The Case For Teaching the Bible-Times Magazine Article

Miss Kendrick came ready, with props. The day's topic was the Gospel of Matthew. "You can divide all the Beatitudes into two parts," Jennifer Kendrick explained to her teenage audience. "The 'Blessed are the whatevers,' like 'the meek,' and then the reward they will get. So I've made some puzzle pieces here." She passed out construction-paper sheets, each bearing either the name of a virtuous group or its reward, in black marker. "And you've got to find the person who has the other half. What's the first one in the Bible?"

"The poor in spirit," mumbled a crew-cut boy.

"O.K. What goes with the poor in spirit?"

A girl in the front of the room replied, reading from her sheet, "For they will see God."

"Nope," chirped Kendrick. "O.K., find the person that matches yours. I'll take the roll."

By which she meant an official attendance roll. Because the day was Thursday, not Sunday. And the location was not Oakwood Baptist Church, a mile down Texas State Highway 46, but New Braunfels High School, a public school that began offering a Bible-literacy class last fall. The class has its share of conservative Christians. Front-row center sat Rachel Williams, 18, whose mother does teach Sunday school at Oakwood. But not 20 ft. away sat a blond atheist who asked that her name not be used because she hasn't outed herself to her parents. Why take a Bible class? I asked her. "Some of my friends are Christian," she said, shrugging, "and they would argue about, like, whether you can be a Christian and believe in evolution, and I'm like, Okaaaay ... clueless." Williams signed up for a similar reason. "If somebody is going to carry on a sophisticated conversation with me, I would rather know what they're talking about than look like a moron or fight my way through it," she says. The class has "gotten a lot of positive feedback," she adds. "It's going to really rise in popularity."

The same might be said about public-school courses on the Bible nationwide. There aren't that many. But they're rising in popularity. Last year Georgia became the first state in memory to offer funds for high school electives on the Old and New Testaments using the Bible as the core text. Similar funding was discussed in several other legislatures, although the initiatives did not become law. Meanwhile, two privately produced curriculums crafted specifically to pass church-state muster are competing for use in individual schools nationwide. Combined, they are employed in 460 districts in at least 37 states. The numbers are modest, but their publishers expect them to soar. The smaller of the two went into operation just last year but is already into its second 10,000-copy printing, has expressions of interest from a thousand new districts this year and expects many more. The larger publisher claims to be roughly doubling the number of districts it adds each year. These new curriculums plus polls suggesting that over 60% of Americans favor secular teaching about the Bible suggest that a Miss Kendrick may soon be talking about Matthew in a school near you.

To some, this idea seems retrograde. Citing a series of Supreme Court decisions culminating in 1963's Abington Township School District v. Schempp, which removed prayer and devotion from the classroom, the skeptics ask whether it is safe to bring back the source of all that sectarianism. But a new, post-Schempp coalition insists it is essential to do so. It argues that teaching the Bible in schools--as an object of study, not God's received word--is eminently constitutional. The Bible so pervades Western culture, it says, that it's hard to call anyone educated who hasn't at least given thought to its key passages. Finally, it claims that the current civic climate makes it a "now more than ever" proposition. Says Stephen Prothero, chair of the Boston University religion department, whose new book, Religious Literacy (Harper SanFrancisco), presents a compelling argument for Bible-literacy courses: "In the late '70s, [students] knew nothing about religion, and it didn't matter. But then religion rushed into the public square. What purpose could it possibly serve for citizens to be ignorant of all that?" The "new consensus" for secular Bible study argues that knowledge of it is essential to being a full-fledged, well-rounded citizen. Let's examine that argument.

Is it constitutional?

To read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601845-1,00.html

Paper 2 Revised

Rachel Williams
Micah Robbins
ENG1310.115

Mandatory Education: Privilege or Exclusory?

One of the most controversial topics of today's society in the United States is education; and whether the funds that are currently provided are efficient or lack competence. Some believe that the government needs to spread funds around more evenly. They say that inner city schools are underfunded and weak while upper class schools have so much money that they don't even know what to do with it. Others disagree with this statement and conclude that the government should grant funds to those schools that have succeeded, regardless of who attends there. My belief is that the success lies within the students, not the supplied finances, or lack there of.

Growing up, I went to a private school where everything came way too for us for our own good. I assumed that once I went to junior high at a public school, I'd lose all the things that were once available to me. In some ways, I was right. I'd lose the ability to pray with my classmates in the morning because, according to the law, we were only allowed to pray quietly and individually. I'd lose the chance to be on the cheerleading squad because I wasn't in gymnastics. I'd lose having teachers be at my every call because the ratio of students to faculty was much greater. What I didn't lose was my chance to still succeed in anything I deemed important. Granted, we didn't have the technology that my Christian private school did. We didn't have quite the funds. We didn't have the parental involvement I was once accustomed to. But what we did have was ourselves. We relied on our own hope and motivation when times got tough. For example, my 8th grade year the Student Council needed more money to help send a little girl we were sponsoring into surgery because she had a tumor. We had to raise all the money ourselves because our faculty member sponsor gave up. She even contacted the parents to tell them that our school wouldn't be able to help because of "insufficient funds this year." We were determined to help that little five year old girl. I can't even tell you her name now, but I remember her face when we presented her and her parents with the check. All I remember thinking was that we were told we couldn't do it, and we did. I ran that money drive, and I've never felt more useful in my entire life than when I proved the adults wrong and helped the girl that they had given up on.

I think that people used the term "insufficient funds" and lack of… whatever it is you want to blame it on: technology/help/faculty/motivation… as a reason to compensate for the children “slacking off.” Why should we give money to the schools that don't try? All you need is motivation. Wasting money on schools that will continue to fail, regardless of how much money they attain, seems ludicrous, and appears to me like a waste of my tax dollars. Plus, it's not like those schools can't change for the better.

Take the movie "Stand and Deliver" (Menendez & Musca, 1988) for example. This moving film took place at an inner city high school, Garfield High, where the students were barely taking Algebra as upper classmen. The administrators had given up all hope because if there was no money, there was no technology, supplies, or willing, qualified teachers. If there was no technology or supplies, the kids couldn't learn. If the kids couldn't learn, their grades were low. If their grades were low, the school didn't get money. It was a snowball effect that had everyone feeling hopeless and defeated. When all their hope had been lost, a teacher came in who had faith in the students and pushed them to use what they had to the highest degree. He strongly believed that if they pushed themselves hard enough, those students that everyone deemed as "worthless" could achieve anything that they set their minds to. He took them from Algebra to Calculus in the matter of a year or so. The majority of them ended up passing the AP test twice because the government thought they were cheating. No one accepted that those students would ever honestly amount to anything. This movie (that's based on a true story) is just an illustration and a perfect example of my point. You can only accomplish what's in front of you, and if that's very little then that just means you must work harder and push yourself further. So many scholarships are out there for minorities like those students, and I'm sure they could've gotten them with a little effort, despite what kind of condition their school is in. In fact, I’m confident that being from an inner city school would only help them get that scholarship or grant.

All you need in school is motivation, which comes from yourself if no one else will support you with it. To succeed in the classroom, you need a brain, which everyone has. You need a reason to go, even if it's just because you have to. You can only conquer what's in front of you. If that is very little, do the best you can. Eventually you will reach the top, it just may take a little longer than it does for some. Hard work pays off in the end because you'll know you earned it. No handouts, no pity, no charity- it was all you... and that's worth it in the long run.

Menendez, R. (Writer/Director), & Musca, T. (Writer). (1988). Stand and Deliver [Motion picture]. United States.

A Light in the Darkness

Two summers ago I attended a Baptist Church Camp in Glorietta, New Mexico. The entire first two days we were there, we had consistant let downs. These disappointments quickly began to ruin our week: the food was terrible, they were understaffed, it was constantly raining, and the bugs were taking over our long term field trip.

When we went to Worship that night, we were all tired from the impossible things they tried to make us do in a recess type session that day. We had to accomplish "missions," such as getting from one side of a rope to the other, carrying different people. Another goal was to name as many Bible verses as we could, minimum of 30. I never realized how little I knew. We couldn't go on to the next task until we completed the present one as a team. What should have been a Rec Time of 45 minutes, tops, turned into Hell for 3 and 1/2 long hours. By the time we entered the Chapel to sing and pray and listen to an hour long sermon, all we wanted was to sit down somewhere. Everyone was dozing off and the staff could tell that something needed to be done.

Then out of nowhere, the lights and electricity went off. All we could hear was the pitter patter of the rain. We all sat there, wondering if the staff had done it just for effect. But when we saw them frantically running around, finding random flashlights, we knew this was real. This was God's intervention for us.

For 3 hours (an hour and a half after we were supposed to be in bed) we all sat in the dark, singing songs from our minds and souls and not from a screen. For 3 hours we closed our eyes and prayed to God to help us change ourselves, to believe in miracles and second chances. Then, the camp leader ended our session in prayer and thanked God for the near intervention we all witnessed that night. As soon as he said Amen, the lights came on.

But every counselor,pastor, and camp staff member was at the front.

"Augustus"

Ok so I know we were supposed to wait, but I just couldn't. I was so excited about getting to look at and interpret art that I wanted to show the class all about Gus and how exciting, moving, and appealing this frozen moment in time really is.
"Augustus" is a photograph of Augustus "Gus" McCrae as played by Robert Duvall in the motion picture "Lonesome Dove." The painting tells the audience so much about not only the character, but the people that surrounded him and the lifestyle that he lived.
His frail body seems like it once did hard labor in the sun, observing his tough, tan, wrinkled skin. His mustache is greying and his hair barely visible, showing signs of the coming of old age, the wearing down of life. However, his laugh wrinkles give away the impression that he has definitely lived an exciting and fulfilling life and his shirt is practically glowing, illuminating the whole room.
His lifestyle is less exciting. The shirt he dons doesn't fit correctly. It's top button doesn't even close, his sleeves are inches too short, and it's stretching to reach his belt line. The stain on his belly depicts a "manly life," or too messy and masculine for napkins. His whole appearance is this way, except for his hat. His cowboy hat doesn't really match the rest of his clothes. It's more of a Sunday hat that he'd wear to church to take off in prayer and shake the preacher's hand. The only thing that shows any kind of discomfort is the sweat line right around the braided band.
The wall behind him on the entire right side of the photograph is barren, except for one window with no drapes or curtains. Nothing is hung on the wall. There are no chairs that are visible. It is simple, and I'm sure he likes it that way. On the right side are a pair of antlers and a coat rack.
This picture oddly cuts off at Gus' hips, so we can't see his full body, which to me shows that we need to focus in more on his face. The first thing I noticed was that, although he's indoors, his face is shaded from his hat. Even with my 20/10 vision, I must get right up to the photograph to see that he is looking down, at what I do not know. I immediately realize that I want to know, and that is the most appealing part of all.

Hopefully that worked, folks!