Not the Place for This: Religion in the Classroom

So this popped up in my feeds and I felt the need to promote it:

I added: If your response to this meme is “why not?” Please replace the word “church” with “synagogue” or “mosque” and tell me if you still think, “why not?” If not, then you’re getting the point… sharing your faith belongs in your home and at church but not in the public school classroom. Period. And you need to recognize that others should not be forced to cater to your faith any more than you would welcome them to commandeer your gatherings. It’s not a war, it’s called “getting along with others.” You’d think Christians, of all people, would understand the need for getting along with neighbors or strangers who don’t agree with you about everything.

Then a former Biola classmate chimed in: It’s not a place to push queer ideology, either. That religion has no place in public education.

What? Yeah, I’m not going to tolerate that kind of bullshit comment so I responded: In 28-years teaching Kindergarten to Masters Students from California to Florida to Las Vegas, I’ve never seen any teacher promote or “push”any form of sexuality, ever. I’m sorry if you’ve had some different experience, but we had enough to do just teaching reading, writing and technology to promote anything other than reading, writing and technology.

Seriously, if we can’t get them to do their homework or class work, what makes you think we’re spending any time or energy on anything other than the curriculum. As a licensed professional, I find it offensive that you, also a highly educated, licensed professional, would accuse public school educators of unprofessional behavior. That is irresponsible and shameful.

If I can be accused of anything it’s that when a student needed to talk, I tried to just listen to them and give them a little respect for the struggles they were having. Period. They didn’t want my opinion, they get the unsolicited opinions of adults all the time. But I could relate to them and give them space to talk. Teaching and public education is a tough enough job to not be blamed because people don’t trust organized religion. Hey, we’re just trying to teach reading, writing and technology over here.

Tags: LGTQ agenda, no religion in the classroom, politics, religion in the classroom, separation of church & state