7 Reasons We Should Teach More Religion in Public Schools

Shutterstock.com

Teachers in the suburban town of Wellesley, Massachusetts spend half the school year teaching the world’s religions to sixth graders. These 11 and 12 year olds learn about major figures, holidays, geography, and beliefs central to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. They take field trips to a mosque and Jewish temple. They debate the pros and cons of not having school on Muslim holidays.

High school students in Modesto, California take a world religions class in order to graduate — the only public high school with such a requirement. And at a Wichita, Kansas elementary school, students begin learning simple facts about three different world religions in first grade as per the Core Knowledge curriculum.

Many people wrongly view religion as a taboo subject, not to be discussed in America’s public schools. According to a 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, a little more than half of those polled thought teachers were prohibited from offering a class comparing the world’s religions, while only 36 percent (correctly) thought it was legal to offer such courses.

Sure, most Americans know that a 1963 Supreme Court ruling prohibited public school teachers from leading a class in prayer. But they tend to miss the rest of that ruling, which emphasized that teachers have always been allowed to teach about religion academically.

For more than a decade, most states have required world religion to be taught as part of social studies and geography standards. Yet, the examples above are rare. Typically, schools teach about religion briefly in secondary social studies.

Here are seven reasons it’s time to start the instruction earlier — and make sure it goes deeper

Teasing about Religious Differences Starts as Early as Kindergarten

Around the country, I heard numerous stories from children being bullied because of their faith. A young Sikh man recalled his first week in kindergarten and how his peers tore off his patka (the religious head covering he wore). A Muslim boy stood by his locker in fourth grade and a classmate said, “Hey, is there a bomb in your locker?”

Jewish children talked about middle school peers throwing pennies at them as a jab at the stereotype about Jews and money. Another student said high school peers asked her if her family belonged to a cult because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Schools need to Better Understand the Difference between Celebration and Education

Shutterstock.com

Some schools cling to old traditions of celebrating Christmas by holding Christmas concerts with sacred music and taping Christmas decorations to the classroom door. In Modesto, the first teachers of the required world religions course went through training with the First Amendment Center, and many saw themselves as advocates and enforcers of the First Amendment in their schools.

One pair of educators ran into conflicts with their high school’s front office staff, who kept putting “Merry Christmas” on the outside marquee. The educators complained, and the school responded by posting a tiny “Happy Hanukkah” sign in the office and leaving “Merry Christmas” on the marquee. The educators showed the school administrator what his handbook said — that educators cannot give preference to one faith over another in a public setting.