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[This is the continuation of a series of posts beginning with "Should The Bible Be Taught In Public Schools?" about the decision by the Texas State Board of Education to authorize the teaching of an elective course on Bible in public high schools. It brings to the surface just about every question imaginable about the relationship between religion, politics, and the Bible.]
“The National Council of Jewish Women and an individual expressed concern that the vague guidelines under consideration focus on skills, not content, and include no meaningful standards schools can use to teach how the Bible has been influential in history and literature. The individual urged the adoption of clear, specific, and unbiased curriculum standards that promote a respectful study of the Bible and protect the religious freedom of students.” Comments
The words in this comment that jumped out at me are: “focus on skills, not content.”
During my Air Force wife years in Arkansas, when I could not find a job because I had three-strikes against me—married, military, and Yankee—I joined the National Teacher Corps to find something to do with my life other than attend “Officer’s Wives Teas,” “Luncheons,” bake sales, and bridge games. Part of my Teacher Corps experience involved working as an intern in an elementary school in North Little Rock—the first elementary school in the district to be integrated.
One day, all of the interns were required to attend a teachers’ convention on “reading skills.” We sat in a large auditorium and listened as speaker after speaker went to the podium and droned on and on about reading skills. At one point during a very long afternoon, I looked around the room with this thought in my mind: I wonder if any of these people love to read.
I had similar thoughts years earlier as I listened to my college roommate talk about reading skills. She was an elementary education major and her mother was the reading supervisor for a large school district. Between the two of them, they could talk about reading skills for hours. However, what I soon learned is that neither one of them much liked to read. I never saw my roommate read anything she wasn’t required to read.
And so, whatever “The National Council of Jewish Women and an individual” meant in their comments, I have a real concern about using the Bible as a textbook to teach “skills” in a way that misses the essence of the Bible itself.
Since my years in Arkansas are on my mind, here is an example of what I mean.
I was in the National Teacher Corps during the school year of 1967-68. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis.
The night before he died, he gave his last speech, ”I’ve Been To The Mountaintop,” which ended with these words:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop”
You can listen to the entire speech here. (And I defy you to listen without being moved by these words.)
This “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech is probably the best example I know of why knowledge of the Bible is essential for any educated person. These are the words of a black preacher who was immersed in biblical language and imagery. And he is also a man who knew that he was going to die.
The: “I’ve been to the mountaintop” language is a direct reference to Deuteronomy 34:1-5. After years of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and in the wilderness, Moses goes up to the top of Mount Nebo and sees the “promised land.”
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the LORD showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar. The LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command (Deuteronomy 34:1-5, New Revised Standard Version.)
Moses saw the “promised land” that he himself would not enter. And King knew that he too would never see the “promised land” of racial equality that he envisioned in his even more famous, “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.
How can anyone begin to grasp the power of the civil rights movement as a transformative force in American society who does not locate the motivation for this movement in a biblical vision of justice?
My concern is that “reading skills” teachers will point their students to the connection between King’s words and the reference in Deuteronomy 34 as a literary allusion, but miss the deep religious motivation behind the King’s quest for justice and equality. No one can begin to understand Martin Luther King’s role in the civil rights movement without understanding the place of the Bible in his life.
And so my deepest concern is that the same type of educational process that can teach reading as a set of skills—without ever teaching students to love reading—will somehow drain the life out of the Bible, as “skills” educators devise guidelines to teach the Bible as simply a sourcebook for literary and historical references.
Once again, I return to the point I made in “Teaching The Bible In Public Schools: The Religious Elephant In The Living Room.” The Bible is a deeply religious book. If it were simply a sourcebook of literary allusions and historical references, no one would care very much if anyone taught it in pubic schools.
The Bible matters precisely because it matters as a religious book, for good or bad. And it matters that educated people know how much the Bible—as a religious book—has mattered in our collective history.
And so, the challenge remains. How can the Bible be taught as a religious book without turning public schools into Sunday schools?
I return to my previous assertion: ”It is possible for good teachers to teach the Bible as a religious book without indoctrinating anyone into a particular religious point of view.”
I promise that I will write much more about teaching the Bible in later posts.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
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