Teaching Religious Intolerance in Public Schools

Public schools are required to have a curriculum that is enriching, engaging and examines all social and cultural perspectives; that provides an equitable learning experience for all students. However, there is a stigma about religion, teaching religious texts and examining the different religions in any context in public schools. By avoiding the examination of religious ideas and texts, public schools are perpetuating an ignorance to an important social and cultural difference among students. More direclty, this ignorance of religious ideas is misinterpreted and carried over into society as an intolerance for religion.

Although the topic may seem uncomfortable to teachers, students and even parents, religion is a cultural or social framework that many people use to shape their lives. In her article, “Religious literacies in secular literacies classroom,” Skerrett’s (2014) research supports the importance of religious literacies. She finds that although teachers and students in a secular classroom experienced tensions when addressing religious literacy, they approached lessons “by emphasizing a shared value of human empathy and their shared commitment to classroom community, pursuing understanding of one another’s perspectives and seeking underlying commonalities of different, or differently articulated religious beliefs,” (Skerrett, 2014). This approach to religious literacy involves students using skills that they already practice in other disciplines. Furthermore, this is a skill used outside of the disciplines in everyday human interaction.

Although it may seem like we are a far way from incorporating religious literacies in secular schools, research continues to provide findings that support these literacies. Examining the history of religions and how they have shaped the core disciplines today can provide students with a tool to synthesize information in a helpful way. Religion, as a discipline in itself, may benefit students in secular literacy schools.

Citation for article referenced in this post:

Skerrett, A. (2014). Religious literacies in a secular literacy classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(2), 233-250.