EDUCATION AND RELIGION ARE INSEPARABLE

 By Jake

©Copyright 2008.  All rights reserved.

I feel that education and religion cannot be separated.  I think it is wrong for a person to attend a school where part of their education includes indoctrination of religious views oneself or their parents do not agree with, assuming they are a minor.   Religious indoctrination happens at colleges and universities all the time.  I don't have a problem with religious indoctrination at colleges and universities since students generally are no longer minors in college and they are almost always there by choice.  Many people connect where you went to college and your "school of thought."

The reason I claim that education and religion are not separable is because of my working definition of religion.  My working definition of religion is: “A person's belief of what this life experience is all about, whom or what created it or didn't create it and what the intent of the creation or non creation is and was.”  As one understands my working definition, I hope my claim that education and religion are not separable is more understood.

I admit that I haven’t been around since the birth of the United States.  I have read many history books and spoken with many creditable historians about education’s progress in the United States.  I was born in the United States and I have lived in the United States most of my life, with the exception of a few years spent in Europe.  I have come to certain understandings of how the United States educational system came to be what it is today and why it is what it is.

I understand that many people came to the United States for increased opportunities with business, work, school, real estate, and religious freedom.  Many of these immigrants came from countries that had an official state religion that was imposed on them.  Many people had a passive submission to the religion but had strong convictions about life that may or may not have been in harmony with that state religion.  Those who were like minded and had enough conviction towards their country’s state religion often stayed in their home country unless they saw job opportunities they couldn’t ignore in what today is the United States.

However, people who had different views and convictions often were persecuted and felt like outcasts for their beliefs and views.  As consequence, many people went to the United States so that they would have the opportunity to believe what they wanted, learn what they wanted, and think how they wanted.  The United States provided them with enough physical and social space to find other like minded people without being encroached upon by government inference…for the most part. 

In the United States it was very popular to have community schools.  Since many small communities were often like minded, they often found a school that generally would support and enforce their religious beliefs to one extent or another in the classroom.  As consequence many people worried more about class discipline than what religious implications were being taught in the classroom.  Many felt that classroom values were generally close enough to their own.

As small communities grew larger and cities grew bigger and more diverse, public schools began to find themselves in the middle of heated religious debates.  In addition to this, Supreme Court judges were beginning to interpret law that encouraged simply reducing or even removing all known religious activity in public schools as the federal message to states concerning religion and school.  Prayer was allowed in many schools for a while; eventually that too fell victim to this rising form of secularism in efforts to secularize schools to eliminate contention and refocus on diverse community acceptance and good will.

During the growth of communities, teacher unions started forming to help provide more and higher paying teaching positions in public schools.  Originally these unions were very welcomed by the teachers and served a very valid purpose.  As time has passed— more so in the present—many teachers have begun to see teacher unions more like thugs; forcing union dues, capping pay, finically supporting politicians and parties, bottlenecking education reform, and preventing good teachers from getting paid more and poor teachers from getting paid less or even fired.

As all of this happened schools became more secularized.  When I say secularized, I mean things like widely recognized religious activity, expression, comments, prayer, and other religious behavior was socially unacceptable in a public place where tolerance was top priority.  Tolerance began to take on a life of its own.  Soon a shift took place where at first one was instructed to be tolerant and understanding of others’ religious beliefs and differences to the point that one would be showing intolerance if they did anything religious in public schools.  Countries like France have even gone as far as forcing Muslim woman to not wear head scarves, Christians to not where crosses, and Jews not to where head caps in public schools.  Secularism has grown to a point that in the name of tolerance it has become intolerant to existing religions.

Secularism occurs in most public schools in the United States.  It focuses on teaching humanistic ideologies and often goes to the extreme of teaching these humanistic ideas as factual where it is more theory or opinion, such as many view known religions and religious beliefs.  Personally, I feel secularism has become its own religion considering my working definition as mentioned earlier: “A person's belief of what this life experience is all about, whom or what created it or didn't create it and what the intent of the creation or non creation is and was.” 

I see the public schools as now being the classroom of setting social standards and humanistic secular indoctrination.  As each generation of students pass through these schools they come out with a humanistic secular belief system.  In many families, as both spouses are finding a need to both work, the upbringing and “school of thought” has rested more heavily on the public schools.  Learning and positive family involvement has become more absent, causing many students’ experience in the public schools to become the basis of their upbringing and “school of thought” from a very young and impressionable age.

I feel that many parents today that have strong, well recognized religious beliefs, or even personal convictions about what life is about often find themselves becoming troubled as they see their children adopting secular ideas and not sharing the same views on life as themselves.  Children go through these schools learning secularism and come out a secularist.  Out of those children, many become public school teachers.  They begin teaching in an environment in the public school that is very compatible with their “religious” beliefs, based on my working definition, and they begin to feel free to take certain “liberties” to take secularism to the next level.  This escalated level is often evidenced in imposed tolerance of humanistic secular concepts like evolution, same sex attraction, and same sex activity.

As the public schools try to alleviate the religious contentions through secularism, they create an environment that is very secular friendly.  Secularist ideas thrive in these public schools.  Many colleges and universities that were started by organized religious groups hundreds of years ago in the United States have seen a new generation of professors that have come from these secular public schools in grades K-12 and these colleges and universities have become secularized through its staff change gradually over time.

It is this kind of secular comfort that makes these generations of “secularists” become very comfortable in thinking their view is the correct view because they are backed by the state.  They are accustomed to spending tax education dollars on giving other people’s children a secularized education.  Secularists effectively become intolerant of non-secular ideas, notions, convictions, and other religions.

Secularists’ lack of self recognition of this intolerance is due to what many have termed “Self Deception.”  This is evidenced in their arguments about things like school vouchers.  Secularist argue that if people want to have their non-secular religious views taught with the school curriculum they need to do it on their own dime at a private school and not have tax dollars spent on furthering their religious views.

What the secularists aren’t seeing in their argument is their intolerance.  Since their religious views are already in the classroom, they are using other people’s money to pay for their religious views to be taught to other people’s children.  If vouchers were allowed, then parents could use their own money, which they pay in taxes, to pay for their own children’s education with their own religious values.  Secularists would still have the same liberties, but what they would be loosing is their religious advantage over other religious views. 

Secularists would no longer be able to force people with other religious views to pay twice for their child’s education.  One pays twice by first paying taxes and then private school fees since they can’t move their tax money with their child.  Secularists would no longer be able to take other people’s tax money to force their views on other people’s children.

Since religion is, “A person's belief of what this life experience is all about, whom or what created it or didn't create it, and what the intent of the creation or non creation is and was,” then clearly religion can’t be separated in any education.  The "what" that is being taught has unspoken messages about the values that drive why one should or shouldn’t know what is being taught.  Children in school are always asking why they need to know the information presented in their classes. 

In a secular school the root answer is so you can get a good job.  But what if one’s belief is that girls won’t get jobs, but become homemakers that rear and teach their own children, and maybe get a job if something happened to their husband?  Then the reason for why they may be learning Math, Science, English, etc. becomes different.  They may be learning it so their boys can get a good job and their girls can teach their children and prepare their own boys to get a good job. 

Religion in education is unavoidable.  Children are constantly asking, “Why?”  If the answer is secular, then so will become their beliefs and their religion.  Children are trying to figure out the meaning of life and they pick their teacher’s mind about life.  Try as the teacher may to stay neutral, unavoidably their views will be communicated through their words, responses, answers, questions, and actions.  The question is what religion do you want your children being taught?  I believe we all should be able to choose which religion our children learn and vouchers will allow private schools of like minded people to band together and teach their cherished convictions to their children. 

Right now, only the rich have such a privilege.  Only those that can pay taxes and additional private school fees get such privilege and freedom.  The United States is posing a great injustice to the poor.  The United States is only offering mediocrity and secularism to the poor.  Vouchers will work and pay the complete cost of private school and choice driven education if enough of them are made available. 

The United States needs to reclaim its youth and allow experienced parental convictions of what is good to be known once more to their children.  I call this good one’s religion.  We need to allow this good, this religion, to pass parent to child instead of letting a rising secular religion to indoctrinate the children of the United States and break the hearts of so many parents until we are all secular and loose the good that diversity brings to all of us. 

No, we wouldn’t be unfair to the secularists.  Secularists would still be able to use vouchers for secularist schools or any school they see fit to meet their aims and goals.  They wouldn’t have to pay twice either.  Teacher unions would loose their grip as an outdated institution and good teachers can begin to be paid more and bad teachers can go away and find something they are good at.  Good teachers will find themselves in demand among parents and students, while bad teachers will find themselves hiding and grasping to keep their job.

©Copyright 2008.  All rights reserved.

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Copyright © 2008 American Education Reform