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Texas School District approves Bible class

losman

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Someone get Michael Newdow and the ACLU


http://www.herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?wcd=15080


New Braunfels trustees approve elective Bible class

By Jessica Sanders
The Herald-Zeitung

Published January 17, 2006
A Bible course will be offered at New Braunfels High School next semester despite protest from some community members.

New Braunfels Independent School District trustees voted 6-1 in favor of adopting an elective course based on the textbook "The Bible and Its Influence" during Monday's board meeting. Trustee Paul Fisher voted against the decision.

"I respect every opinion that has been presented tonight," Fisher said. "I view this as a subject that, if we address it in public schools, should be in the form of comparative religion."


Edited by Darat: 
Rule 4 breach
 
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Everything I've heard shows this presentation shows the curriculum is solid, positive and something that would enhance what students are learning," he said. "This is not a course to teach the Bible but to teach the connection between the Bible and the great literary works of our time."
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Teaching the Bible as literature would be fine with me, as would teaching how it influenced other great literary works. There are biblical references all through literature from the Canterbury Tales to the modern day. The Bible is undoubtedly a very influential piece of literature.

Of course, the teacher would have to be very careful to teach it as literature and not as truth.
 
Trustee Jorge Maldonado reminded audience members that the course is meant to teach about religion, not teach religion.

"The intent and purpose of the course is clearly defined and already established to be in compliance with the First Amendment," he said. "The goal of the course is to teach religion in a way that is purely academic and not devotional."
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(bold mine)

-Bri
 
I'm sure colleges will be delighted that Suzy Applicant got an A in Bible class. Too bad she didn't have any geometry, because the school district couldn't even manage the core classes. Maybe you should give up on engineering, Suzy, and go to a seminary?
 
Jon. said:
Teaching the Bible as literature would be fine with me, as would teaching how it influenced other great literary works. There are biblical references all through literature from the Canterbury Tales to the modern day. The Bible is undoubtedly a very influential piece of literature.

Of course, the teacher would have to be very careful to teach it as literature and not as truth.
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I fully agree, and I am a teacher of English, and an atheist who frankly has issues with religion in schools. But as long as they teach it as literature, or even as mythology, I'm fine with it.
 
Maybe you should give up on engineering, Suzy, and go to a seminary?
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Learning about the Bible's influence doesn't mean your hypothetical student would have to give up anything, since "elective" doesn't mean it is a required class.

Newton comes to mind as an example of a student who studied the Bible (heck, most of his writing is on the Bible) and turned out pretty good (understatement of the century) in math related subjects.
 
Hmm part of me wants to agree with the last couple of posts. Part of me wants to say "hmm, yeah that could be an interesting learning experience if it is kept secular".

Then the other part of me is saying, "Come on people... it's Texas".
 
T'ai Chi said:
Learning about the Bible's influence doesn't mean your hypothetical student would have to give up anything, since "elective" doesn't mean it is a required class.

Newton comes to mind as an example of a student who studied the Bible (heck, most of his writing is on the Bible) and turned out pretty good (understatement of the century) in math related subjects.
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Some of the audience members felt the board's money would be better spent on other subjects. Terry Hull, a Texas State University professor and New Braunfels parent, said she was concerned that the needs of core courses and other electives were being pushed aside in favor of a special-interest class.

"I find it difficult to justify offering an elective that requires special training and an extra teacher when they don't have enough resources for the required core classes," she said.
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This is a public school. They don't generally have a lot of money, teachers, or resources. If they're going to be teaching this class, they're going to have to not teach something else. And it's hard to think what could be more irrelevant to a public high school education than religion.

Especially considering that every college in the country, public or private, offers plenty of religion classes. Which is where it should be: on the college level, where the students have supposedly reached the age and maturity to debate, discuss, and decide for themselves the merits of the material. A subject like religion, any religion, is not suitable on the high school level.

Unless they're prepared to make it a college-level class and pay for someone with a post-graduate degree in the subject (NOT a degree in education) to teach it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
This is a public school. They don't generally have a lot of money, teachers, or resources. If they're going to be teaching this class, they're going to have to not teach something else. And it's hard to think what could be more irrelevant to a public high school education than religion.

Especially considering that every college in the country, public or private, offers plenty of religion classes. Which is where it should be: on the college level, where the students have supposedly reached the age and maturity to debate, discuss, and decide for themselves the merits of the material. A subject like religion, any religion, is not suitable on the high school level.

Unless they're prepared to make it a college-level class and pay for someone with a post-graduate degree in the subject (NOT a degree in education) to teach it.
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I agree 100% with this post. Spot on.
 
I'm again' it. But look at it this way - I didn't have any major problems with religion until I took theology at my (admittedly Catholic) high school. 'We're supposed to believe WHAT?' That was the end of religion for me.
 
TragicMonkey said:
This is a public school. They don't generally have a lot of money, teachers, or resources. If they're going to be teaching this class, they're going to have to not teach something else. And it's hard to think what could be more irrelevant to a public high school education than religion.

Especially considering that every college in the country, public or private, offers plenty of religion classes. Which is where it should be: on the college level, where the students have supposedly reached the age and maturity to debate, discuss, and decide for themselves the merits of the material. A subject like religion, any religion, is not suitable on the high school level.

Unless they're prepared to make it a college-level class and pay for someone with a post-graduate degree in the subject (NOT a degree in education) to teach it.
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Oh, I agree with that, as well. But I think there are a couple of questions we're commenting on here.

Is it permissible or acceptable to teach the bible as literature or mythology?
I feel it is both. The same should be accorded to any other religion, and often is.

Should a school suffering under a financial crunch be teaching a non-essential or non-core subject at the expense of core subjects it is not teaching?
No; it doesn't properly serve the students, who have other venues for Bible exposure, if they desire it, but have only the school to serve them in math or science, etc.

Does such a class violate separation of church and state?
Not if it's offered as a free-choice elective, and also not taught as dogma or fact, but only as literature or mythology, or from a historic perspective.
 
The only issue I see is that it's taking funding away from more important classes. You can't just say "well, it mentions the bible, so it's a violation of the separation clause." A great variety of the stuff we teach in our literature classes draws from the bible. It's even had some effect on history, or so I'm told.
 
There is some indication in the article that they are struggling to provide "core courses" so to create a new course that requires a new teacher for an elective course seems to be a strange way to prioritise funding BUT that's the only thing I can see wrong with this.
 
When I went to school in Texas, we studied, however slightly, every religion on the planet except the Christian religion. Surprisingly, this was in World History class.
 
fowlsound said:
That's a pretty blatant violation of the seperation clause.
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Due to a likely oversight by the Framers, we have no Separation Clause. We only have the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause.


Jon. said:
Of course, the teacher would have to be very careful to teach it as literature and not as truth.
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Perhaps "not as fact" would be nearer the point. I daresay most literature teachers probably think of great literary works as indispensable sources of truth, and their task involves facilitating students' encounter with such truth.


TragicMonkey said:
And it's hard to think what could be more irrelevant to a public high school education than religion.

A subject like religion, any religion, is not suitable on the high school level.
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I wonder if most college religious studies professors - or indeed in many areas of the humanities - would agree. A quick and non-scientific poll of two English professor friends of mine suggests that many of their students, despite having gotten into prestigious universities, have woefully inadequate familiarity with the Bible or with the major religious themes and narratives of Western thought. And these are the English majors.

Both of these professors (one at least semi-religious, one nonreligious) opined that, from their perspectives, it would be a boon for high school students to take a properly administered Bible-as-literature course.

And they have a point. As has often been noted in this forum, and as I specifically wrote in a similar thread last year, "the vast majority of the Western artistic tradition is in some way responsive to the Bible. Indeed, the Bible has had such a profound influence on Western civilization - art, literature, history, philosophy, jurisprudence - that it's unrealistic to aspire to any comprehensive understanding of such things in the absence of a deep familiarity with the Bible." And someone who shows up at university with a good grounding in the subject - whether gleaned from a high school course or independently - will certainly be better off than many of the poor students in my friends' English courses.

There's no doubt that a potentially serious cultural literacy problem has been identified; query whether courses of the sort proposed by the New Braunfels school district are the best way to address it.
 
It would be a great opportunity to show young impressionable minds, what a bunch of crap it is..

But that probably won't happen...


Imagine the outrage if little Johnny came home talking about all the raping, pillaging and disemboweling of those disgusting Philistines...

Or maybe that hilarious story about Jesus getting pi$$ed at a fig tree..
 
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