Public School Educators Learn How to Handle Religious Topics

A finger-pointing, angry exchange on who was going to hell arose unexpectedly in a public school classroom in California. The exasperated teacher threw up her hands and said, “You’re all right,” halting the debate.

The incident illustrates the sheer inflammability of religious topics that has tempted many an educator to avoid all religious discussions and activities in the classroom.

But the Los Angeles Unified School District this week took its first step toward training educators to deal with religious expression, turning to the California 3Rs Project and its founder, Charles C. Haynes, a Nashville-based authority on religion in public schools.

Whether the questions concern religious clubs, school prayer or proselytizing, Haynes has designed guidelines to help educators deal with the issue, with the help of experts in religion, law and education throughout the country and endorsement from the full political spectrum, liberal to conservative.

Haynes told the story of the exasperated teacher at a two-day workshop he led at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage this week for about 50 teachers, a modest starting point in a long-term project backed by Los Angeles school officials who deal with multicultural and diversity issues.

Besides recurring problems during religious holiday seasons, said Evangelina Stockwell, assistant principal for the LAUSD’s Office of Intergroup Relations, new issues arise. For instance, the growing number of Muslim students, once rare, are sometimes teased or harassed by other children for wearing head coverings or not eating lunch during the daytime fasting month of Ramadan.

“Respect for each other and fairness are the bottom line, but I welcome any help I can get,” said workshop participant Marsha McHarg of Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. “You’re not a [good] teacher if you don’t deal with it.”

Los Angeles’ 650 schools so far have not had the kind of religious liberty disputes that occasionally engulf smaller cities. But Haynes and colleagues have often been summoned in those emergency situations as well.

On Monday, Haynes held a workshop for 2,200 people--from teachers to cafeteria workers--in the Chino Unified School District where a crisis erupted last December over a school Christmas play canceled on grounds of church-state separation. The district’s school board hammered out new policies, then asked the California 3Rs Project to lead the religious diversity training workshop.

The three Rs of the project, based in Isla Vista near the UC Santa Barbara campus, stand for “rights, responsibilities and respect” relating to religious matters.

“Distrust [by parents] is very high in some quarters,” especially among conservative Christians, Haynes told the Los Angeles workshop.

“Some [Christian] parents feel that we let everything else in and then keep their faith out,” he said. They contend that public education is blind to the religious aspects of such things as yoga, meditation and visualizing exercises, but is sure to “notice when Jesus is there and shut it right down.”

Yet, Haynes maintained, many conservative Christian leaders have endorsed ground rules for even-handed religious expression in “Finding Common Ground,” a guidebook edited by Haynes, a scholar-in-residence at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. The book reflects a consensus among Jewish, civil libertarian, evangelical and teachers association leaders, among others, he said.

“Charles Haynes is probably one of the greatest leaders we have in the country to bridge the gap” between liberal and conservatives, said Christian organizer Robert Simonds of Irvine, whose Citizens for Excellence in Education has fought textbook battles over religious issues and urged conservative Christians to run for school board seats.

“He’s probably the guy who can bring peace back to the public schools,” Simonds said. “I’ve been in meeting after meeting with Charles; whenever he’s there, you just always agree with him.”

On the sometimes volatile issue of religious clubs on high school campuses, for example, Simonds said he agrees with the full implications of the federal Equal Access Act that says a school district that allows student-led clubs focusing on chess or skiing must also permit Bible study, satanic or gay-and-lesbian clubs.

Satanic clubs are virtually nonexistent, Simonds said, based on his survey of hundreds of school districts. Gay clubs formed at high schools have at times stirred controversy, but Simonds said that is the price that objectors have to pay to allow other students to form legally sanctioned Christian clubs.

A surprisingly low-key issue today--despite the continuing political debates--is prayer in public schools. Haynes said most people seem to understand that students may pray quietly alone or in informal, voluntary gatherings as long as they don’t disrupt the educational mission of the school.

“Very few people on the conservative Christian side are arguing for school-sponsored, teacher-led prayer,” he said. The present divisions--as reflected by different appeals court rulings--are over whether prayer is appropriate before “captive audiences” at graduation ceremonies or athletic contests, he said.

U.S. Supreme Court decisions have endorsed teaching religion as an academic subject, and, in fact, California high schools in the past have offered courses on world religions and comparative religion.

And increasingly, religious history and pertinent references to religious practices are described in history and social science frameworks published by the state for teachers.

To ease the potential classroom difficulties, books such as “America’s Religions: A Guide for Teachers and Others,” by Benjamin Hubbard of Cal State Fullerton are being published.

With common sense, student agreements on what constitutes a fair debate, and respect for different beliefs, the subject of religion need not be too contentious for classroom discussion, Haynes told the Los Angeles workshop.

He nevertheless cautioned teachers against staging religious ceremonies as a way to make the teaching memorable--such as reenacting the Jewish Passover Seder meal, the Muslim pilgrimage ritual or the Catholic Mass, regardless of how scaled-down or make-believe the exercise is.

“It would be very difficult to avoid violating that faith’s tradition,” Haynes said. Not only that, the exercise could violate the conscience of children who have been told by their families “not to be involved in a sacred ceremony or tradition other than their own,” he said.

Haynes also maintained that yoga cannot be separated from its religious meaning. “Even if you leave out all the theology, by its very nature it is a spiritual activity,” he said.

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Students who try to proselytize other students have the right to do so, within limits, he told the educators.

Harassment and intimidation over beliefs is no more permitted than is sexual harassment, said Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, a legal consultant to the First Amendment Center who assisted Haynes in the Los Angeles workshop.

Yet, Thomas added, teachers normally cannot be faulted “if at the end of a year a child of one particular faith tradition has been very impressed with another religion and has converted, or wants to convert. It’s part of learning and growing up.”

Whether the student was attracted to another faith through classroom studies or through conversations with other students, “There are limits on what we can offer to parents,” said Thomas, noting that for all its blessings, “The 1st Amendment is not easy to live with.”