detailed, teacher-given instructions on how to carry out a task; and teachers issue paper-and-pencil tests. In the United States, these patterns emerge from a Western cultural worldview that emphasizes individualism, middle-class values, and a generally Protestant Christian belief system that stresses the importance of the minister as teacher and the individual’s direct relationship with a deity. These teaching patterns may be relatively or totally unfamiliar to some students. Native American students, for example, whose religious worldview emphasizes communal patterns of interaction and individual choice, may be more interested in the activities of their peers than of the teacher and may feel that the teacher must earn their respect rather than simply get it by virtue of his or her position. That is, these students may believe that they should follow a teacher’s directions because they have chosen to rather than because they are compelled to do so. Another example is African American students whose churches use an emotive “call and response” or a choral pattern of interaction; these students may respond to teachers’ questions with emotion, with hand gestures, with changes in vocal tonality, or in chorus because those are patterns they have learned. In general, what may be new about pedagogy for a classroom that pays attention to religious diversity is the subtle but important ability of the teacher to vary and alter instructional patterns so that all students find both familiar and new ways of learning.

The Work of Teachers and Students

Sensitivity to potential and real areas of conflict among students of different religious backgrounds requires that teachers adopt the role of interpreter and, sometimes, mediator. Once again, teachers must learn as much as they can about the religions represented in the classroom not only so that they can help students find the commonalities among different religious beliefs but also so that they can help students interpret differences. Parents and community members are often helpful in this regard, so long as they understand that their role is to explain rather than to convert. Indeed, perhaps more dissention regarding religious tenets has been caused by the failure of teachers to communicate closely with parents about what they are trying to accomplish in class than by any other single factor. Generally speaking, if parents understand that their children will not be deprived of either respect or affirmation because of their religious beliefs, most will be happy to help teachers in any way they can. Students, too, if they are old enough, can serve as teachers to their peers, as can other school staff and members of the community.

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Another set of issues to consider in a religiously sensitive classroom is the role of school rules and customs. Attendance, for example, should be flexible for students involved in religious celebrations and/or duties, and policies such as dress codes should take account of religiously based regulations and customs. Dress codes that stipulate that students cannot wear hats in school must exempt the Orthodox Jewish boy who wears the yarmulke as a token of respect to his deity or the Amish girl who wears a dimity bonnet and long dress as a gesture of modesty.

Similarly, the fact that the school calendar conveys the importance of religious diversity is significant. For example, vacation times scheduled on traditional school calendars, as well as celebrations usually held in schools, tend to be based on the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. Moreover, common practices such as scheduling games on Friday nights (when many Jewish families begin the celebration of the Sabbath) or homecoming activities early in the autumn (which may fall on the Jewish High Holidays) should also be seriously reconsidered. Later in the school year, teachers need to be sensitive to the demands placed on older Muslim students who observe Ramadan and refrain from eating and drinking during the daylight hours. The customs involved in these special cases must be discussed openly in terms of their religious significance so that other students both learn about different traditions and come to respect the reasons for them. Much of this kind of discussion can take place in the context of learning about religious beliefs and customs as a part of more general curricular study.

Knowledge as a Tool in the Classroom

When religion is the cultural focus of your thinking, it is well to remember that religion, unlike some other kinds of difference, has a powerful element of “truth” built into it. That is, it may be more difficult for a student to stand apart from his or her religious worldview and look at other religions because religious “truth” is often linked to fundamental ideas of the relationship between individuals and a supernatural power. Nevertheless, religious history and traditions, architecture, art, music, and ideas can become the basis for an enriched and affirming classroom. Although in recent years educators have been reluctant to consider teaching about religion in public schools, the study of the contributions of various religions to world civilization is worthwhile. Indeed, in 1964 the American Association of School Administrators published a book called Religion in the Public Schools in which the authors asserted that:

a curriculum which ignored religion would itself have serious implications. It would seem to proclaim that religion has not been as real in men’s lives as health, or politics, or economics. By omission it would appear to deny that religion has been and is important in man’s history—a denial of the obvious. In day by day practice, the topic cannot be avoided. As an integral part of man’s [sic] culture, it must be included (as cited in Uphoff, 1993, p. 95).

Mrs. Morgan’s use of the building project as a way of learning about various religions is a perfect example of using knowledge as a tool in the classroom. But it is not the only way. The study of religion generally can be incorporated into a variety of places in the curriculum; often the best place is the most obvious. Religious dietary regulations might be included in a home economics class, for example, or the intricate, geometrical designs of an Islamic mosque might be part of a math or art class. Because religion is and has been so fundamental to human life and history, locating its study in the context of a variety of subject matters is not difficult. At the same time, separate courses in the study of comparative religion or interdisciplinary courses that study the impact of religion on history, law, and art can be instituted, particularly at the secondary level.

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Regular curriculum materials and resources in a religiously sensitive classroom should be carefully screened for bias of various kinds, including omission, not so much in order to exclude those materials as to point out the bias to students and let the bias, itself, become the subject of inquiry, discussion, and debate. At the same time, curricular resources—including books, articles, paintings, music, sculpture, maps, and artifacts such as wearing apparel and icons—that represent various religions can be made available for examination by students. Similarly, students who belong to particular religious groups can educate their classmates about their own religious beliefs and values. In all cases, the basis of study and discussion should be inquiry, not evangelism.

Knowledge about religious groups does not, of course, mean that you must design a classroom to match each child’s unique experience. Indeed, one of the purposes of schooling in a democracy is to help students expand their experience beyond the relatively small world in which they live. However, it is important that you know something about the religious values of your students so that you can know how to approach new learning, where conflicts may develop, and when you can intercede to help students (and often parents) bridge the gap between their own experience and what they are learning in school. At the same time, you must understand and respect the community’s primary values so that you do not go too far beyond the readiness level of community members.

Evaluation of the Results of Teaching and Learning

When you are teaching or learning about a belief system like religion, you must focus not only on assessing the knowledge that has been acquired but also on the form of that assessment. Uphoff (1993) offered a good example of religious sensitivity when he wrote about creating exam questions having to do with the concept of evolution. As you may be aware, the teaching of evolution is the subject of much controversy in some communities, with many people calling for balancing the curriculum by including the study of so-called intelligent design in biology and other classes. The following test questions illustrate the difference between showing respect for those families who ac-cept as fact the story of creation as it is written in the Bible and giving the impression that those families are wrong:

Poor. It took millions of years for the earth to evolve to its present state. (True/False)

Better. Evolutionists believe that it took millions of years for the earth to evolve to its present state (True/False) (Uphoff, 1993, p. 104).

In the first question, the student must agree with a factual statement, while in the second, the student can agree that one group (not necessarily one to which he or she belongs) asserts that something is the case. You might agree that this makes a subtle but powerful difference.

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Another issue concerns such assessments as psychological testing and health screening and care. Some families believe that psychological assessment by school personnel is an invasion of family rights, a corruption of values based on strict adherence to scriptural teaching, or an attempt on the part of school officials to alter or interfere with the religious beliefs of students. These families tend to think that psychological interventions to raise self-esteem or encourage self-expression—such as classroom games or the use of puppets as a way to enable children to speak freely—are suspect, sometimes in the extreme. Similarly, health screenings and assessments, especially when they involve somewhat invasive procedures such as tine or PPD (purified protein derivative, or Mantoux) tests for tuberculosis, are often the focus of parental objections on a variety of religious grounds. Some parents also may have religious reasons for objecting to their children giving blood in high school blood drives. As schools increasingly become a source of health and social services for children, the number of objections raised by families from a variety of religious backgrounds may increase as well.

Pang and Barba (1995) noted that culturally affirming instruction should include culturally familiar interaction patterns, culturally familiar strategies, a culturally familiar environment, culturally familiar content, culturally familiar materials, and culturally familiar analogies, themes, and concepts. The next section explores some of the ways Melissa Morgan’s classroom followed these guidelines with respect to religious sensitivity and appreciation.

Perspectives on Religion and Schooling in the United States

Because a religious or spiritual dimension is so close to the cognitive and emotional lives of human beings and because the founders of the United States believed that religion was so important that it should be addressed in the Constitution, the few words in the First and Fourteenth Amendments have been both the source of religious freedom and the source of educational battles around religion in the schools ever since. In schooling, the fundamental problem has been—and continues to be—how to resolve the tensions created by seemingly opposing principles: (1) the need for schools, as an arm of the state, to support a basic freedom guaranteed by the Constitution, and (2) the need for schools, also as an arm of the state, to uphold the separation of church and state. Throughout our history, these tensions have resulted in continually shifting opinions about a number of issues, and because ours is a nation of laws, the courts have been a decisive element in defining the relationship between religion and schools.

In an analysis written many years ago, Butts (1978) casts these issues into two broad categories that help sort out the confusion that often results when people begin to talk about the role (or absence) of religion in public education. The first category is education’s role in protecting private freedoms, or “those that inhere in the individual, and therefore may not be invaded or denied by the state.” He wrote:

In the most general terms, freedom was sought for parents and their children on the grounds that every human being has the right, and should have the opportunity and the ability, to live one’s own life in dignity and security. Further he or she is entitled to a chosen cultural or religious group without arbitrary constraint on action or coercion of belief by the state or by other community pressures (p. 272).

“Most often,” he noted, “appeal was made to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution (and as applied by the Fourteenth Amendment to the states) as a protection against coercion of belief or action by school or government authorities” (p. 272).

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Butts’s second category was education’s role in guaranteeing public freedoms, “that is, those that inhere in the welfare of the democratic political community and which the … state is obligated actively to safeguard, protect, and promote whether threatened by a majority or minority in the community” (p. 272). He described the ground for public freedoms for teachers and students as the belief that every person in his or her capacity as a teacher, learner, and citizen had the right and should have the opportunity to speak, to read, to teach, to learn, to discuss, and to publish without arbitrary constraint on action or coercion of belief by the state or by other pressures.

This approach to protection of public freedoms has run into opposition by people who see it as a threat to the established order, in other words, a threat to the dominance of Protestantism as the foundation of public schooling. It has also been opposed by people for whom the protection of private freedoms is paramount; that is, those who see in the protection of public welfare a threat to private freedoms of parents to control the education of their children.

Several of the more important concrete issues over which these debates have raged are compulsory attendance, freedom to practice religious beliefs with respect to the Pledge of Allegiance, salutes to the flag, prayer and Bible reading in schools, released time for religious instruction, and the use of public funds for religious schools. Each of these issues has reflected the tension between private and public freedoms.

Private Freedoms: Religion and Compulsory School Attendance

The history of schooling in the United States is characterized by a continually expanding effort to include all children. One way in which this has been accomplished is by requiring all children to go to school until a certain age. This requirement was little regarded in the early years of the country; indeed, for much of our history, schooling was not only not required but also not really necessary to earn a living and develop a good life.

Beginning in the 19th century with the advent of industrialization and the major waves of immigration, compulsory schooling gained acceptance largely as a way of protecting young children from exploitation in factories and keeping children off the urban streets. In general, however, the move toward compulsory schooling can be seen as part of a larger movement toward the establishment of a social institution (the common school) that would provide the means to ensure a common citizenship and loyalty to the state among diverse individuals. Thus, early on the issue of compulsory schooling was seen by some Americans as an issue of the rights of parents versus the rights of the state.

In 1922, the state of Oregon narrowly passed an initiative requiring that all children between age 6 and 18 must attend a public school, or be granted permission to attend a private school by the county superintendent of schools. Fearing that such a law would destroy parochial schools, a Roman Catholic teaching order filed suit to have the law declared unconstitutional. In 1925, the Supreme Court did just that in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, saying:

The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excluded any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

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Although affirming the right of parents to send their children to private religious schools, the Court also stipulated that the state had a right to require children to go to some school and that the state could also regulate all schools. Thus the precedent was set for the development of a protected parochial school system alongside the public schools.

As is often the case, however, support for compulsory schooling ebbs and flows. By the 1960s and 1970s, many educators had doubts about requiring attendance of all children to the age of 16 or 18. Again, religious beliefs provided the means for the Supreme Court to further the cause of private freedoms and parental rights. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court upheld the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that stipulated that Old Order Amish parents could disobey Wisconsin’s compulsory schooling laws and remove their children from school at the end of the eighth grade. The Court held that:

a state’s interest in universal education, however highly we rank it, is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on other fundamental rights and interests, such as those specifically protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the traditional interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children so long as they, in the words of Pierce, “prepare [them] for additional obligations.”

Today, interest in compulsory schooling is once again on the rise, in part because of the perceived interest of the state in a new kind of workforce that can compete economically with other nations and in part because of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001. This time, the focus is not only on dropout rates, which have remained at a lower plateau, but on completion or graduation rates which have been increasing. Although there is some debate on the actual number of high school completions, current data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that high school dropout rates have declined among all populations since 1990, dropping overall from 12.1% to 4.7%. The percentage of U.S. public high school students who graduate on time with a regular diploma has increased from 79% in 2010-11 to 85% in 2016-17 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Since more states have established graduation tests, however, there is increasing debate about how many students actually graduate on time, and about how such rates are measured.

Private Freedoms: The Practice of Religious Beliefs in Classrooms

Public sentiment regarding the role of religion in public schools, like public opinion on other issues, is often easier to understand when it is seen in a historical context. In the decisions cited in the previous section, for example, the right of parents to foster religious beliefs in their children versus the right of the state to compel school attendance was part of the larger questions of child labor and the development of schools as the primary socialization agents of citizenship in a democracy.

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Similarly, the debates over the practice of religious beliefs in classrooms have often been part of the larger question of loyalty to the United States and the debate about the role of the state to protect a citizen’s rights to equality. In the beginning of the Common School Movement, there was little question that religious practice—and indeed, religious sources of instruction—was a fundamental part of public schooling. Such practices as school prayer and the reading of the Bible on a daily basis were common, if not universal, and curricular materials such as the widely used McGuffy readers taught moral values derived from Christian Protestantism along with vocabulary and grammar. Although the influence of particular religious ideas and values on schooling has always been (and continues to be) partly a matter of the religious composition of the community in which a school is located, the basic structure of public schooling in the United States emerged from an allegiance to a Judeo-Christian heritage as much as it did from the development of an economically capitalist state. Indeed, the Judeo-Christian deity has been (and is) a more or less involuntary party to a wide variety of legislative and judicial meetings, deliberations, and decisions at the federal, state, and local levels. Note that although Americans say they separate church and state, it is still common practice for the president of the United States to place his hand on some version of the Bible when taking the oath of office.

The question of loyalty to the government usually arises in times of major political disagreement or war. In 1919, for example, in the wake of World War I and fears of involvement with world affairs, Nebraska passed a law requiring that all instruction in the public schools be given in English and prohibiting the teaching of any foreign language to children younger than the ninth grade. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), however, the Supreme Court ruled that such a law was unconstitutional, stating that the right of parents to guide their children’s education is a constitutional right.

Similarly, during World War II, the Minersville, Pennsylvania, board of education enacted a policy that required all teachers and students in the public schools to incorporate the Pledge of Allegiance and a salute to the flag on a daily basis. One set of parents, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses and prohibited by their religion from worshiping images, objected that the requirement set aside their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion. In Minersville v. Gobitis (1940) the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state’s right to impose the flag salute rule. The dissent to this ruling was written by Justice Stone, who, on becoming chief justice 3 years later, reversed the Gobitis decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), saying, in effect, that while the state could require the study and teaching of civic matters, it did not have the right to impose an ideological discipline that “invades the sphere of intellect and spirit.”

The debate about the role of the state in providing equality of opportunity, on the other hand, has influenced other decisions regarding religion in the public schools. For example, a widely known and still heatedly debated controversy revolves around the issue of prayer and Bible reading in public schools. In a widely referenced case in 1963—Abington v. Schempp—the Supreme Court ruled that requiring student participation in sectarian prayers and reading from the Bible, particularly the New Testament, violated the First Amendment prohibition of separation of church and state. The argument here was that school prayers were fundamentally Christian (and usually Protestant), that all students were not Christian, that so-called nonsectarian prayers satisfied no one, and that therefore the removal of all religious practice from public school classrooms was necessary. The Supreme Court has ruled that sectarian prayers at high school graduations (Lee v. Weisman, 1992) and on the football field before a game (Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 2000) are also unconstitutional. Still, because religious beliefs are so much a part of the identities of many people, the law and the practices of individual schools and people may be somewhat far apart.

Unfortunately, many people, including the national and local media, confused the argument in Abington with the actual decision, which did not “ban” prayer in schools but only said that requiring students to participate in sectarian prayers and Bible reading was unconstitutional. Indeed, in the majority opinion written by Justice Clark, the Court strongly supported the study of religion in public schools:

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It might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistent with the First Amendment (1963).

Uphoff (1993) suggested that it was the self-censorship of educators and publishers based on both an inadequate reading of the Court decisions and a desire for equal representation for non-Christian religions that was responsible for the relative removal of religion from public schools in recent years. The vacuum created by this removal has enabled a strong challenge from the so-called religious right to reinstate religious practices into classrooms.

In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which laid down several principles about the exercise of religion in schools and elsewhere. In part, the act stated that the government cannot “burden” an individual’s exercise of religion unless that exercise conflicted with a compelling government interest and/or if that burden was the least restrictive means of furthering such compelling interest. However, in 1997, the Supreme Court declared at least part of the law unconstitutional, with the result that it no longer applies to states and localities, but does apply to federal jurisdiction (Ackerman, 1998).

Don Hammond/Design Pics

Public Freedoms: Public Funding for Religious Schools

Arguments for public funding for religious schools stem from the doctrine contained in the Pierce v. Society of Sisters decision previously discussed. As Butts (1978) noted:

If parents have a private right to send their children to religious and private schools to meet the compulsory attendance requirements of the state, then distributive justice requires that the state provide parents with public funds to enable them to do what they have the private right to do (p. 286).

Arguments against public funding for religious schools, on the other hand, stem from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment on the grounds that the taxpayer has a right to be free of taxation that promotes a religious doctrine.

Until about the middle of the 20th century, the American public in general, was inclined to believe that both national and religious interests were better served if public funds were not used for religious schools. The debate arose again, however, at midcentury, with Americans taking positions about both direct and indirect aid. Proponents of direct aid argued that since compulsory attendance laws served the state and since parochial schools contributed to the ability of those laws to be enforced, parochial schools should also benefit from public financial support. Further, they argued that since all citizens were required to pay taxes to support public education, those parents who wished—and had a right—to send their children to religious schools would have a double financial burden. In addition, they argued that the provision of separation of church and state in the Constitution said nothing about the ability of public and parochial schools to cooperate with one another.

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A more moderate view favored indirect aid to religious schools. As early as 1930, precedent was set for such aid when, in Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law that affirmed the purchase of texts for use in private sectarian schools on the grounds that the books benefited the children and thus the state. After World War II, however, a variety of religious groups began to push the limits of Cochran by asking for public support for health and medical services and school lunches as well as for books. The greatest demand was for help with transportation of parochial students to their schools.

Perhaps the most cited and argued-over case regarding religion and public education, Everson v. Board of Education (1947), was the landmark case with respect to busing parochial schoolchildren. Emerging from a New Jersey case in which the state allowed public funds to be used to transport Catholic children to parochial schools, the Court ruled that payment for such transportation essentially benefited the children (and thus the state, as it had said in Cochran) rather than the school. The vote was 5 to 4, however, with the minority arguing that such support did, indeed, help children and parents maintain religious instruction at public expense.

A third position, generally taken by Protestant, Jewish, and civil libertarian supporters of the public school, as well as by many professional educators, argues that both direct aid and indirect aid to parochial schools are unconstitutional. Those who take this position base their argument on a strict separation of church and state. At the middle of the 20th century, both the National Education Association and the American Association of School Administrators adopted this position, asserting that although religious schools had every right to exist, they should be supported entirely by those who use them.

Over the next three decades, the action regarding federal aid to private schools moved from the courts to the legislature. At the federal level, the School Lunch Act of 1948, the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the Higher Educational Facilities Act of 1963, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 provided financial support for school lunches in parochial schools; massive funding in a variety of areas for private, often sectarian, colleges; and funds for school libraries, textbooks, and secular instructional materials for private as well as public schools. Courts, however, continued to cut down state statutes supporting direct and indirect services to parochial schools, although they did create some conditions under which such aid would be permissible. Thus, in Zorach v. Clauson (1952) the Supreme Court ruled that schools could release students during public school hours to attend religious instruction off the school premises.

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Charter Schools, Home Schooling, and Voucher Programs

Today, the debate about tax support for parochial education continues, made perhaps even more strident because of current efforts to provide competition for the public education system. Charter schools, home schooling, and voucher programs are often promoted by those who have religious reasons for wanting their children educated by alternative means. While these initiatives are often cyclical, it is the case that over the past few years there has been an increasing demand for and support of faith-based initiatives in many areas of public life.

Children who receive school vouchers, especially in urban areas where voucher programs are most likely to occur, quite often attend parochial schools. Although many have objected that redirecting public school funds to private, religious schools is a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, in 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court found that this was not the case with respect to the Cleveland, Ohio, school voucher program. In this case, the Court reversed a lower court decision that struck down the program on the grounds that nearly all students receiving vouchers attended parochial schools. But in a 5 to 4 decision, the majority found that Cleveland parents had a “sufficient range of choices among secular and religious schools that Ohio’s voucher plan does not violate the First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of religion” (Frieden, 2002).

Clearly, a growing number of citizens in the United States appear to want to “blur” the boundaries between church and state. Indeed, the current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has campaigned for most of her adult life for the right of parents to select the best school for their children, or to teach them at home, regardless of the public school available in their district, and to have taxes which currently support public schools go with the child to whatever educational situation the child’s parents think will be best. This would include charter schools, private schools, magnet schools, other public schools, religious schools, virtual schools, and home schools. About this funding proposal she says:

Let me say it again: we must change the way we think about funding education and instead invest in children, not in buildings (DeVos, 2017).

According to the Center for Educational Statistics, 10.2% of all elementary and secondary students were enrolled in private elementary and secondary schools. Of that 10%, a little over one-third were in Catholic schools, another 40% were in other religiously related schools, and the remainder were enrolled in nonsectarian schools.

Between the fall of 2000 and the fall of 2016, public charter school enrollment increased from 1% to 6% (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019).

Critics argue that such choice would destroy our long tradition of public education by defunding public schools, since the current posture of the Department of Education is sympathetic to the development of increasing school choice. With regard to religious schools, whether sponsored by organized entities such as religious denominations, or set up by a group of like-minded religious parents, this funding plan would go all the way to completely underwriting private religious schools with public taxes. Whether or not this would violate the First Amendment Establishment Clause of the Constitution is an open question. If it were not to destroy traditional public education, it would certainly increase the education budget in communities, counties, and states.

Public Freedoms: The Provision of Religious Instruction

Current charges that public schools are too secular and lack the moral tone that will help children grow up to be better citizens are not new. At the end of the 19th century, a consensus had developed that religious instruction should not be a responsibility of public schools; but after World War I and II, many citizens thought that the schools were “godless” and that some sort of religious instruction should be returned to public classrooms. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, efforts were made to get around Court decisions regarding the separation of church and state, but those efforts were largely unsuccessful. Two arguments were offered.

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Some people—mostly Protestants and Catholics—sought a revival of sectarian instruction, usually through the demand for released time in the school day so that students could receive religious instruction from teachers of their own religious faith. Most often, this instruction was to be offered apart from the school building, usually in a nearby church. Others—primarily Protestants—urged that more attention be paid to a nonsectarian religious instruction through daily reading of the Bible and recitation of nonsectarian prayers in school. Both propositions were denounced by many people as an infringement of the separation of church and state. While a number of states and the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in various ways on the issue of release time for religious instruction, the Supreme Court finally decided in Zorach v. Clauson in 1952 that students leaving the school building for religious teaching was permissible under the First Amendment because the school did not actively promote a sectarian form of instruction and because no public funds were expended for the effort.

The issue of Bible reading has also been decided variously. By the 1970s, a number of states had decided it was not religious instruction. At least six state courts, however, ruled that the Bible was a sectarian document, at least to Catholics, Jews, and nonbelievers. For Catholics, the King James version of the Bible was thought to be Protestant sectarianism. For Jews, reading the Bible does not hold the same significance that it does for Christians. Families of unbelievers objected to any religious practices at all. Nonsectarian prayers were usually objected to by everyone on the grounds that they watered down any real religious belief in an effort at compromise among belief systems and also on the grounds that such prayers nevertheless promoted religion against the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In 1963, the Supreme Court did away with most of these arguments in the previously discussed cases that declared required prayer and Bible reading to be unconstitutional even while they affirmed the value of teaching about religion in public schools.

In the past 30 years, new issues have arisen that bring religious pluralism in the classroom once again into sharper focus. First, immigration from various parts of the world by people whose religious structures and beliefs are very different from Christianity and Judaism has populated public school classrooms with students from a wide variety of religious backgrounds. Second, changes in the institutions of the family and the economy have weakened the social cohesion that normally helps bind communities together and provide the common socialization processes necessary to raise the next generation. In such circumstances, young people often feel rootless, answerable to no one, and alienated from a system that no longer really exists except in the minds of their elders. Indeed, as noted in Chapter 1, numbers of religiously unaffiliated in the United States have grown appreciably, especially among younger people (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2015). One result of these societal conditions may, in part, account for the increase in violence we are now witnessing in all segments of society, but particularly among our youth. Finally, the growth and importance attached to science and technology in our society tends to mask the smaller, more human dramas that contain the very essence of religious questions and meaning. It is small wonder that, in response, the call for religious instruction and moral values in public schools has become a widespread demand.

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Perspectives on Religious Identity

Religion as a Form of Personal Identity

Still, of all the groups to which a person can claim loyalty, religion is perhaps the most common. Indeed, some researchers suggest that Americans are more likely to identify themselves as members of a religious community than as a member of any other group. People who identify themselves as members of a religious group often associate themselves closely with an ethnic group as well. For example, an Irish Catholic may consider her- or himself substantively different from an Italian Catholic, and a Russian Jew may feel quite different from a German Jew. We are reminded in this regard of a story related by a colleague who was teaching about diversity at an urban university in a highly ethnic city. After several class sessions on the subject, a student came up after class to tell her that she (the student) could, indeed, relate to the lesson. “You know,” the student said, “I went all through Catholic school in my own Irish neighborhood, and it wasn’t until I got to college that I met some Italian Catholics. You’re right, they sure are different!”

This differentiation results in part from differences in ethnic histories and in part from differences in the development of religious practices among members of the same general faith. An individual has only to attend services at churches of three or four different Protestant denominations (e.g., Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, high Episcopalian) to know that there is great diversity within the same religious tradition. This diversity is even more true for the world’s major religions. The diversity within Christianity, or within Islam, or within Judaism is in many respects far greater than the diversity among them. Moreover, people who identify themselves with a particular religious group also usually have placed themselves in a particular social as well as geographical location. The very term Southern Baptist, for example, says a great deal about the geographical roots of a person’s religious identity, and the term high Episcopalian may indicate something about the social class to which a person belongs.

Religious identity has its strongest roots in the family, and many families not only encourage but also demand that their children follow in their religious traditions. Indeed, some families will go so far as to deny the existence of a child who breaks with the faith, and some religious groups, such as the Old Order Amish, will occasionally invoke the practice of “shunning” (never speaking to or acknowledging the presence of the person being shunned) when a community member strays from the fold. The belief that a person’s religious identity is an integral part of that person’s essential self can be seen in the reaction of parents whose children join a cult of some kind. Such parents believe that their child has been brainwashed and often will hire an expert to “deprogram” their child.

Religious identification also places a person in a particular relationship with the deity (e.g., Catholics as part of a community of believers, Protestants in a one-to-one relationship with their deity). That relationship may determine a person’s view of the possibility of a life after death, that person’s set of moral codes for living, and the nature of rewards or punishments for the life that person has, in fact, led. Given the profound nature of these issues, it is not surprising that individuals, families, and communities react strongly to perceived threats to their religious beliefs.

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At the same time (and perhaps paradoxically), in a religiously heterogeneous society such as the United States, people often switch from one religion to another, and an increasing number of people—estimated at about 14% by some surveys—declare no religion at all. The move from one religious affiliation to another may involve a formal conversion process, or it may be a move from a conservative to a more liberal branch of the same church (or vice versa). It may occur as the result of marriage between people of two faiths, or it may occur in an individual as an outgrowth of intellectual analysis. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life (2009).

Large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices, mixing elements of diverse traditions. Many say they attend worship services of more than one faith or denomination—even when they are not traveling or going to special events like weddings and funerals. Many also blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology, and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects. And sizeable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts (p. 1).

Leland BobbÈ/Corbis

Those who declare no traditional religious affiliation may, in fact, be members of one of a growing number of religious bodies led by charismatic leaders such as Rick Warren (Saddleback Church in California) or Joel Osteen (Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas). Many of these so-called Megachurches (those having memberships of over 2,000 people) are employing television and the Internet to reach more and more potential congregants who would otherwise not be involved in any religious enterprises.

Clearly, the fastest growing churches in the United States tend to be conservative, sometimes evangelical or pentecostal, Protestant denominations, with an accompanying decline in membership of so-called mainline churches. There are probably a variety of reasons for this trend, not least among them the desire of many people for a solid, unquestioning, and dependable religious orientation at a time when change in all institutions means a dissolution of traditional rules for living. Observers might also argue that the trend toward conservatism reflects, in part, the shrinking of the middle class and the increasing economic gap between those who are wealthy and those who are not. If switching to liberal religious affiliations is a function of upward mobility, then the opposite is perhaps also true. For the first time in American history, there is a general perception that children may not “do better” than their parents, and the real or perceived fact of downward mobility can be related to an increasing desire and need to be a part of a community in which an individual can identify with virtue and righteousness.

At the same time, according to some observers, something new is stirring in all religions around the world, Christianity in particular. Harvey Cox (2009), for example, asserted that fundamentalism is dying and is being replaced by a vibrant, functioning kind of pentecostalism in which what he called the coming “Age of the Spirit” is replacing the “Age of Belief.” This change can be seen in a number of ways: in people who say, “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual”; in an emphasis on the direct experience of religious life rather than on the rules and settings of religious practice; and in the growing number of congregations who do not use the term “church” for their places of worship, but, instead, title their communal gathering places “communities,” “centers,” “forums,” or “life ministries.”

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And it appears to be a global phenomenon. At the moment, the greatest growth among pentecostals is in South America and Africa, not in North America or Europe. But in those societies struggling to become (or remain) democratic, pentecostalism thinks it has a lot to offer. It is growing in North America as well, and showing up in mainline churches, not always calling itself “Pentecostal.” Indeed, Diana Butler Bass (2012) is among those scholars who are chronicling the characteristics of “new” mainline churches that show a spiritual vibrancy based around a serious engagement with faith practices such as prayer, hospitality, and enacting justice. These are active, friendly, and joyful congregations—and they are attracting those who are seeking a new Christian identity.

Organized Religion and the Net Generation

Still another factor in religious affiliation in the United States is the changing role that technology is playing in attracting new generations of members to religious organizations. Those churches that are attracting large numbers of young people are also quite often those churches that have adopted new forms of worship, especially digital storytelling and contemporary Christian music (Sample, 1998; Wilson & Moore, 2002). Referring, for example, to young Catholics, Arthur Jones (2001) wrote that “the medium that communicates the message of these [religious] traditions has changed radically. Many young adults are pursuing a form of spirituality that is subtle, individual and hence unrecognizable to the older generations.”

As it is with other social institutions, religion is having to confront the dawn of a new age, populated with young people for whom the “new age” is not new at all but rather is the context in which they have grown up. Speaking to an older generation, Wilson and Moore (2002) gave some indication of the dimensions of this wired world:

A whole new digital world is emerging today. Can you see it? If you can, you know it is a world built on emotional, virtual, holographic, decentralized, holistic, empowered, one-by-one, borderless, bottom-up, global/local, and egalitarian characteristics. Such a world will play by totally different rules than the rules of modernity. In the twenty-first century to not be digital will be the new form of illiteracy (p. 11).

Others suggest that young people—familiarly known as Millennials—want to return religiously to a more stable time, adopting traditions from very early times. For Christians, this often means more use of ritual and symbol, more spaces for quiet and contemplation, more authenticity, and a convergence of musical styles (Newhouse, 2013).

Ways in which all organized religions will experience transformation in the years ahead, as well as ways in which religious ideas will be played out among the peoples of the world will be the subject of much discussion and debate—as will the role that religion plays in schooling in the United States and around the world.

The Current Status of Religious Practices in American Public Schools

In part because the pattern of public schooling in the United States emerged from the theocratic history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, there has always been a kind of religious influence on American schooling. While most people would say that schooling is a public phenomenon and religion is a private one, we have seen in this chapter that there are both public and private aspects of religion as it works its way into educational decisions.

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In some periods of our history, religion has played a determinedly political role in schooling. The selection of primary school books such as The New England Primer, which included protestant versions of Biblical language, was intended to inculcate children with the values of New England puritanism and republican government. More recently, electing folks who support conservative beliefs about education to seats on public school boards has been seen as a way to shape the curriculum by directing that anything to do with the theory of evolution be banished. Similarly, efforts have been made by particular religious groups to censor “dangerous” books such as Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, and, of course, the Harry Potter books.

The tension produced by the constitutional separation of church and state has meant a continual debate regarding the part played by schooling in both protecting religious liberty and enabling religious practice. However, in the past several years, schools have experienced some relaxation of strict separation of religion from schooling. Yet, many people don’t know the current status of religion in American schools. The following is a summary of current law with respect to the protection of religious liberty and the prohibition of state-sponsored religious practice.

Fundamentally, the effort of the law is to be fair, to protect individual religious practice while avoiding any idea that the state (public schooling) is giving special status to any existing religion. Clearly, a major difference between public schools and private schools is that public schools are bound to uphold the Constitution is this regard.

The Establishment Clause

Some of the establishment clause issues that have reached the Supreme Court involve school sponsored student prayers over loudspeakers, required listening to and/or participation in Bible reading, belonging to religious clubs in school, providing access to the school to outside organizations that provide after-school religious instruction to young children, requiring moments of silence in lieu of formal prayers, and including the words “under God” to be included in the pledge of allegiance.

Decisions of the Court have been mixed on these matters. Public student prayers over loudspeakers and before sports events are unconstitutional. Student religious clubs enjoy the same status in schools as other student clubs. School districts are required to offer equal access to outside providers of after-school religious instruction to students. Moments of silence in lieu of school prayers are sometimes understood as opportunities for prayer. And it is undecided whether or not the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional (Center for Public Education, 2006).

Other Establishment Clause issues involve teaching about religious sacred texts (e.g., the Bible, the Torah, the Koran). The Court has found that such teaching is constitutional as long as it is not taught in the context of a devotion or as a singular truth (Center for Public Education, 2006). Similarly, teachers and schools cannot give preferential treatment to believers, nor can they prohibit the wearing of special religious clothing such as yarmulkes for Jewish boys or hijabs for Muslim girls. In addition, tee-shirts, wrist bands, or jewelry that indicate religious belief cannot be forbidden by school districts or individual schools.

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Free Exercise Clause

Of all the discussions, not to mention lawsuits, regarding the role of religion or its absence in schools, individual prayer seems to capture the most public attention, as well as perhaps the most attention from the Supreme Court.

In general, students may pray in public schools at will, so long as they are not interrupting or disturbing others. Students may be let out of class for ritual prayer or be dismissed from school early to attend religious instruction in another venue. Teachers may not use religious grounds to refuse to teach a particular section of approved curriculum. A teacher who is a Quaker, for example, cannot refuse to teach about historical or current wars on the grounds that he or she is a committed pacifist.

Free Exercise Clause cases in schools are often paired with First Amendment Free Speech provisions in the Constitution. Thus, students who profess religious ideas in classroom discussion or in written assignments may do so without fear of penalty; religious speech cannot be treated differently by teachers or school authorities just because of its content.

Looking to the Future

As the United States becomes more religiously diverse, one can expect continuing battles over religious issues in schools. The two “religious” clauses in the Constitution are inherently ambiguous. They have been described often as “freedom of religion” (free exercise of) and “freedom from religion” (establishment of). Undoubtedly, this ambiguity was purposeful, since many issues arising from the combination of secular schooling and religious beliefs are at best, unpredictable. Moreover, American society appears to be in a period of flux, leaning more toward individual interests and rights and less toward what might be called the common good. Whether that trend continues or becomes more balanced will probably influence the nature of the role of religion in public schools in the future.

Ethical Issues

This chapter has emphasized that teachers who address religious issues in their classrooms must understand their communities and not go too far beyond the values that the community holds. This advice may appear to be common sense and carries with it a certain degree of self-preservation, but it also importantly suggests the belief that all deeply held religious beliefs are worthy of respect.

Within the classroom, teachers must be on the lookout for and intercede in instances of religious prejudice, particularly as it might be expressed in the casual name-calling that children do so easily. Like all other forms of prejudice, religious prejudice is learned—and can be unlearned (though not easily). Respectful behavior toward others, however, can and should be insisted upon.

Another ethical issue concerns the responsibility of teachers to be familiar with federal and state laws with respect to religion and schooling. The classroom teacher often must serve in the role of instructor to parents and community members as well as to students and should be knowledgeable about the development of and debates about religious differences that are a part of the fabric of law and judicial decision in the United States.

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With respect to relations with parents and the community, teachers should also be knowledgeable about the bases of different religious beliefs and should be as ready and willing as possible to answer questions and discuss objections calmly. There are times when it is not possible to reach consensus, and finding effective ways of agreeing to disagree is both useful and wise.

Critical Incident

Celebrating the Holidays

Allie McNeal was a classmate of Mrs. Morgan’s, the two went through high school and then college together. Allie now teaches third grade at Thomas Edison Elementary School, located in a diverse community in a suburb of Denver. She is a member of the school planning committee for all special events in the school, including the celebration of holidays. Her committee had sent a survey to all the parents, explaining that the school was exploring the possibility of removing “Christmas” from the annual December activities—substituting instead activities having to do with winter—and asking the parents what they thought. The rationale was that because the school has a large number of children from different religious backgrounds, celebrating Christmas spoke to only some of the children, but not all.

Allie has just received an impassioned phone call from one mother, demanding that they not only keep Christmas in the holiday schedule, but that they also eliminate Halloween. The mother expressed—in no uncertain terms—the belief that the United States is a Christian country and that other people had just better get used to it. She went on to say that she was the spokesperson for a large number of other parents who would be asking for an appointment with the principal to discuss the matter. She was especially adamant about Halloween, saying that it was a form of devil worship, and that her group did not want their children to participate in any celebration that included pagan signs and symbols.

Allie was quite taken aback at the intensity of the mother’s appeal. She knew she had better speak to the principal about the forthcoming visit, and she also knew she had to make some recommendations to her committee.

If Allie telephoned you asking for advice, how would you suggest she handle this situation?

 

Suggested Reading?

George Manson, a seventh-grade English teacher in the middle school just down the road from Mrs. Morgan received a call from the father of one of his students, Rema Assadi, a Muslim girl who had brought home a novel she had selected from George’s list of recommended books. The novel, one that had been chosen by librarians in the state as among the best modern fiction for middle schoolers, concerned an American girl going to school in London whose 11-year-old brother had been killed by a bomb detonated by a Muslim girl attempting to avoid an arranged marriage to a man in his 50s who already had two other wives. The book contained numerous stereotypes of Muslims, portraying them as abusers of women, anti-Semitic, under the control of their religious leaders, and prone to violence. Both Rema and her family were upset and frightened

at the thought that other students in the class would be reading this book. After the violent attacks on September 11, 2001, the family feared a major backlash against Muslims.

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Con Tanasiuk/Design Pics

Mr. Assadi told George that his religious community was mounting a letter-writing and e-mail campaign aimed at the publisher of the book, trying to persuade the company to recall it. In the meantime, he asked, would George please take the book off his recommended reading list? And would he talk to his students about the book, making sure they understood how biased it was?

If you were George, what would you do?

 

Summary

Because the United States was founded on the principle of religious liberty, the framers of the Constitution built into the First Amendment both a prohibition against a state religion and a prohibition against limiting the free expression of religious beliefs and practices. That ambiguity has led to considerable dispute over the role of religion in American society and particularly in American schools.

The principle of separation of church and state has not prevented many people from believing that schools should be a repository of morality; the question has always been “Whose morality are we talking about?” Because we are a nation of laws, much of the “action” regarding religion and schooling has been in the courts, which have struggled with this issue over the years, often reversing previous decisions, but always trying to come to a reasonable balance between competing views.

This balance has been impeded by the myth that teachers may not talk about religion in schools; this myth is not true. Indeed, the decision that “banned” school prayer explicitly notes that exposure to the story of the world’s great religions is necessary for a complete education. This chapter describes the nature of the debate over religion in public schooling and the importance of attending to the diverse religious backgrounds of American students. In an increasingly interdependent world, it is both necessary and prudent that we understand and respect the religious impulse that influences human identity and guides human behavior.

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Key Terms

African religions

cultural capital

establishment clause of the First Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment

fundamentalism

prohibition clause of the First Amendment

separation of church and state

theocracy

Understanding Religious Diversity

Purpose: To assist you with gaining greater understanding and reducing stereotypes of the major religions that may be encountered in schools and communities.

Instructions: Derive a series of interview questions using the guidelines below. Then conduct interviews with individuals who represent religions other than your own.

In small groups, generate potential interview questions you could use to help gain greater understanding and reduce misperceptions about religions other than your own.

Discuss these questions with the class and determine which among them will help to uncover stereotypes, attitudes, perceptions, and misperceptions of a particular group.

Agree as a class upon 5–7 questions that will generate the most useful information.

Using the same questions, individually or in pairs, interview at least two individuals from religious groups other than your own. You should try to find representatives from at least the five major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism), as well as any other groups of interest and available in your region.

Individually, summarize key points of your interviews.

As a class, discuss the following questions:

Did the questions you asked provide you with the information you had hoped for?

Discuss at least one response that you found surprising or interesting. What did you find especially intriguing about this response?

Was there anything the interviewee said that led you to reconsider any of your views?

Did you learn anything significant from the interviewee about the religion?

Were any stereotypes you might have held about this religion challenged?

Now that the interviews are complete, are there any questions you wished you had asked?

What did you learn in this exercise that will influence your teaching?

Classroom Activities

In an elementary school classroom, have students research religious holidays for a variety of religious traditions, for example, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hinduism, Taoism, and so forth, with the goal of creating an annual calendar of religious festivals and holidays from around the world. Much material for such a study is available online and students will learn, among other things, that the world’s major religions probably have as much in common as they have differences.

Elementary school students might also be interested in reading stories about world religions; some of these might include both folktales from various religious traditions and explanatory books written for children.

High school students might research some (or all!) of the Supreme Court cases discussed in Chapter 9, studying the arguments used in the case and the rationale used by the judges in deciding on the case. A variation of this activity might be for a whole class to study one or two seminal cases and then participate in a mock court in which the arguments are presented and the judges discuss aspects of the case prior to writing their decisions. Students would take the roles of attorneys and each of the judges in the actual case.

Organizing, researching, and participating in a debate is an activity that high school students usually enjoy. In this case, students could debate any of a number of “propositions” that are currently matters of debate surrounding religion and schools. For example, Should Public Funding Be Awarded to Support Private, Parochial Schools? Or, What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Christmas as the Focal Point of a Winter Break Holiday for Schools? Or, What Difficulties Are Presented by the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses Regarding Religion in the United States?

Reflective Questions

Quite unintentionally, indeed with the very best of intentions, Mrs. Morgan found herself in the center of a controversy that could have turned into a major issue both in her classroom and in her community. On reflection, it is likely that Melissa might have asked herself the following questions. Think about how you would answer these questions if you were in her place.

1. Having grown up in a town very much like the one in which she taught and having taught in her school for 5 years, how is it that Mrs. Morgan didn’t think about what she knew to be a streak of deep-seated conservatism present in the community?

2. Once her students’ project was under way, are there strategies she could have used that might have forestalled the objections voiced by some parents after they saw the exhibit at the open house?

3. As is evident in other examples in this book, acting as an agent of change can be surprisingly challenging, particularly when the school in which you teach is a very traditional one. Certainly, it is often easier to go with the flow of traditional school culture than to try to change it. It does not appear, however, that Mrs. Morgan thought of herself as a change agent; rather, she was attempting only to utilize existing human and intellectual resources in a better way for the sake of her students. What are some of the factors that turn a seemingly innocent curricular activity into a potential source of protest?

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4. Mrs. Morgan attempted to resolve the issue by going to a number of community leaders. Are there dangers in this strategy? What might some of those dangers be?

5. Mrs. Morgan could have simply dismissed the objections raised to her use of religious information in the classroom as ignorant, unenlightened, or prejudiced behavior. How would that view have undermined her strong belief in religious pluralism?

6. When the episode was over, Mrs. Morgan began to think about some of the long-standing practices of American schooling, such as the way most schools use Christian holidays—particularly Christmas and 6. Easter—as sources for both curricular and extracurricular activities. Are such traditional practices fitting subjects for review and rethinking?

7. In her meeting with the clergy council, Mrs. Morgan did not mention that, according to the most recent Supreme Court decisions, she was well within her rights to teach about religion in her classroom. Should she have raised that issue? Might there have been some negative results if she had?