To the Editor:
In Ben Selznick's, "Teaching Not Preaching," (April 25), he asks the question about whether religion can be taught comparatively at public schools. Reading this was strange for me, because I always assumed people were taught the rough basics of major religions in public schools. Growing up in Massachusetts -- where most people are religious, though it is not a place where you might expect religion to be taught in school -- we were taught about religion not once, but twice.
The first time, in eighth grade, was a brief overview of most major religions. We started with Eastern ones, and eventually moved on to Western faiths. Our teacher, to the best of my recollection, did an excellent job focusing on the basic ideas and tenets of religions in both a historical and an academic sense. Neither I nor anyone I knew felt bothered by the class.
The next time around, the very next year, we had a class called "World Cultures." Essentially, the idea was to take a region (the Middle East, India, specific part of Africa or China) and study it historically, while factoring in religious developments. When we focused on the Middle East, we tackled Judaism, Christianity and Islam, again from a historical context. Once we reached India, we did the same thing with Hinduism.
This is just one person's experience with religion in public school, but in my very liberal town, no one ever appeared to have a problem with this approach. While obviously there are dangers to teaching religion in public schools, if it is taught by a teacher who is not out to impose his or her own religion, it can be a very valuable teaching tool.
