An intimate cross-country look at the new debate over religion in the public schools A suburban Boston school unwittingly started a firestorm of controversy over a sixth-grade field trip. The class was visiting a mosque to learn about world religions when a handful of boys, unnoticed by their teachers, joined the line of worshippers and acted out the motions of the Muslim call to prayer. A video of the prayer went viral with the title “Wellesley, Massachusetts Public School Students Learn to Pray to Allah.” Charges flew that the school exposed the children to Muslims who intended to convert American schoolchildren. Wellesley school officials defended the course, but also acknowledged the delicate dance teachers must perform when dealing with religion in the classroom. Courts long ago banned public school teachers from preaching of any kind. But the question remains: How much should schools teach about the world’s religions? Answering that question in recent decades has pitted schools against their communities. Veteran education journalist Linda K. Wertheimer spent months with that class, and traveled to other communities around the nation, listening to voices on all sides of the controversy, including those of clergy, teachers, children, and parents who are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, or atheist. In Lumberton, Texas, nearly a hundred people filled a school-board meeting to protest a teacher’s dress-up exercise that allowed freshman girls to try on a burka as part of a lesson on Islam. In Wichita, Kansas, a Messianic Jewish family’s opposition to a bulletin-board display about Islam in an elementary school led to such upheaval that the school had to hire extra security. Across the country, parents have requested that their children be excused from lessons on Hinduism and Judaism out of fear they will shy away from their own faiths. But in Modesto, a city in the heart of California’s Bible Belt, teachers have avoided problems since 2000, when the school system began requiring all high school freshmen to take a world religions course. Students receive comprehensive lessons on the three major world religions, as well as on Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and often Shintoism, Taoism, and Confucianism. One Pentecostal Christian girl, terrified by “idols,” including a six-inch gold Buddha, learned to be comfortable with other students’ beliefs. Wertheimer’s fascinating investigation, which includes a return to her rural Ohio school, which once ran weekly Christian Bible classes, reveals a public education system struggling to find the right path forward and offers a promising roadmap for raising a new generation of religiously literate Americans.

Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School provides insights from current educational theory and the best contemporary classroom teaching and learning, and suggests tasks, activities and further reading that are designed to enhance the quality of initial school experience for the student teacher. Key themes addressed include: the place of Religious Education in the curriculum state and faith community schooling developing schemes of work language and religious literacy teaching religion at 16 plus religion and moral education collective worship. This second edition has been thoroughly updated throughout to take account of changes to policy and the curriculum. It includes two additional chapters on ‘Religious Education and Citizenship’ and ‘Teaching Religious Education at A level’, as well as new versions of three original chapters ‘Teaching Children with Special Educational Needs’, ‘Religious Education and Moral Education’ and ‘Resources for Religious Education’. Supporting teachers in developing levels of religious and theological literacy, both of individual pupils and the society as a whole, this comprehensive and accessible text will give practising teachers and students an introduction to the craft of teaching Religious Education in the secondary school.

Hats of Faith is a simple and striking introduction to the shared custom of religious head coverings. With bright images and a carefully researched interfaith text, this thoughtful book inspires understanding and celebrates our culturally diverse modern world.

This volume provides a detailed evaluation of a unique education program implemented in secondary schools in Georgia to enhance teachers' religious literacy and their ability to promote this in schools and classrooms. The text demonstrates that religious literacy can be proactively taught to students, whilst also highlighting key considerations and tensions around religious liberty in the American South. Spanning rural, urban, and suburban Georgia, the text presents an original approach to the growing field of religious literacy by foregrounding community voices and perspectives. Using rich empirical data and qualitative interviews with religious and political leaders, scholars, teachers, parents, and students, the book evaluates the challenges, efficacy, and benefits of the program in view of rising political polarization. In doing so, the text tackles historical and contemporary issues around race and religion, and considers tensions between religious and non-religious groups in the US. Ultimately, the book presents a significant contribution to the dialogue around fostering religious literacy in schools. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in religious education, teacher education, and religious literacy more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education, as well as diversity and religion in America, will also benefit from this volume.

Children's and educational.