Wow, Lamia. Wow.
I am so glad that my elementary school in Charlottesville was Catholic, not public. At least I expected religious indoctrination.
We also didn’t get Jeff Davis’s and Bobby Lee’s birthdays off because we had Standards, a concept familiar to the better sorts of Virginians.
Yeah, that was basically my reaction when my friend told me this. I said “How is that even legal?”, but the WRE program has apparently been designed to fall within the law – it isn’t funded by taxpayers, doesn’t take place in public school classrooms, etc. I still find it very disturbing though, and I’m certainly glad I don’t have kids going to school someplace where they might feel pressured to join their classmates on the “Bible bus”.
Although I’m an atheist, were I a parent and money wasn’t an issue then I think I’d actually prefer to send my kids to a good quality Catholic school where they’d receive serious instruction about Catholicism instead of a public school where they’d go off once a week to sing Sunday school songs and color in pictures of Bible stories.
Many public schools have explicitly religious-oriented extracurricular activities that take place in classrooms, as well, though with a range of nonreligious alternatives gor the same time slots.
Well… I don’t think I agree with that last, in the way she means it. But I do agree that “education is not complete without the Bible.” As literature and source material for the English language, as cultural studies and historical context.
I think I might send my kids to the WRE some of the time, just so they learn something of where their classmates and neighbors are coming from–and how to hold their own among them.
For those following at home: the first part of the basmala in Arabic is “Bismillah” (In the name of God). Rock fans will recognize it as being used in Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Lots of people suddenly coming out against teaching religion in schools these days. I sure miss the good ol’ days when these same idiots were up in arms when they couldn’t pray at football games and crap like that.
Fifty years ago, I suspect these same people would have freaked if their kids were learning Cyrillic, and claimed the school was indocrinating them as communists.
How about in choir, if you’re choosing Ave Maria, one of the most beautiful pieces of all time? What if you’re using religious phrases if you’re learning Latin, or Greek?
I love that the reaction from good Christians is so severe they have to close ALL county schools for safety reasons.
I think a good chunk of Western art is going to require understanding the religious context, so I think this would pass both tests.
I think I’d have to know more about what the specific goal of the lesson is. When I learned Latin, it was all classical Latin, so lots of Iupiter this and Iupiter that, but nothing Christian. (Iupiter is, of course, the god Jupiter, so this is arguably religious in and of itself. My Latin teacher was explicitly trying to teach Roman culture as well as language, so stories involving their gods easily pass both tests.) If the lesson were specifically about medieval Latin, it wouldn’t be too hard for me to imagine there’d be a religious context the student would have to understand.
The Pledge of Allegiance can suck it though. It shouldn’t have “under God” in it. It’s a violation of the First Amendment.
This has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I can’t let this pass: Ave Maria is a text, not a piece of music. There are many, many, many settings of Ave Maria.
(I suspect you mean the Schubert Ave Maria, which is neither a choral piece or really an Ave Maria, but now I’m just quibbling.)
I think the entire county’s schools should be closed permanently, all the children therein denied a public education, and the entire county should be declared ineligible to vote in any future elections.
Wouldn’t be the first time:
Haven’t read the whole thread yet, so I’m hoping someone beat me to this.
But I hope you’re clear on the difference between an assignment that is appropriately completed by a kid writing, “Christians believe that Jesus is Lord” versus one that requires the kid to write the sentence, “Jesus is Lord.”
I would have no problem with the first, but I would be pissed if the school made my kid write the second one.
I tried to say that, but you said it more clearly.
I’m aware of that – I’m Catholic, of course I know that. And yes, I was referring to Schubert’s Ave Maria. And yes, you are quibbling, and you really don’t have a point.
I’m on break. Quibbling is how I occupy myself.
When I was in the Latin club in high school (why, yes, I didn’t start dating until I was in my thirties, why do you ask?), we sang Adeste Fidelis at the holiday concert. It seemed appropriate.
And, in the spirit of fachverwirrt, it’s “Ivpiter”. 
Ivppiter
“Ooops, I still have 10 inches of column to fill up. Hey, Abdul. Can put in some more wiggly, wormy scrawls in this space… add a tiny graphic to make it look cute… yeah that’s it.”