Educator John Camardella found himself fielding questions when he started teaching a world religions class at northwest suburban Prospect High School seven years ago. After all, Prospect is a public school, where a mixture of government and religion can provoke debate, criticism and even outrage.
“How can you teach religion in public schools? Is it illegal?” parents, staff and colleagues would ask him.
Yes, you can teach religion in public schools and, yes, it is legal when using an academic rather than a devotional approach, among other guidelines that can pass muster under the U.S. Constitution.
Nowadays, Camardella’s world religions class has grown in popularity, covering the history of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and others.
“One of the greatest things we have to deal with in the United States is understanding religion,” Camardella said.
And in that vein, Camardella and other educators are hoping that a milestone this week — one that grew from efforts out of Prospect High School — will be a springboard for more public schools to teach religious studies.
The National Council for the Social Studies for the first time published guidelines on how to study religion “in ways that are constitutionally sound” and consistent with high academic standards. The guidelines are part of a larger framework that guides states and school districts on standards for what students should know in the social sciences, including history, civics, geography and economics.
The document published this week “recognizes religious studies as an essential part of the social studies curriculum,” according to the national council, and aids schools in developing curriculum for religious studies instruction.
“This is the first time that a national education body has endorsed guidelines for how to teach religion from an academic standpoint,” said Benjamin Marcus, a religious literacy specialist and instructor at the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C. Marcus was part of the team that wrote the religious studies guideline document.
Among other writers, the team also included Mount Prospect’s Camardella and Naperville Central High School teacher Seth Brady, a social studies teacher whose courses include comparative religions.
The three men hosted a religious studies education conference last year at Prospect High School, which was instrumental in putting together the guidelines intended to cover K-12 grades. So even the youngest children could be exposed to a religious studies curriculum involving high academic standards.
“The study of religion from an academic, nondevotional perspective in primary, middle, and secondary school is critical for decreasing religious illiteracy and the bigotry and prejudice it fuels,” the guidelines state.
The document also outlines that schools should strive to make students aware of religions but not press students to accept any religion; that schools may expose students to diverse religious views but may not impose any particular view; that schools should not promote or denigrate religion or seek to conform students to any particular belief.
“It is academic non-devotional studies. It is not religion in schools,” Brady said.
Under the guidelines, for example, students would be involved in analyzing the impact of religion on culture and society and “examining historical and contemporary perspectives in order to understand how religious beliefs, practices and communities are created, maintained and transformed over time.”
Whether states and districts across the country will begin using the guidelines and infusing religious studies into school curriculum is uncertain.
Illinois recently revised its social science standards, which will go into effect this coming school year, but specific religious studies standards were not included. At the time of the revisions to Illinois standards, the National Council for the Social Studies had not yet published the new religious studies guidelines.
Lawrence Paska, the council’s executive director, said the organization doesn’t keep track of the religious studies courses already offered around the country, but such courses are usually elective classes that are either standalone courses, or material embedded in history or other social science classes. His organization and others will be getting the word out on the religious studies guidelines, through conferences, workshops and other events, he said.
