How to teach a religion class
Category: Religion
Posted on: March 11, 2007 5:00 PM, by PZ Myers
Scalzi makes an impractical, mocking suggestion (hey, isn't that all he does?) for how to teach comparative religion:
Incidentally, there's a simple solution to the problem of teaching the history and literature of religions in public schools without "accidentally" tipping over into, you know, proselytizing: Have atheists teach the classes. Yes, that will go over swell, I know. I'm just saying.
He's right, it would never fly, but I have a suggestion that might make it work. Two rules:
The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.
All discussion of any religion must be value-neutral, that is, you can't talk about what's "good" or "bad", just state the historical and doctrinal facts.
Since most teachers are going to be Christian, that means Christianity would get short shrift, which isn't appropriate…but the obvious solution there is to have guest lecturers. Invite the local Muslim or Buddhist in to summarize Christianity from his or her perspective. That alone, of course, would guarantee that the instructor couldn't be some raving fundie—imagine a David Paszkiewicz having to sit quietly at the back of the room while a Dawkins-like atheist or a Muslim like Keith Ellison explained Christianity to the class.
some Comments
A non-atheist teaching the course?
Won't work.
No religious person is ever going to bother learning much about any other reilgion, so the-one-and-true-faith gets the preferred treatment and the biggest share of time, and the few others considered will get short shrift. The vast number of religions the religious person is unaware of will be entirely omitted.
Okay, but only if the course is subtitled: a history of human credulity. Or maybe: comparative gullibility.
Truth in advertising.
That could work, but I'm not sure value neutral is really fair. It could lead to unnecessary relativism.
At the higher education level, comparative religion is often taught by atheists, at least at the better schools. Various eastern "Divinity Schools" are known to be dense concentrations of atheists.
If you want to stay away from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam because they are major abrahamamic religions, way over done, and so on, one way to do this is to have a hindu teach the class, and compare all religions to Hinduism. There are enough Hindus around to make this work, and there are enough hindu gods to make the comparisons interesting.
The curriculum, to make it more interesting to the students, could be based on a popular theme such as kick boxing.
Compare and contrast: Vishnu vs. Moses in a Kick Boxing Match.
And so on.
The person teaching the course may not at any time or in any way, even indirectly, discuss his or her own religion.
Don't forget, this means that it'll be up to some fundie to describe atheism. Likely to get ugly.
I don't think that the specific religious orientation of the lecturers is as important as their intellectual honesty and curiosity. And, rather than have the guest lecturers brought in to discuss religions with which they are probably unfamiliar, bring in actual adherents to the "other" religions. The balance will come from the fact that you'll see multiple points of view honestly and forthrightly presented. It'll be harder to imagine that all muslims are terrorist monsters if you've seen a calm, articulate muslim telling you about his religion. Plus, you'd get a chance for students to be exposed to a real, unapologetic atheist for once.
Running this sort of curriculum well would be challenging, but not impossible.
I agree with jimBOB. Having people talk about a faith/religious tradition that they haven't experienced when they actually *have* experienced another is a waste of resources. Since tolerance of other ideas would be a great goal for these kinds of classes, exposing students to real-life people of other faiths would help push that along. However, I think that the idea of guest lecturers (at least done consistently) is an idea that mostly works at the university level. I can see some parents complaining that a teacher doesn't actually do anything if s/he "just" brings in other people to teach the class (an argument I don't buy, but others could).
Don't forget, this means that it'll be up to some fundie to describe atheism
Nope, because it's a Comparative Religion class, and atheism isn't a religion.
I like the idea of guest speakers. The Religion class could have a different speaker each week with a sincere representative of a different religion (or denomination). The parade of equally sincere, yet disagreeing apologists would help students to appreciate varieties of religious conviction.
reposted from: Pharyngula
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments
No comments:
Post a Comment