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

[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.