NOTE: I created this document when I was the K-8 Social Studies Coordinator in Brookline, MA. I had just finished working with a remarkable group of teachers who created a new curriculum for our 5th and 6th grade World History units, in which we studied cultures ranging from Egypt and Greece through Rome through West Africa to the Renaissance. At each stop along the way, we included sections on geography, economics, history, and religion. One of our units included a great deal on Islam, another Christianity, and so forth. When we introduced our lessons in professional development workshops, many of the teachers expressed reservations about the teaching of religion in public school classrooms. I worked on the following document as part of our professional development training program as we worked on these units.
Controversy in the Classroom
Richard Young
The Education Cooperative
Project Director, Teaching American History Grant
•A teacher shows Glory, an R-rated film, without sending a permission letter home to parents. This decision and its aftermath makes front-page news in the town newspaper
•A heated classroom discussion becomes a fight in the hall after class, with one student ostracized for the rest of the year for her strongly-held opinions and comments during the classroom discussion.
•A parent insists that her child be separated from the rest of the class whenever a discussion of pantheistic cultures arises.
•Parents become involved when a classroom discussion quickly shifts from events in Israel to an “us” vs. “them” demarcation between those who side with Palestinians and those who favor Israelis.
•A teacher tells me that she would “just rather not teach anything about religion” so as to avoid controversy--despite the district’s clear Learning Expectations that teaching about religion is key to understanding the history and culture of the civilizations she is teaching.
•A teacher is accused of having a “gay agenda” because he frequently returns to a discussion of gay marriage in his classroom.
It is almost impossible to avoid controversy in social studies because we deal with important subjects about which people care deeply. These kinds of controversies are common and often arise organically from the study of social studies. They are sometimes the result of “informal” discussions of current events, they sometimes deal with religion and they are occasionally the result of a choice of reading or video material (occasionally from a teacher’s own supplement to the district’s approved list of materials).
Some tips for dealing with potentially controversial issues—
before they deal with you:
Start with your school system. You should familiarize yourself with a school-committee or department-approved list of teaching materials for the classroom. If you don’t have one, ask for such a list to be created.
Ask about your system’s protocols for dealing with controversial issues.
Day to Day:
Communication is key. Keep informing parents through email and/or short letters home.
If you are planning to show a film with a rating other than G, or if you are reading a book that has potential for controversy send a letter home, with a permission slip. The letter should include information about your reasons for choosing the film or book and this should be based on sound educational reasons. Inform the principal of your reasons for showing the film and involve him or her in the decision. Talk to the students about what they are about to see/read.
Write up your classroom protocols for discussing current events. Go over this with the students and send a letter home.
Protocols for classroom discussion
I believe the protocols have to be your own, but the ones I always used to outline involved simple rules for discussion:
- I’m in charge. I call on people.
- You are acknowledged to have the floor (again, it is my prerogative to call on people).
- You can’t interrupt the person who is speaking.
- No shouting down, no name calling, no ridicule or sarcasm.
- You will show respect for others’ opinions and their right to say them.
- You certainly can disagree but it is important that this is based on information and not only on emotion.
- If there is a disagreement on information, we will table the discussion until we can document our sources.
- Information comes from many sources: newspapers, magazines, books, TV, the Internet, etc. All of it is suspect. Some sources are better than others. We will discuss the reasons why. Since this is not the Howie Carr or Michael Savage show, we will always try to find good sources to back up our opinions.
In any potentially controversial matter, I believe that teachers have the obligation not to proselytize. A teacher’s political beliefs should not drive the discussion, even if all of the students are like-minded. Fairness is the keystone of any important discussion in a classroom. We walk a fine line with this, however: I believe that we sometimes have the obligation to present a counterpoint if all of the belief in the room is channeled in the same direction. For example, when I taught in Southern Indiana, many (if not most) of my male students owned guns and had been hunters since they were very young. When we discussed the 2nd Amendment, I often presented an interpretation of the Amendment that the Founders may have meant that weapons were only for the purpose of militias and that they never meant for handguns or AK-47s to be in the hands of ordinary citizens. This led to spirited discussions about rights, about gun murders in the United States, about sportsmen’s rights, and so forth. When I came to Brookline, I found that my students were very much in the opposite camp, so I felt that my role was to present an interpretation of the Amendment that all Americans have a right to bear arms and that it should not be limited. In order to have this kind of discussion with middle schoolers, though, a teacher has the obligation to provide information and places to research more information. One caveat: Naturally, there are limits to this even-handedness. Some subjects do not lend themselves to a “fair and balanced” treatment. A good example of this would the Holocaust.
In a much more limited fashion, the same rules apply for current events as do for discussion of religion. A teacher isn’t expected to leave his or her own beliefs and opinions at home, but teachers should be expected to discuss both sides of a controversial issue in a manner that belittles neither. If a teacher believes that gay marriage should be a right, it might be easy for that teacher to ridicule those who came to the State House to kneel and pray against gay marriage, but it is expected that a teacher would not resort to ridicule. The Globe reported on Thursday, February 12, 2004 on a “debate” on the steps of the State House on the day of the Constitutional debate (February 11, 2004) in which a young African-American male with a church group called out an anti-gay slur, which was met by a racist epithet from the other side followed by the statement, “How does that feel?” as the young man retreated back to his church group. This is exactly the kind of exchange we strive to avoid.
Students sometimes enter into these discussions by repeating rumor, hearsay, and even misinformation. It is part of a teacher’s role to challenge them on this when it happens. This also offers an opportunity to discuss rules for argumentation and/or debate and how they apply to classroom discussions. This is one of the most important things that a middle school student can learn.
Religion in the Classroom
In Brookline, our response has been to make the assumption that worlds’ religions must be taught and to arm ourselves with information about Supreme Court precedents. The NCSS quotes Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark in Abington v. Schempp, 1963:
[I]t 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 consistently with the First Amendment.
In an article from the ERIC clearinghouse entitled, “Teaching about Religion in the Social Studies,” C. Frederick Risinger quotes Justice William Brennan in a concurring opinion on the same case:
The holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the Bible is involved, it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention of religion.
In addition, Risinger lists some guidelines for the teaching of religion.
GUIDELINES
1. Study about religions should strive for awareness and understanding of the diversity of religions, religious issues, experiences, religious expressions, and the reasons for particular expressions of religious beliefs within a society or culture.
2. Study about religions should stress the influence of religion on history, culture, the arts and contemporary issues.
3. Study about religions should permit and encourage a comprehensive and balanced examination of the entire spectrum of ideas and attitudes pertaining to religion as a component of human culture.
4. Study about religions should investigate a broad range, both geographic and chronological, of religious beliefs, practices, and values.
5. Study about religions should examine the religious dimension of human existence in its broader cultural context, including its relation to economic, political, and social institutions as well as its relation to the arts, language, and literature.
6. Study about religions should deal with the world's religions from the same perspective (i.e., beginnings, historical development, sacred writings, beliefs, practices, values, and impact on history, culture, contemporary issues, and the arts).
7. Study about religions should be presented through many lenses.
8. Study about religions should be academic in nature, stressing student awareness and understanding, not acceptance and/or conformity.
9. Study about religions should emphasize the necessity and importance of tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding in a nation and world of diversity.
10. Study about religions should be descriptive, non-confessional, and conducted in an environment free of advocacy.
11. Study about religions should seek to develop and utilize the various skills, attitudes, and abilities that are essential to history and the social sciences (i.e., locating, classifying, and interpreting data: keen observation: critical reading. listening, and thinking: questioning:
and effective communication).
12. Study about religions should be academically responsible and pedagogically sound, utilizing accepted methods and materials of the social sciences, history, and literature.
13. Study about religions should involve a range of materials that provide a balanced and fair treatment of the subject, and distinguish between confessional and historical fact.
14. Study about religions should be conducted with qualified and certified teachers selected for their academic knowledge, their sensitivity and empathy for differing religious points of view, and their understanding of the Supreme Court's decisions pertaining to religious practices and study about religions in the public schools.
The Supreme Court in the 1971 case of Lemon v Kurtzman set for the limits of religious instruction in the schools in the form of a three-part test:
1. Does the action of the government (or its agent, the public school) have a secular or non-secular purpose?
2. Is the primary effect of the action to advance religion?
3. Does it create an excessive entanglement between religion and government?
Our approach should be to use caution in all things, to remain transparent in presentation, and to move carefully, keeping several goals in mind. The Supreme Court test is similar to statements developed by several religious organizations, including such disparate groups as the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Academy of Religion, the American Jewish Congress, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and the National Association of Evangelicals. The guidelines on “teaching about religion in the public schools” are meant to distinguish between between “teaching about religion in public schools and religious indoctrination.”
• The school's approach to religion is academic, not devotional.
• The school may strive for student awareness of religions, but should not
press for student acceptance of any one religion.
• The school may sponsor study about religion, but may not sponsor the
practice of religion.
• The school may expose students to a diversity of religious views, but may not impose any particular view.
• The school may educate about all religions, but may not promote or denigrate any religion.
• The school may inform the student about various beliefs, but should not
seek to conform him or her to any particular belief.
Rich Young
Teaching American History Grant
The Education Cooperative
1112 High Street
781-251-2473 x 107
Fax: 781-251-0874
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