Dale Alquist: bring God back into the classroom

[tomarin]

i was watching my favorite program on EWTN last night, “G.K. Chesterton – the Apostle of Common Sense” and the topic was education. the host dale alquist highlighted chesterton’s dismissive attitude to freud, darwin and marx and said the answer to the problem of modern education was to take these three “bad boys” out of the classroom and put God back in.

overall it was a pretty persuasive argument (especially with regard to marx and freud), but i wondered what exactly that last line meant in practical terms. since dale isn’t available to me to ask him directly, would anyone here care to speculate what he meant?

does it mean simply allowing prayer into the schools? introducing non-denominational religious education? replacing public education with religious education?

and how would any of this be practical given the enormous religious pluralism we live with in this country?

 

[KCT]

Not gonna’ happen in our lifetime. The ACLU is too powerful.

 

[jwashu]

For public school I don’t see how it’s possible except for this, and I have considered it for years.

I don’t see why we can’t have a quiet time in the mornings and afternoons and before meals in Public Schools. For the athiest they can meditate or rest and those who are religious can pray.

The arguement is always that if most of the kids are x religion, it will make the other kids feel bad that they are not. While this it true, it’s life. Kids notice when they aren’t part of the norm, whatever that may be. We aren’t going to make everyone exactly the same.

I do know many Christians who would be upset if their children went to school with mostly Muslims and they prayed their prayers. The child might eventually want to reject Christ as only a prophet… so I can see the point.

However that is a risk you may have to take if we ever want prayer in public school again. We can’t say that people can only pray to our understanding of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) because everyone else is paying the same taxes we are and thus deserver equil treatment right?

That is why the solution has been to just deny all pray in public schools. I don’t see why you can’t pray privately though whenever you want.

Joe

 

[tomarin]

Not gonna’ happen in our lifetime. The ACLU is too powerful.

the aclu is controversial because they zealously defend the “separation of church and state”. i can think of some reasons why we, as catholics, would not want the state to have an official religion, namely because that would be a protestant one, and we don’t want our children learning protestant doctrine in schools.

upon further reflection, i think what mr. ahlquist had in mind by “bringing god back into school” was less about prayer than reforming the content of what is taught in school so that it doesn’t emphasize secular thinkers whose theories have been used to marginalize belief in god.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I wonder how one teaches literature without any reference to God. Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer all have theological references in their writings. Also art history, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Giotto all have religious imagery. How do you explain the Pieta’ without mentioning God? And the countless Madonna and Child paintings. How can one look at these masterpieces without wondering who these people were?

 

[pprimeau1976]

I don’t think that we should be focusing on bringing God back into the classroom.

Instead, I think Christians should focus on eliminating public funding for schools and provide educational vouchers for children to be spent in any way the parent sees fit. It should apply to home-schools, Catholic/Christian schools, Hebrew schools, Islamic schools, or schools that don’t talk about God at all. I think this is a much more achievable goal.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

I don’t think that we should be focusing on bringing God back into the classroom.

Instead, I think Christians should focus on eliminating public funding for schools and provide educational vouchers for children to be spent in any way the parent sees fit. It should apply to home-schools, Catholic/Christian schools, Hebrew schools, Islamic schools, or schools that don’t talk about God at all. I think this is a much more achievable goal.

I tend to second this, for the same reasons. I am sure the NEA and the PTA are fighting against it as we speak.

 

[HouseArrest]

I don’t think that we should be focusing on bringing God back into the classroom.

Instead, I think Christians should focus on eliminating public funding for schools and provide educational vouchers for children to be spent in any way the parent sees fit. It should apply to home-schools, Catholic/Christian schools, Hebrew schools, Islamic schools, or schools that don’t talk about God at all. I think this is a much more achievable goal.

This makes a whole lot of sense to me. It makes sense to me that the government provides a free education to all children, but why do they have a monopoly on providing it?

 

[manualman]

Here’s another vote for vouchers.

We’ve lost our vision in the catholic school system. For decades, we’ve marketed the academics and seen enrollments plummet. The academic achievement is important, but it ISN’T why catholic schools were established. Catholic schools came about in an era of American history when protestants dominated the public school system. Catholic parents and leaders wisely saw that this was undermining the future of the church and responded by opening our OWN schools that excelled in academic performance AND provided a comprehensive catholic worldview that permeated every subject and the total culture of the school.

Today, the protestants have been thrown out of the public schools and the secularists are in charge. By eliminating references to God in history, social studies, language, and even science schools are by default imparting a practical agnosticism into kids. When every subject is covered with no mention of God, the implicit message is that God doesn’t matter.

Sadly, Catholic parents and even Catholic educators today have either not made this connection and trumpted it like they did in the old days of protestant domination of the public schools or they are so worried about offending parishioners who send kids to the public schools that they keep silent.

This has to stop! Sunday Catholicism is no Catholicism at all. Our kids need to have the faith taught both at home and in school so that they learn to incorporate it in all phases and at all times of their lives. Catholic schools must be truly Catholic in their culture and in ALL portions of the curriculum or there is no point in having them, test scores be danged. Then Catholic parents need to be told that it is WORTH the sacrifices to ensure that our kids won’t hear the wrong message by the glaring ABSENCE of God in their daily school lives.

 

[mlchance]

Every Catholic should enroll their children in Catholic school. Every Catholic should contribute 5% of their gross annual income for the support of Catholic schools.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[gardenswithkids]

I wonder how one teaches literature without any reference to God. Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer all have theological references in their writings. Also art history, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Giotto all have religious imagery. How do you explain the Pieta’ without mentioning God? And the countless Madonna and Child paintings. How can one look at these masterpieces without wondering who these people were?

I think it’s impossible to teach full understanding of these classic works without also at least informing the students the religious viewpoints that influenced the authors and artists. (The same applies to history.) Consequently, secular high schools may barely touch classic works, instead focussing on works from modern culture. The reading list from our local public high school appauled me. It seems some people who decide the curriculm banned appreciation and understanding of the classic works of art and literature along with God.