It's hairy. I took two separate religion courses in college, but they were taught from an academic point of view, not from a "moral guidance" perspective. As a matter of fact, even though the professor was a Methodist minister, he was so completely secular, and critical of church mythology, that he almost daily sent fundamentalists storming out of the class.

My problems would be:

a) At what age would it be taught. No matter how objectively academic, small children will be influenced.
Will other courses be offered on other religious texts? If not, wouldn't it appear that schools were "promoting" a particular religion?
c) How can you study a book without studying "authorship and dates?" If there is no problem with offending the sensibilities of Christians by teaching Darwinism in biology class, then there should be no problem offending them by teaching various theories of the Bible's authorship.

My knee-jerk reaction would be that no, I don't want it in my child's school. There's no reason to have a single class on a single religion in any K-12 school. Later, when courses are more focused, sure, but a simple "World Religion" course would be plenty, and wouldn't offer the obvious stigma of promoting a single religion.

My knee-jerk reaction would be that no, I don't want it in my child's school. There's no reason to have a single class on a single religion in any K-12 school. Later, when courses are more focused, sure, but a simple "World Religion" course would be plenty, and wouldn't offer the obvious stigma of promoting a single religion.

Make it an elective for college-bound students planning to study religion or world faiths, or even international relations.

I dunno, though. I don't see the benefit in k-12 of studying just one religion. If anything religions should be compared and contrasted. How often do world events require us to know about St Paul? On the other hand, people boggle over the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims every day.

For that reason, I don't think you can do it responsibly without making it a class on all the major religions. Maybe after that you could offer advanced courses in individual religions, but are there books like this on Islam or Buddhism?

Anyway, like the article says, kids simply don't have the open slot for such in-depth study of one religion. Heck, I'd much rather see kids taking home economics or just regular economics. We already spend too much time turning out kids that know archaic details of history and who can't feed themselves or balance their checkbook...

I don't see the benefit in k-12 of studying just one religion

There would be a big benefit if, say, Muslim students elected to study Christianity, don't you think? And Christian students could get nore out of their faith by studying it. As I say, it would only be an elective. Besides, it would probably only be in private schools, anyhow....realistically now, how many public schools would offer such a course for more than a few weeks before the somone sued?

In that light, though RW, there are private schools that are bible-oriented, basically like Christian maddrassas. Heck, I have no problem with it in private schools, it would probably be MORE objective and scholorly than what most teach.

I just think in public schools, kids are already too diffuse with needless stuff. Leaning even more toward the intangible just gives them less time to learn real skills.

Christian maddrassas

Except that Christian terrorists aren't recruited from them.

I just think in public schools, kids are already too diffuse with needless stuff. Leaning even more toward the intangible just gives them less time to learn real skills.

Now I agree with this. There is too much crap out there; in my high school, for example, there was a class you could take for an English credit(s?) that was called "Fantastic and Supernatural".
In this class, you read books by Anne Rice, Stephen King and Dean Koontz, you read the classic horror fiction like "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", etc. Ghosts, ESP, witchcraft and all that were discussed.

If such "diffuse" opportunities for learning as that are to be presented, I think I'd prefer this class (if it's still being offered, that is) to be replaced with one studying the Bible. But I know, that's just me.