Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby writing for Popular Information consider the attempts to push religion into public schools.
In states across the country, educational officials are seeking to incorporate Christianity into public school curriculums. While understanding religion is part of a well-rounded education, these efforts have been controversial because they emphasize Christianity over other faiths and give young students the impression that theological concepts are facts. Parents, including many Christians, are concerned that these lessons are less about educating students than indoctrinating them.
In Texas, for example, the state school board voted on Tuesday to preliminarily approve a new curriculum that introduces students to Jesus and Christianity, beginning in kindergarten. The K-5 curriculum created by the state, known as Bluebonnet, has been derided by religious studies experts and others. These critics say “the curriculum’s lessons allude to Christianity more than any other religion, which… could lead to the bullying and isolation of non-Christian students, undermine church-state separation and grant the state far-reaching control over how children learn about religion.”
The Bluebonnet curriculum, for example, teaches kindergarten students about the biblical story of Genesis and how it has inspired various works of art. Students are asked “to identify the order of creation.” Four-year-olds may come away from the lesson believing that it is a fact that God created the world in six days.
A fifth-grade lesson about Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper contains “a lengthy quote from the Gospel of of Matthew” and asks students to consider “how the disciples may have felt upon hearing Jesus telling them about his betrayal and death.” Another section of the fifth-grade curriculum emphasized that pre-Civil War abolitionists “relied on a deep Christian faith” without mentioning that many Southerners justified slavery on biblical grounds.
