Some FAQs About This Site
General Information:
Site Rationale:
__________
This site is supported by OABITAR, (Objectivity, Accuracy, and Balance In
Teaching About Religion), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The
organization promotes objectivity, accuracy, and balance in educating youngsters
about worldviews. The aim is to maintain a level playing field for all
citizens in keeping with the civic mandate for public schools. Hence, a major goal of
OABITAR is to seek the addition of nonreligion to public school curricula that embraces teaching about
religion. The coordinator of OABITAR is John Massen, San Francisco, California.
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The website was developed and is maintained by Instructional Systems,
Sacramento, California. This company’s prior curriculum project for OABITAR
yielded a supplemental instructional module (printed) for grades 6-12, Different
Drummers: Nonconforming Thinkers in History[published by Trafford Publishing
(1999)] .
Curriculum consultants for and leading developers of this website are Dr.
Paul Geisert and Dr. Mynga Futrell. Drs. Geisert and Futrell have been classroom
teachers and teacher educators. They authored the college
textbook, Teachers, Computers, and Curriculum: Using Microcomputers in the
Classroom [published in 3rd edition by Allyn and Bacon].
Dr. Gerald A. Larue, Emeritus Professor of Biblical
History and Archaeology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, served as the content expert for the Different Drummers
materials development project. Professor Larue is author of numerous books
and articles, among them Freethought Across the Centuries: Toward a New Age
of Enlightenment [published by the Humanist Press (1996)]. He
continues as the website’s religion consultant while serving as Adjunct Professor of
Gerontology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
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Please feel free to contact us with
suggestions, additions or deletions, or requests for additional
information. You may write by selecting instrnsys@aol.com
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Nonconformity
to religion exists as an important factor both in history and in
contemporary society. So, shouldn't schools teach about it? The religion realm, including
dissent to religion, offers
students some of the best examples of interplay between conforming and
nonconforming thought in humankind.
Throughout history there have been those who have held to ideas and
worldviews far different from, or directly confronting, the strongly held
religious beliefs of their neighbors. Holding to an idea that challenges
tradition or authority has seldom been easy. In authoritarian nations, it can be
dangerous. Even today’s democratic societies can make things pretty tough for
the different thinking citizen. The social processes and pressures with
respect to religion, whether they occur
in history or in the present day, make for particularly interesting study.
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Students need to overcome stereotypes that lead to prejudice and
discrimination. Please look carefully at the Goals of Different Drummers
listed on the home page.
Learning about "different thinkers,"
some of whom are religious and others of whom exhibit nonconformity to religion,
can help young people learn to handle religion and religious differences
sensitively, and in such a way as to promote mutual understanding. How
better can you prepare young people for their encounters with religious
diversity in the public realm? How better can you enable them to handle
all those they come across without having to be either offensive or defensive about religion? Future
citizens need to develop the kind of sympathy that gives serious hearing to
diverse points of view within the public square. Conducted appropriately,
these studies will contribute directly to the building of a worthwhile civic
order.
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Today’s youngsters gain from learning about people whose belief systems and traditions set them
apart from the mainstream. Such study offers students many opportunities
to look beyond themselves and their own cultural traditions and beliefs to those whose cultures, ideas and
practices differ from their own.
Students can consider the situations of people
whose contemplation and independent reasoning have resulted in their reaching
conclusions or holding to perspectives far out of line with prevalent belief
concerning important matters. They can learn, too, from the widely varied
responses of society. Some examples: Voltaire was jailed for his
nonconformist attitudes, whereas Mark Twain made a good living despite his
irreverence. Martin Luther, a "nonconforming Catholic," started
a Protestant revolution. Lavoisier, a "nonconforming alchemist"
is now regarded as the "Father of Modern Chemistry." The Buddha was a
"nonconforming Hindu" but founded a major religion. In our
modern times, the reputation of Elizabeth Cady Stanton has lost ground to Susan
B. Anthony, in part because Stanton as suffragist did not conform (despite
having organized the first women's rights convention and written the 19th Amendment).
Many interesting lives and stories.
Students also can grow in empathy and understanding for others. What is it to be a minority, perhaps even a tiny
minority, immersed within a population that generally holds to other
understandings and practices?
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Well, in the U.S., it is supposed to be so. That is the civic
promise of religious liberty the Constitution offers to every citizen.
And, on the whole, present-day American society and law does grant us all
considerable liberty to think and to believe, or not believe, as we wish.
As a nation, we pride ourselves on being a
pluralistic society that accepts all kinds of believers, even tiny minority
religions. But longstanding societal biases are not readily
overcome. Population minorities who think "too differently"
(e.g., atheists) are not treated kindly by mainstream society.
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The United States accords liberty
of conscience to all its citizens. Constitutional guarantees
of governmental neutrality concerning religion exist to
enable the entire population to live amicably and to believe as they wish
concerning religion.
Institutionalizing state-church separation into our laws (by way of the
first sixteen words of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights) was an enlightened and
unconventional idea in western history. But, like other ideals, such as
"equality," it is still a "work in progress." Even as our own nation
loudly proclaims individual rights and
freedoms for all citizens, certain “different notions” are not readily
tolerated. Society presses toward a conformity—to recognize and acknowledge at
least some sort of deity or force (a religious worldview). For an
individual to do otherwise (i.e., to hold or declare a nonreligious worldview) is
proscribed. As any nonbeliever can attest, society takes note of independent
thinking that leads too far from mainstream notions.
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Do you teach in a public school? If yes, then you are part of its
"neutrality picture." Even though religions will vary in general cultural legitimacy,
U. S. public
schools, being government institutions, aren’t to privilege one religion over
another; nor are they to privilege religion generally over nonreligion. With
respect to the diversity of possible personal worldviews, they stay neutral.
The
ideal of neutrality concerning religion has been a touchstone of Supreme Court
decisions concerning public education since 1947. The neutrality ideal helps ensure religious liberty within the nation’s schools, for all the students, irrespective of their
religious or nonreligious
worldviews. Using DD materials assists educators:
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The DD materials can help you to nurture in students appropriate
attitudes and behaviors concerning religion--attitudes and behaviors that support
our civic
ideals.
A classroom teacher imparts an image to students of how America really looks
upon its citizens’ religious freedom. Concerning religion, the best possible position for teachers
is that they foster pluralism. Pluralism goes beyond diversity.
Whether a young person is growing up in a home where the type of worldview is
majority or minority, dominant in society or marginalized, familiar or
unfamiliar, popular or taboo, the child in the public school is a citizen of the
school. The youngster is deserving of a civil classroom in which all belong and all learn
to work together. In such a place, all will be practiced in respectful
acknowledgment and due regard for each person’s liberty of conscience.
The teacher, the model for how the nation regards its citizens, sees to it that
every "budding citizen" is afforded liberty of conscience.
Will our nation
continue to preserve one of its most precious freedoms? Civil classrooms
are necessary to this end. School is where we build the future.
Religious
liberty is something we want to keep and protect. Should you wish
your students well
prepared to do exactly that, then the Different Drummers supplemental
materials will support your efforts.
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Thank you for checking the FAQs about Different Drummers
!
