memo to the american left, especially in the south

[fox]

You know how we've been saying that we need to find a way to stop seeming (or, as some would have it, being) anti-religion, within the context of a liberal or at least progressive society?

This isn't it.  (Briefly:  in many communities in rural Virginia, there's a break in the school day when kids pop out for Bible study.  In the town that's the subject of the article, some parents who choose not to have their children participate want the school board to eliminate the period, and are -- unsurprisingly -- meeting with resistance.)

I mean to say.  Are the Bible classes funded out of the public school budget?  (No.)  Are the kids required to go?  (Nope.)  Then shouldn't a commitment to principles of religious tolerance dictate that the program be allowed to do its thing unmolested?

Okay, I'm sympathetic to the fact that kids who don't go to the Bible classes most of their classmates attend are liable to feel left out.  News flash:  kids who don't go to the _________ most of their classmates attend are liable to feel left out.  When I was in school, a bunch of kids (admittedly not a majority, but still) went to dancing school on Friday afternoons, and those who didn't felt like we were missing something.  By all accounts the dancing-school crowd hated every minute of it and we were lucky we didn't have to go, but that didn't change the fact that they were a group of which others of us weren't members.  (Another bunch of kids, with some overlap, went to Hebrew school two afternoons a week.  That's probably a better analogy with the Bible-study thing in this article; it wasn't all the Jewish kids who went to Hebrew school, but obviously nobody who wasn't Jewish went, because why would they?  And the kids who did had a community the rest of us couldn't be part of.)  It's just a fact of life.

What ought to happen, of course, is that the school should use the kids' time better who aren't going to the Bible classes.  It's not a free period for the teachers, after all.  The superintendent says "We don't participate or encourage participation" -- so far, so good -- but as for the kids who stay behind, doing art projects or remedial work, he says "[generally], new work is not started, because the majority would fall behind."

[headdesk]

Dear superintendent:  Or, those kids could be getting ahead.  Just a thought.  :-)

But now that I've been so reasonable from the left, a quick note to Jack Hinton, head (as the article tells us) of a group that funds and administers the classes, who says "We have a small core of a group philosophically opposed to any connection between religiosity and schools.  They're articulate and persuasive, but they are in the minority" -- that's as may be, sir, but they're also right, constitutionally speaking.  You may keep your weekday Bible classes, but don't try to actually connect them to the schools, please.  Thank you.

Comments

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

Many schools do that here.

The schools don't fund it, the local churches do. This is something that's, well, not new, but sprung up in the last decade or so.

I think it is bunk and should be discontinued because funded by my tax dollars or not, religion and public schools should be kept apart. If people want their children to depart for bible class, let them do it on the weekend or after regular school. Leaving for dancing classes is one thing, I suppose, but I'm one of those left wingers who thinks even the Hebrew School kids should go on Saturday and Sunday or weekdays after school hours (that's what the kids from our synagogue do), meaning they don't have to leave regular school early at all.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

but religion and public schools are being kept apart.

suppose it was just one kid, who came in at the beginning of the year with a note from his mother that said "sven has to leave from 12:30 to 1:00 each day for Bible class." can you tell the parent she can't take the kid out of school for whatever reason she chooses? it might be more educationally sound to send sven to a Bible class that meets after school, but i don't think the law has any business telling a parent she is not permitted to make decisions that aren't educationally sound. hence my wish that the non-Bible-class-attending kids' time were put to better use. :-)

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

suppose it was just one kid, who came in at the beginning of the year with a note from his mother that said "sven has to leave from 12:30 to 1:00 each day for Bible class." can you tell the parent she can't take the kid out of school for whatever reason she chooses?

Around here (NJ), I think the school admin *would* tell the parents that. The kid who gets taken out every day like that is, by definition, missing part of the regular curriculum, and he'll need to make it up somehow. When a kid does have to miss classes on a regular basis (e.g. for physical therapy), they basically count as Special Education and have to have an individualized instruction program and a way of monitoring it.

What the Virginia districts have done is effectively cut part of the regular curriculum so the Christian kids can go to Bible study. Why, I ask, does the Bible study happen in the middle of the day, instead of after school as it does around here? The answer I see is: because they want it to feel as much like part of the official school curriculum as possible. That's also why they don't give the non-Bible-study kids curricular work to do: they want to conceal the fact that the Bible study is in a spot where the regular curriculum should be.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

but the opponents aren't saying move it to later in the day; they're saying get it out of there completely. if the school day is (hypothetically) currently 8:00-3:30, and half an hour of that is a time when a chunk of the kids buzz over to church for religious education, would that be solved by making the school day 8:00-3:00 and having their half-hour of Bible class afterward?

[obsessed1.livejournal.com]

The parents want to either end the study classes entirely or modify them to after school programs (unless I've jumped realities again and not realized it). However, the parents of the Bible study kids don't want it to be moved to after school, because that would be too much of a strain on their schedules.

I'd quote it, but I'm actually going back to bed soon, and my eyes are crossing...

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but if the Bible class is after-school it would interfere with sports practice. One real advantage of the system they're now using is that Bible study doesn't conflict with sports, only with mere academics, which is clearly not a problem with most of the parents in these school districts.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

What she said. I got plenty of religious education as a child and I didn't need to miss a minute of school for it.

[osymandias.livejournal.com]

Taking this from a British perspective, I was a little bemused at the last comment. Over here, if a parent took their child out of school for such a reason as that, they could be fined, since the child would be considered truent. I'm not sure whether if it went on they could find themselves being investigated by social services for being unfit as a parent. It is possible for parents to remove their children from school to educate them privately or at home, but I think there are fairly substantial requirements for showing they're adequately catering for the educational needs of the child.

Personally, I have to agree with what a couple of other people have said here - whilst it may not be the school paying for it, it is happening during time the children should be spending learning. Even if the time were used to bring the ones who didn't go ahead in terms of work, they'd still be held behind as work had to be repeated for the majority who missed it. I don't know whether there's an analogue in the US, but when I was young (before I abandoned the idea of religion entirely) I went to something called 'Sunday School' - basically a club run whilst parents are in service on Sunday morning, which was effectively analagous for what you call 'Bible study'. Any other activities should be held outside of school, in the children's free time.

Over here, it's somewhat unorthodox to be out of school for any 'alterior' purposes- generally, it's only if you're very good at something, and are doing it professionally - so actors, dancers, musicians can sideline their education somewhat to participate in those things. However, most of them tend to be conditional upon maintaining decent marks at school. I'm fairly certain a school can refuse permission for these things if they think it'll be detrimental to the child's education.

One thing that always strikes me about transatlantic difference is the variation between principle and action. I mean, there is no pretention in the UK of any kind of separation of church and state. The Queen is the head of the Church of England, schools are required to have 'a daily act of broadly Christian-based collective worship'. Not just primary schools- everything up to the age of 18. Yet apart from church run schools, I doubt there are any schools that actually follow this. Aside from any other reasons, it's considered simply far too time-wasting when there's so much material that needs to be covered. In primary school, we had a Hymn practice on Wednesdays and occasionally a prayer during assembly - depending on which teacher was taking the assembly, and their own beliefs. In secondary school, a minister would come in to take an assembly about once every term. It's written on pretty much every OFSTED report (Office for Standards in Education- the people who ensure schools are doing their job properly), that 'fails to meet the statuatory requirement for a daily act of worship', and is summarily ignored by the school, the inspectors, and everybody else.

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

I agree - I mean, they're going to let the kids go to these classes anyway, why not let the others get a leg up on their classwork? At least the one school I temped at did that - they had special classes and let the kids who didn't go (and there were just about 100) take extra math, art or science classes where they got to do fun learning experiments. I think both groups were extremely jealous of each other *G*. I don't know what the other schools did, though.

[obsessed1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the schools really should make better use of the time. Remedial work? What, does a perceived lack of Christian morals in the parents (who ultimately make the decision) make the child in need of remedial potions lessons?

However, I'm of the school of thought that we really don't need to help the kids segregate themselves from each other any more than they already do on their own. By having these classes and interrupting the school day for them, the school board is drawing a metaphorical line down the middle of the school yard. On this side, we have the children of honest, God-fearing folk. On the other, the children whose parents don't feel that they need that much or that sort of spiritual nourishment in the midst of their 3-Rs.

"They're missing a lot of good stuff," said Olivia Pyanoe, who gave a short speech to the School Board in support of the classes. "I told them it's good to go. Some kids don't attend Sunday school classes."

*boggles* See? The children recognize the line. Let's hear it for religious equality so long as you follow a certain system!

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

yeah, i did notice that here-have-some-kool-aid bit from the kid at the end. and i agree in principle that we don't need to help kids segregate themselves -- but the thing is, this middle-of-the-day church-school thing isn't illegal; how can you get, legally, from really wishing they wouldn't (which is where i am) to insisting they shouldn't be allowed (which is where the other parents in that community are), on legal grounds? if they're going to be Not Allowed, someone's going to have to get the loophole closed, you know what i'm saying?

[obsessed1.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying. And I agree, too.

We also can't argue another's right to worship as invalid if it harms no one, not without first admiting that our own rights would have to be likewise invalid.

But the parents are also arguing that by throwing away this time on crayons and Special Ed that isn't necessary, the schools are harming their children and the education they are supposed to be receiving. And that is a valid point. If they wanted to bundle the kids off during lunch and have them eat while learning about the Bible, I would have less of a stance to argue from.

[datlowen.livejournal.com]

If you're going to do that kind of thing, which I don't object to on separation grounds (although I thikn that argument can be made), then it has to be done at the end of the day, not in the middle. This is effectively an extra-curricular, so what the hell is the school doing making tome for it in the middle of the day? At the end of the day it allows the kids to come home, instead of their current Hobson's choice of Jesus or crayons. This seems to bethe most reasonable solution, yes?

The fact that they're not doing it that way already suggests to me that this is exactly a recruiting scheme, and one that is implcitly encouraged by the schools which, of course, is unconstitutional.

[orange852.livejournal.com]

It's the 'break in the school day' that's giving me the problem.

Are there breaks in the school day for any other educational purpose? Catholic Catechism? Hebrew practice? How To Cast Spells & Influence People?

Four H, for cryin' out loud?

A break in the school day that the school board sees fit to fill with busy work so that the presumably single-denominational truant children don't get behind their secular peers (well, even multi-denominational would raise my hackles, but I doubt that's the case in VA) is a connection between church and state. Education stops for that period of time, the students missing are not considered truant, and methinks they would be if they were anywhere else but Bible study.

Call me a hardass, but I'm for squishing every stealth-Fundie attempt to put church back into the public education system, which is completely different from giving children a religious eduction. Everyone I knew went to Catechism or whatever it is Jewish kids do before or after the secular academic day. I have never in my life heard of a school district interrupting the school day for Bible study in a way that left some students twiddling their thumbs. That goes farther than religious tolerance and into the realm of special accomodation for a specific sect.

I seriously doubt any good Christian child would be kept waiting for a Ramadan prayer or salute to the sun by a neo-pagan, and I don't feel that interrupting the school day for all the denominations that could reasonably ask for it does education any great service.

[orange852.livejournal.com]

OK, broke down and registered at the Washington Post site so I could read the whole thing and have not changed my mind. How does it go from "over the next half-hour, the Bible shapes the lesson plan" at the beginning of the article to the advocate's claim near the end that "it equates to six minutes a day of school time?"

I noted with some amusement that the basis of the challenge is W's own "No Child Left Behind" standards of learning, and that the defense of the 65 to 75 year old program is that "it's about learning to be a good person, a good citizen, even good manners. It teaches children not to lie, steal or cheat, and to abide by the law. It's a program that has worked well for our city."

Which can only be taught in a religious context? I guess Aristotle and his fellow corrupters of the youth missed that memo.