Religion In Public Schools

Religion in the American classroom has been a highly debated topic throughout the history of America’s public schools. Most recently, was the debate over teaching creationism in science classrooms. After much debate, the American spirit of freedom of religion is winning (Stewart, 2014, par. 19). The fight to preserve American students’ freedom of religion reaches back to the 1840, before many elected school boards existed (The Stone Lantern, 2010). During this time, most public schools were heavily influenced by the Protestant religion and students of other faiths found themselves in a system that did not value their beliefs or cultures (The Stone Lantern, 2010). But, where there in injustice, there is someone who is willing to stand up …show more content…
7). Throughout time, many Americans have been raised on the idea that one is not to talk about religion in polite company, which carried over to the public schooling system. The public classroom became an inappropriate place to discuss and learn about religion (Anderson, 2015, par 2). In an interview with Anderson (2015) of the Atlantic Wertheimer, author of “Faith Ed: Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance,” argues that religious education, when taught objectively, can help students to become more accepting of people who are not like them. This is exceptionally necessary for students who come from communities which are not diverse. A world religion class could be a student’s only exposer to a religion other than Christianity (Anderson, 2015, par. 20). Many school districts and teachers are moving in this direction to help better prepare their students for the diverse …show more content…
9). For example, Modesto, California has “set a gold standard” for incorporating religion into their schools system’s curriculum (Anderson, 2015, par. 10-11). Firstly, their teachers were trained “by the First Amendment Center on how to avoid stepping over the line separating church and state”(Anderson, 2015, par. 11). They then attended workshops which were run by religion scholar to cultivate a deeper understanding of the religions they would be teaching (Anderson, 2015, par. 11). Teachers should be trained on how to “teach” this information without “preaching” it (Anderson, 2015, par.

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