Religion in the Public School - What's Over the Line?

As a substitute teacher I often find myself giving "micro-lessons". on a topic. Recently I was in a Civics class and they were just beginning a unit on the Bill of Rights. "First things first," thought I. Placing things firmly in the hypothetical, I said, "Let us begin this lesson in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Brothers and Sisters...."

What's wrong with this picture? I asked. "You can't do that," they said. "Right, so where's MY freedom of religion?" A good discussion ensued from there. Rights, responsibilities, teaching versus indoctrinating, the teacher as representative of the State. In short, a glorious can of worms.

This moment led me to go back and re-read this document: A Teacher's Guide to Religion in the Public Schools which has strange bedfellows ranging from the National Education Association to the National Association of Evangelicals. Well worth a read whether one is religiously inclined or not.










Functionally, the above cartoon may be applied to religion in the public schools in an Orwellian way:

IGNORANCE

=

NEUTRALITY

Which would be to not have a grasp of the Court's rulings on the 1st Amendment, religion and the public schools. Sadly, religion does get ignored because it can be contentious, so better ignorance than a hassle, right? Er,...

Political Pitfalls

I've recently becoming engaged in writing my senators and congresspeople (state and federal) over proposed new laws concerning firearms. I'm a bit scandalized that it was this issue that awoke me from my political slumbers, but perhaps we can't choose what will serve as a spark to get us moving. In the process of listening to right and left debate the issue, and watching myself become involved, it has become clear that both sides not only reduce the issue to opposing soundbites, but also reduce the humanity of the opposition.

Here in Colorado, one agitated pro-gun guy left a nasty voice-mail for a female African American representative in which he hoped for her violent demise; on a national lefty talk show, Randi Rhodes opined that gun manufacturers don't care how many innocent people die by the abuse of their product as long as they make a profit.

Emotions are a wonderful thing. They can draw us closer to reality (think of how love allows one to better see the beloved). They can also have the opposite effect: they can occlude reality and make us disconnected from others.

Party of God?

When it came to political activism, Jesus never met people's expectations. In Jesus' day as in our own, there were plenty of “leaders” who had all the answers but misconstrued the questions. In St. Mark's gospel we read of this example:

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and of the Herodians; that they should catch him in his words. Who coming, say to him: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and carest not for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar; or shall we not give it? Who knowing their wiliness, saith to them: Why tempt you me? bring me a penny that I may see it. And they brought it him. And he saith to them: Whose is this image and inscription? They say to him, Caesar' s. And Jesus answering, said to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar' s, and to God the things that are God' s. And they marvelled at him.

Jesus doesn't give them an answer and yet He does give them the opportunity to face the question in the right way.

In America today, there is no lack of answers, but there is an abysmal absence of thoughtful questions. Democrats and Republicans count of the people's ignorance and sloth to win votes and the media gleefully repackages these political reductions of reality.

From gun-control to education to “sexual health,” seemingly everyone is willing to demonize the opposition and reduce debate to a shouting match. In such an environment, one could retreat to a cozy apolitical ghetto. Or one could decide to be a protagonist.

The recovery of the human

Antagonists and antagonisms are never lacking. The question is not really What would Jesus do? but How do I face the whole of reality? (and this includes the political). This is a personal work that cannot be placed on the shoulders of others – no matter how correct we view their positions. Catholics in America need fewer gurus, not more. Ours is an age of alleged experts and this applies to the ecclesial and secular environments. This does not mean that others cannot be witnesses or guides for us; it simply means we need to take seriously the personal responsibility that being Christian is.

Perhaps what Catholics can bring into the public square is not necessarily better answers, but to see and bear witness to the questions that lie at the heart of our political dis-ease. Of the need for this, one can simply think of how one views the opposition (of whatever sort): are they even human?

Getting back to my vexation over the gun-control issue above, I can assure you that I've had moments of doubt about the humanity of political opponents. In short, it's been quite easy to shift from seeing them as folks made in the image and likeness of God to viewing them as hostile matriarchs and metrosexuals trying to “take ma guns away from me.” But this way of thinking is useless.

For real political progress to occur in America, there needs to be acknowledgment of our human needs and our solidarity with others, regardless of party or politics.

Fr. Julián Carrón recently noted that in Europe politicians are “more defined by party alignments than by self-awareness of their ecclesial experience and the desire for the common good” (La Repubblica, 10 April 2013). Our recent national election bears out that this is true not only for politicians, but for the electorate as well.

We don't need more political parties, but we do need to attend to what is most human in ourselves and in others.

One small step...

It's only what I can conceive of in terms of providence: the Denver Post published a guest commentary by me for their online edition. This is my attempt to articulate the logical connection between school funding and a meaningful education in 21st century America. The full article can be found via the above link.

Vilifying Voucherites

There is much to criticize in this commentary by John Young in last Sunday's Denver Post, but these four sentences are surely the most egregious:

They want their children associating with "people like me," as opposed to "those people."
And contrary to any other rhetoric, that's the No. 1 reason why some are so dedicated to the concept of school vouchers. It's not about education. It's about association.

There was a radio show from long ago that went something like this: Who knows what evil is in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. Since he offers absolutely no evidence for this claim, one must conclude it is based upon an assumption or that John Young and The Shadow are really the same person.

Freedom of Association

Even supposing that it is true that some parents have "klannish" or racist intent, is that an argument against vouchers? The medieval maxim puts it this way: The abuse of something does not abrogate its legitimate use. But according Mr. Young freedom of association ought not to be universally available -- at least to parents of modest means.

An Existential Turn

I have no idea what kind of parent Mr. Young is -- did he (or does he) monitor the kind of relationships his kids had at school? Did he suggest that playing with bookish students might be a tad better than hanging out with kids doing meth? Gosh, that would constitute a kind of discrimination now, wouldn't it? Yes, discriminating between caring for a child or neglecting the child.

It is curious that someone who has been awarded recognition on more than one occasion by Planned Parenthood -- that great protector of choice, albeit, oh so narrowly defined -- is so "anti-choice" when it comes to the formation and education of the young. Are we to believe that mothers can be trusted to have their child "associate" with an abortionist in utero but not entrust a mother with that freedom after a child is born?

No, Mr. Young, vouchers are about education and the freedom of parents. Yes, there will be (because there are already) racists in the apple barrel. Such is life and such is the nature of freedom: the ability to make wrong-headed choices.

Why do you want to limit the freedom of parents? Why is it that you support millions in taxpayers' dollars going into that "non-profit" killing machine called Planned Parenthood but utterly reject a few farthings for schools like Christian Valor?

Public Education's Missing Link

After teaching for ten years in three public high schools and one prison, I’ve arrived at an adequate answer to this question. But before I give my answer and attempt to justify it, I invite the reader to answer this question for himself.

What is missing from public education is a recognition of the students’ humanity. The central educational problem today is not declining test scores nor illiteracy nor the absence of prayer nor the evident excess of immorality and violence. These are mere symptoms. It is the public schools’ (reduced) vision of the human person: “citizen, consumer, worker” are the approved secular end-products of public education. But each of these conceptions of the person reduces the person to a means to an end, to a mere function. One need not be an Immanuel Kant or a Karol Wojtyla or even a believer to notice that there is something profoundly amiss with the anthropology of public education.

This is especially disturbing given the whole backdrop of so-called school reform: schools are urged to gobble more and more of a child’s time and what is the vision that the school has for the child’s destiny? The greatest good in public education is “success,” which is as pernicious as it is vacuous. After all, being successful simply means accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. Although I have not met even one public school teacher who would suggest that being a successful axe-murderer is a worthy goal, there is nothing in the doctrine of Successism that could rule this out a priori.

Success for public educators generally means graduating from high school, going to college and getting a good job. All of these are good things, but the rub is we’re made for great things, not merely good things. Indeed, we are made for the Infinite! But the secular ideal – with its so-called religious neutrality – is to immerse one in the here and now but to simultaneously suppress the deepest yearnings of the heart that are provoked by a meaningful engagement with reality.

Thus in public education everything gets short-circuited: the mystery of affection and sexuality is reduced to mutual indifference and “safety”; the desire to know the Origin of everything is dumbed-down to a superficial approach to evolutionary biology while a hostility between faith and reason is presumed but never argued for; religion, when it is even touched upon, becomes a realm of one opinion versus another, but it is never taken as a serious proposal for one’s life.

The practical reality that faces us is something truly Orwellian: in public education ALL RELIGIONS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME RELIGIONS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. Agnosticism rules the roost and it is unquestioned.

For Catholics and others who reject the public schools’ great sin of omission, and recognize their own responsibility for their children, there are several positions to take. One can wish and pray that the State will recognize its obligation to help fund all schools (public, private, parochial), but the risk is seeing the Second Coming before that happens. Or one might say, “Well, you get what you pay for,” so public education isn’t so bad and perhaps an hour or two of CCD and/or taking an interest in my child’s formation will “inoculate” her from secularism. Or one might opt to send their children to a Catholic school if it’s financially viable. Others look to homeschooling as a way to ensure that both solid academics and Catholic doctrine get communicated. Still others homeschool and find some form of one day per week enrichment program (public or private) that helps with the more difficult subjects or simply gets the kids working with their peers.

My wife and I have done all of these at one time or another (except for the Catholic school option) and have found that what matters most is being attentive to the needs of each child, every year. While the powers that be are blind to the glorious destiny that awaits all of us in Christ, this is no reason for us to settle for the inanity of secularism.

"School vouchers on hold" reads the headline

in today's Denver Post.

Mark Silverstein of the ACLU exhibits an audacious amount of metaphysical naivete when he applauds the (for the present) ban on funding for "a child's religious education." Perhaps he has been out of school for so long that he's forgotten that all approaches to education necessarily posit a "point of view" or "hypothesis of meaning." These are fancy terms for religious and philosophical commitments that an individual educator (and education systems) lives by.

After ten years in public education I became convinced that the dominant creed (or religion if you prefer) was Successism. Successism is quite simple: it is the belief that public schools exist to ensure that children succeed. To what end or purpose? Well, that's the question we dare not ask nor answer because it would unveil our nihilism, or sheer utilitarianism at best.

All education, especially public education because of its denial of philosophical moorings, promotes a creed and is thus necessarily "religious."

Education, Institutions and Accountability (Part I)

Earlier this week there was a horrid article by Susan Greene in the Denver Post entitled "Who would Jesus fire?" that lamented the firing of a Director of Religious Education at a Catholic parish because of her sexual immorality - oops, I mean her "preference." Ms. Greene was mortified that a church and pastor would actually expect a staff member to practice what she (allegedly) teaches, namely, such things as the sacrament of marriage and lacking that, sexual continence.

This article did get me thinking about what it is that secular institutions such as public schools and universities do stand for. Is there anything beyond competence in subject matter? I think there is very little that would get one censured or remove from a post unless the activity were illegal. That's a fascinating thing, really: secular has come to mean all is permitted unless it is illegal. Thus, in theory, if bigamy were legalized (and with the push for gay marriage, it is difficult to find grounds to argue against bigamy), the bigamist would have as much job security tenure as anyone else.

Beyond these moral questions, the deeper question is, "What do institutions of learning stand for?" Hmm.

David Brooks on Obama's Education

No Picnic for Me Either is the title of Brooks' March 12, 2009 piece in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/opinion/13brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion).

Here are my thoughts on what Brooks had to say. He seems completely correct at this point:

"We’ve spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the relationship between one student and one teacher. You ask a kid who has graduated from high school to list the teachers who mattered in his life, and he will reel off names. You ask a kid who dropped out, and he will not even understand the question. Relationships like that are beyond his experience."

Just so. A minor oversight here is that relationships, while not wholly dictated by school structures, are certainly influenced by these structures. They can be more or less human. Although Brooks doesn't mention this school model by name, it sounds like he is familiar with the Big Picture model. They focus on "relevance, rigor and relationships" and are having some tremendous results.

Now for the Great Lacuna: What about our need for total meaning? Do human relationships exhaust our need for Relationship? Hell, no. Here is the problem with all reforms that don't acknowledge our existential depths: they possess an emaciated anthropology that doesn't admit of the Mystery. The teacher may possess it (and in this case, no power in the world can suppress it), but if it isn't given tacit acknowledgment, we're really just deluding ourselves and our students.

We seem to still be a long way away from acknowledging the depths of reality in education. Given the way government funding limits what schools can say about ultimate reality, we have a real dilemma on our hands. Like something out of the film The Village, God has become "Him we don't speak of" in public education. (For how absurd jurisprudence has become in this area, read about the coach in New Jersey who is forbidden from joining his players in prayer - as if students are too stupid to separate the coach from the State! )

(Here's a link to that story: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/supreme_court_rejects_east_bru.html)

The courts can continue to stifle the freedom of adults in the name of the liberation of youth, but the questions of the heart cannot be silenced. Let us pray for the courage to educate in a fully human way - no matter what the obstacles.