Religion Should Be Taught In Public Schools

Early in the year 2002, a kindergarten student, Kayla, was told by a teacher that she was not allowed to pray with her friends at lunch. This action caused her family to file a lawsuit against the school district in New York. The federal judge of the case ordered the school to allow the girl to take part in this religious activity (Kafer 1). Many other situations like the one involving Kayla have happened all across the country. Cases like the one in New York have caused people to question what should be taught in schools. Many kids have been denied the right to practice religious beliefs in schools because of their school’s lack of religious policies. There are three main causes for questioning religious rights in public schools: the student’s

Both sides of the argument have cited the Constitution in their works to prove why they think the way that they do. Krista Kafer, the senior expert on education policy at the Heritage Foundation, along with many others, prompts “According to the Constitution, the American people are guaranteed the right to practice religion free from government intervention. But interpreting the First Amendment clause ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof,’ has not been easy, particularly pertaining to public schools. Nonetheless, the high court has said, generally speaking, that voluntary student expression and the study of religion are protected but proselytizing and school-sanctioned or teacher-led prayers are not”(1). In other words, Kafer feels that public schools should encourage religious instruction in their curriculum. Some of the court systems in the United States have chosen to recognize that students have a right to religious expression and instruction of religion’s role in history, philosophy, and arts (Kafer 1). Others, on the other side of the spectrum, see it, religion being taught in schools, as the government forcing religion down their child’s throat. Kevin Ryan, founder of the Center for Character and Social

According to Edd Doerr, the president of the American Humanist Association, “teachers are very seldom adequately trained to teach about religion. There are no really suitable textbooks on the market. Educators and experts on religion are nowhere near agreement on precisely what ought to be taught, how much should be taught and at what grade levels, and whether such material should be integrated into social studies classes, when appropriate, or offered in separate courses, possibly electives”(3). Doerr is mainly saying, if teachers were trained on how to teach religion then what should it replace in the curriculum or what kind of textbook is best to use. Textbooks mostly leave religion out of them because of the lack of space. If they were to put religion in, it would be to replace something else. Kafer mentions that in California there are workshops for teachers to attend. The workshops help teachers fully understand the First Amendment and all the issues that pertain to it