Teaching for Tolerance: The Case for Religious Studies in American Public Schools

When the average American student enters the classroom for the first time in a public school, he is greeted by classmates from an astonishing diversity of backgrounds. They may be from different economic classes. They may be of a different race. They may have been raised by parents with different political opinions. And they may be of different religions. In the classroom, any discussion of those religious differences is avoided. Religion, when it is acknowledged at all, is treated as a historical phenomenon, and its relevance to the modern world is not usually discussed. Teachers, like most Americans, believe that religion is off-limits to the schools, thus they avoid the subject altogether for fear of controversy