God in Schools...

[Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>]

Visionaries:

Dale Courtney says:

"Well, yes.  Webster's definition of pagan: "one who has little or no
religion". Since religion has been banned from government schools,
doesn't the term "pagan" seem technically correct?

The term must rub people the wrong way, like the term "government
schools" -- but I'm just striving for "truth in advertising!"  :)"

...in the education business, we refer to this as a "red herring"... 
something smelly dragged across a logical discussion in an attempt to 
divert people from the subject at hand.

Religion has not been banned from schools.  Advocating a particular 
religion or requiring/allowing participation of students in the 
religious observances of a particular religion have been banned.

As a U.S. History and Government teacher at MHS, I would be hard put to 
it to teach about the Founding Fathers and the base documents of our 
Republic without referring to God.  His name's all over the place, in 
one form or another.

When I taught World Geography at MJHS for 10 years I taught about 
religion all of the time, because it is very hard to give kids the 
flavor of a region, and the world view of its inhabitants, without 
discussing the impact of the majority religion or religions on the 
culture.  How would you address Latin America without talking about the 
Roman Catholic church, or the Middle East without talking about Judaism 
and Islam? How would you explain the partition of British India into 
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947 without addressing the religious 
conflicts and Gandhi's faith and example?

Public schools must teach ABOUT religion to educate kids... we are 
prohibited from teaching or encouraging the practice of a PARTICULAR 
religion as a preferred belief.  And given the religious diversity in 
this university town, I think that respecting students' diverse 
religions without asserting that one set of kids' beliefs are better 
than another set's is a good thing in the public schools.

Spare me snide remarks about "pagan".  Although if someone wants to 
paint themselves blue and burn incense at the base of a local oak tree, 
that's fine with me, so long as they are careful of forest fires and 
don't bother anyone else.

Don Kaag