As one who has recently graduated from high school, I can easily remember back to when my twelve years of education were painfully monotonous and seemingly unending. Once the thrill of entering high school had fizzled away, there was only one thing I looked forward to: graduation. And now I am graduated. Oddly, in hindsight, the years seem to have flown (not dragged) by. Sometimes we say hindsight is 20-20, and I think it is true. The fact is, K-12 education comprises a relatively short amount of our lives. And because it is limited, it is no wonder there is such a vicious fight as to what ideologies are crammed into the curricula.
Some say religion should be on the public school’s teaching agenda, along with subjects like biology and mathematics. In fact, many Christians have argued this. In his letter Of Education, the famous Puritan, John Milton, said, “The end of learning is… to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him….” Evidently, Milton would be disappointed with the U.S. Department of Education and the Supreme Court – both of which have said that U.S. schools are to be wholly secular. In short, John Milton argued that schools should teach our children to know God; but the government says we are to teach them what God has made (biology and math). To the Christian, the higher of these two ends is obvious; Milton’s proposal seems more enriching.
Might I point our attention to an important, undeniable fact: like it or not, America is a diverse nation. And this is a fairly new phenomenon. My parents lived in a nation labeled “the melting pot.” Assimilation, not diversification, was the pride of their land. But today, it would be fundamentally un-American to say such a thing. President Obama, in his inaugural address, acknowledged (and rightly so) that America is “shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.” To compensate for this change, age-old institutions like Stanford University are renovating policies to prohibit expressions “intended to insult or stigmatize an individual or a small number of individuals on the basis of their sex, race, color, handicap, religion, sexual orientation or national and ethnic origin.” When our Judeo-Christian God was removed from the public schools, America was simply acting consistently with Stanford’s perspective. Just as I wouldn’t want my children to go school to be taught that Allah is the one true god, so America’s Muslims, Hindus, and Atheists don’t want their kids learning that my God is real.
What is public is shared; and what is shared must be shared in an egalitarian manner. Some have argued that all religions should be taught with the same amount airtime and textbook-space. This would bring equality, they say. But this politically correct notion loses sight of K-12 education’s most noble goal: instructing students on how to think (as opposed to what to think). For the majority of students, the majority of material learned in grade school will not be useful for future enrichment, learning, or work (this is arguably most true with religion). It is the educator teaching study skills, critical thinking, and social skills that truly prepares students for tomorrow. Ultimately, the habits learned in school are more important than the content learned. So the content should be neutral to allow for a profitable learning environment for all. It is neutrality, rather than plurality of content, that prevents factions of society from claiming governmental bias. Yes, in public education, it is clear that religious neutrality is what sustains religious equality.
