One of the more difficult parts of teaching is creating a lesson plan. You have to teach certain criteria, note how much attention to give any particular subject, make sure you properly allocate time, ensure it's easy enough for most people in class to understand, yet hard enough to keep everyone occupied on the material. That's difficult enough for a class that's already been established. Now imagine creating a curriculum for a class that you've never taught before, and that hasn't been taught at your school in years. I don't envy the people at Ector Country Independent School District as they choose the curriculum for their bible class.
This is not a class on intelligent design, it's a Bible class. In a public school. This looks to be one of the more daunting tasks undertaken by a school district in this vein in quite a while, and I imagine they're rather concerned about doing it right, so as to avoid a lawsuit. This class is an elective class, not part of the mandatory curriculum.
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with having a bible class in a public school. I do think it would be better to have a world religions class, that would provide insight into all the major religions of the world, as opposed to focusing on one. It seems to me that would help mitigate any hint of improper motive (i.e. teaching Christianity in a public school). However, a bible class as an elective should be fine. The school board apparently has to ensure that it's taught only for historical purposes, not devotional purposes. In order to do so, they also need to ensure that this elective class remains elective, not "elective, but you better take it." I wish them well, and hope that they steer safely through the landmined field they turned into.
1 comment:
The Bible as literature was a subject in my HS days back in the 60s. I wonder if we also will be studying the Torah and the Koran as history and literature? And what about the Apocrypha? I am not familiar with the holy books of other major religions, but feel certain they have as much merit for study as the Bible.
I am not against this. I also think we need to study Greek and Roman Mythology. The stories are wonderful and fascinating to students in my elementary school.
The study of these classic books and stories enriches a student and gives a student a framework to understand literary references. Why limit our knowledge to only the mythology presented in the Bible?
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