People Want Religion in the Public Schools--As Long As It's Theirs

White Pine Elementary was remarkable in many ways. Built in the 1800's, it housed eight grades taught by two teachers. The “facilities” were two privies, one for each gender, and an outdoor hand pump for fresh water. It was my first school. But it isn't just the physical nature of the school that I treasure as I think back to 1952, it's the memory of many of my classroom activities, lessons that could never be taught in the same way now.
Our music education happened rather randomly, when our teacher would occasionally ask one of us to pass out the song books. One of the songs we sang was Stephen Foster's “Old Black Joe,” a song about a dying slave written by a white man. As an adult, I deplore the bitter irony of the song's creation, but I am not sorry we sang it.
We also sang a song called “The Church in the Wildwood,” written in 1857 by Dr. William Pitts. The line I remember best goes “no place is so dear to my childhood as the little brown church in the vale.” As children, we never gave any thought to the denomination of the little brown church; the song was pleasing to sing and hear. Our parents didn't object to our singing the song. No one threatened a lawsuit. I suspect that many parents today would rather their children sang those harmless lyrics than the ones they hear booming from their kids' stereos.
And, in 1954, when Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, I don't recall any adult of my acquaintance being bothered in the least.
Some people believe that the so-called “separation of church and state” means that no mention of religion can be made in a public school. That is just not so. The government cannot promote or endorse a specific religion, but nowhere does it state that religion cannot be mentioned, studied or discussed. Atheists contend that no whisper of religion or God belongs in public schools. My response is that belief in nothing still constitutes a belief system, and the atheistic philosophy has no more right to exclusivity in the schools than any other.
For years I taught “The Inferno” by Dante, a fascinating fictional account of the author's physical journey through Hell. The kids loved it. Some parents did not. So that my students could understand why Dante constructed Hell the way he did, I had to give them some details of 14th century Catholicism. I also had to instruct them in European history and Greek and Roman mythology. Nearly every semester I would receive an angry phone call from a parent demanding to know why I was teaching the kids to be Catholics. I learned that the easiest way to handle these complaints was to offer to teach their children an alternate work of literature, subject to their approval, of course. Their response to the book was not entirely unexpected. In the early 70's I taught a course called Literature of the Supernatural and was more than once accused of peddling witchcraft.
I think that many people confuse moral and ethical lessons with religion. Morality and ethics are components of religion, but they're also valued by many people of no faith. What bigger lessons do literature and history have for us than the moral and ethical consequences of human decisions? Sin and redemption are at the heart of many American classics such as The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Without those underlying themes, the books are just so much plot and unworthy of consideration.
I learned my catechism in the Methodist faith. In the second year of our instruction, our minister took the class to a Catholic cathedral where a priest instructed us the in the significance and importance of relics. We also visited an Orthodox Temple and listened attentively as the rabbi explained the dietary rules his faith observed. Our minister taught us to learn, not to fear or distrust. The thought that we might lose our faith if exposed to others would have seemed as ridiculous to him then as it does to me now.
A school is supposed to be a place of discovery. Why should some people be upset when a set of beliefs other than theirs becomes a topic of discussion? Why does a student carrying a Bible, or a Torah, or a Koran or the Vedas constitute a threat to someone else's civil liberties? It's time to abandon personal agendas and allow the schools to do what they should. It's time for a return to the common sense that permeated White Pine Elementary.