I went to public school, and we read the Bible in our AP English class for literary purposes. Our teacher had us read it in order to compare Bible stories to stories from Greek mythology. Some people got offended by it, but our teacher was actually Jewish, so it wasn't as if she had an alternate agenda or something like that. When we learned about religion, it was just in a historical, social, or literary context.

Up until high school, I didn't really care about prayer in school, but now I think it's important to keep the two separate (at least in public school.) Despite what a lot of people in the US think, the country still has a separation of church and state. I don't understand why people like Bush and other politicians think that they are somehow "above" that. School isn't the place for kids to learn morals and scripture...that's the job of the parents IMO.

If parents want their children to learn more about their specific religious beliefs, then they should have them attend classes at their church or temple. The problem is that a lot of parents are lasped members of whatever religious organization they belong to, so if they aren't attending church or temple, etc., then their kids won't either.

I grew up in a very strict RC family, and we actually had to attend mass twice a week. I was in a youth group with my church, and even though I wound up splitting with the group and Catholicism altogether, what I learned there taught me a lot and had helped me understand a lot of what I'm learning now in college. I take a lot of Spanish classes, and since most Spanish-speaking countries are also heavily RC countries too, it's helped me understand a lot of the themes in Latin American literature, since religion plays a huge role in their particular societies. Also, religion is a huge part of History, so for me, it's always been important to learn more about different religious beliefs in order to understand certain events in History.

So yeah, I think studying religion is important, as long as schools steer away from saying that one particular religion is the "right one." It's a really hard thing to do, I guess, so I understand why most schools just ignore any teachings on religion altogether.

Edited January 29, 200718 yr by Ms. Walsh

You Are 8% Republican

You Are 56% Democrat