It isn't as if this country suffers from such a dire shortage of churches that Bible study needs to come out of time allotted for actual learning. Shame on the people who thought this was a good idea in the first place. There is the widely held assumption religion makes people better so our culture continues to make excuses for it. I'm seventy-six years old, and I'm yet to see it. Religion clearly makes some people worse.
Indeed it does because it can reinforce behavior that was already there. Some of the most mean-spirited and intollerant people I have ever known never missed church.
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!!! So would I, if I had kids in Ohio's school systems right now. School time should be for school work and not for the crap that LifeWise and other such organizations are peddling If outfits like LifeWise want access to the kids (which they don't deserve!), they can organize after-school programs or rely on Sunday School.
Under NO circumstances should they be able to preempt school time. That's for actual LEARNING.
“Rep. Gary Click, said about Westerville, “the more they attack LifeWise, the more there is a consensus around the state that we have to do something.”“
Prove the district is attacking Lifewise in particular. Prove that there’s a consensus around the state. Prove that this policy is even reasonable. If parents want their children to learn religion they can enroll their children in a religious private school, have them attend church services on Sundays, Wednesday nights and any other time outside of school hours, or homeschool allowing lifewise to take them any time they want. There’s no reason students should be removed from classroom instruction in the public schools to attend this program. It would even be blessing to many parents if it was just an afterschool program to cover the hours when school is out and parents are still working. But this particular program isn’t designed to be just religious instruction, no, it is designed to remove children from real education and to get gullible people to believe they’re being oppressed when they are not.
If the policy was actually religiously neutral, then there’s no way that eliminating it is an attack on Christianity or lifewise, it is simply a move to address a problem the policy created. School district policies must be beneficial to the schools and the students’ educations, not a hinderance. They tried it, it was a mistake and now it’s time to end it. There’s no right to this. If parents really want it, they can choose any of the other options I listed above.
I simply do not believe that this thing that hasn’t been around for a decade is something that needs to be defended. It’s a bad policy, the program is harmful, and the players involved are not acting in good faith. I doubt there is a consensus across the state to take children out of school.
Ohio, please, for the love of all that is right, vote for the law that fixes the gerrymandering in your state. It affects the entire country.
Saying that LifeWise can't play in the school's sandbox amounts to an attack, insofar as LifeWise is concerned. They think that they deserve to have free rein to do as they please, because Jesus.
And they desperately need to be disabused of that notion.
I noticed it has been there since 2009, so not two decades. Still, it should never have gotten that far. This type of program is easily adjusted to happen outside of the school day. They just want to interfere in public school education.
Separation of Church and State is real and what made the United States exceptional. If I'm paying taxes for a public school, keep your religion out of it! Unless you want to teach COMPARATIVE RELIGION! Actually I think that's a great idea. Let's compare Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity both Catholic, Eastern Orthodox & Protestant, Judaism and Islam including Sunni, Shia, & Sufism. Include World History and how they spent their time killing others and end with why there's Separation of Church and State. I've left off quite a few other very interesting religions but they're only young kids.
The children are being transported away from the school for these Sunday school lessons. With the demonstrable need for after school child care, why does it need to be during school hours? The only real reason I can see for doing this is to 𝗳𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀. The reichwing's dream is to eliminate public schools altogether in favor of private for profit religious schools.
This is the fundamental problem with "release time". And it is good that a religious parent gets it. This is why potential consequences of any policies need to be discused before implementing those policies. It is why the Satanic Temple is so successful when it generates controversy. when crafting a policy that is facially religion neutral, but is likely to bring religious interest (like a release time policy or after school program), the government needs to ensyre that is is religion neutral in practice. Due to the vast resources that religious organizations can bring to bear for these things, the best way to remain religion neutral is to not offer those things.
The thing is, too, it's not just the time the kids spend in LifeWise. It's transport time, to and from, all of which takes away from the time they should be spending in the classroom. It clearly weakens the school's position in favor of the indoctrinators.
At least in one school district, this WON'T be happening.
I am so fed up with religion trying to crawl into every minute of waking consciousness kids have.
In my own experience, even in Kindergarten, I soon realized that this was one place where I would not have Bible verses thrown in my face ten times a day, or hear about how Jesus was so disappointed in little girls who (fill in the blank), or be reminded that I ought to be grateful for this or that blessing (usually something I most assuredly did NOT consider a 'blessing.')
I already had MORE than enough church and Sunday school (three hours in the morning, three hours in the evening, counting youth group and youth choir practice), Wednesday night youth Bible study and prayer meeting (two hours) and various Bible Study weeks, any "special services" for kids that somebody in the church dreamed up an put together (another evening or Saturday shot) and any revivals that came along. My mom hosted prayer groups at home several times a month.
So an entire wonderfully secular DAY away from that controlled atmosphere, where I could just BE, was a relief. First grade was the same way, a gift of several hours of not having to deal with churchy stuff.
However, in second grade, our teacher led us in the Lord's Prayer every morning and read us Bible stories after lunch.
At first I was perplexed, and I remember thinking "what's going on here? This isn't Sunday School!" I wanted to hear other stories, like the ones our first grade teacher had read to us, new stories I hadn't heard before, not this same old stuff.
Then, there were school-wide assemblies with local preachers speaking to us. And about once a month, somebody would come around to our class and talk to us about Jesus and their church. I remember a few times some nice ladies coming to our classroom with cookies and talking about their church and why they went to church. Snore. During one of those sessions, they asked every student in class which church they went to, and what they liked best about it. If the student said they didn't go to church, the ladies just went on to the next person. So when they got to me, I said I didn't go to church just to get out of talking about it. Since this was a small town, news of this outrageous behavior on my part reached my mom's ears before I even got home.
This continued on to the fifth grade, when it suddenly stopped. Once the Gideons had come by and passed out their little green New Testaments, there was nothing else that whole year. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Like somebody pulled a plug. I wondered what had happened, but after a while, it just kind of faded from my mind. School was once again a time away from church, church, church.
In my own life, religious activity at school was just one more tiny nudge away from religion as a whole, because I resented the time it took away from my day; especially when I already spent my non-school time pretty much knee-deep in church stuff.
I don't know if my experience is an anomaly, or if other people who were exposed to religious instruction in public schools, perhaps feel the same way. It would be interesting to find out.
I appreciate your rant and the reason for it. Thankfully, I never ran on to such a thing at least in most of my school experience.
An aside: if you weren't already a member, I would heartily recommend you join the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I think you'd find a lot of people there who share your point of view.
I think it was pretty common in the Bible Belt South, especially small towns and rural areas. At the time, I didn't have a clue about the flagrant illegality of all this churchy intrusion into my school day -- I just knew I found it mostly irritating.
Sometimes, Gideon Society members would be guest speakers at our church, which would then take up a "love offering" specially for the purchase of those New Testaments for schoolchildren. This sort of fizzled out around the mid-seventies. (I recall one of those guest speakers was also our State Rep in Tallahassee. No conflict of interest there, I'm sure, but TBF, he did seem like a nice enough person, polite, personable....)
I believe this was mainly during the late sixties to early seventies; in my hometown at least fifth grade was the last I saw of any Gideon Bibles at school, and there were no more church people visiting classrooms or teachers reading us Bible stories. I wonder if somebody read them the riot act or something. I just ceased so quickly.
Of course North Florida and South Florida are like two different countries, something I had no idea about until I started working for a South Florida Newspaper.
It would be interesting to see if an atheist group like AA could get 'released time' to teach the true history of religion, including the atrocities committed in the name of various gods.
Haven't noticed any atheists slaughtering people at any time in known history. Only God fearing people murder over religious disagreements. They'll ever fight over whether they are sprinkled or dunked.
In theory it's not. It's just that the religious organizations such as lifeway are pretty much the only organizations willing and able to spend their own resources on it.
I mean, I can't see AA shelling out the money for a bus, driver, teacher, class space, materials etc. to teach an off-campus critical thinking or humanism class. Even TST probably doesn't have the resources to do it as a counter-example. Though if they did, that would probably shut down the program right quick.
Okay, first of all; that liability waiver. Bus accident? Oh c'mon, Youth Pastor Jimmy John has a closet and a pocket full of candy. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Wink wink.
Second, time spent in school is finite. This program is literally stealing school time, causing students to fall behind. The goal of a school should be in educating those little younglings, yet for some reason they're allowing this program to TAKE KIDS OFF CAMPUS! Worse, the children are required to make up the work they missed. With all the attention lately on absurd homework imposed on the kiddies, it means less family and free time for them at home.
Third, we've all seen the meme of a battered white van with FREE CANDY painted on the side. This is just that, with extra steps. Prizes! Free candy! Religious indoctrination during school hours!
Who the hell thought this was a good idea???
And finally, it's exclusive. No Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus... these are children, who see their peers getting out of school to go do "fun stuff" while they remain behind. Is this not divisive? Don't we have enough of that in real life these days?
As stated, if parents want their kids indoctrinated, they can take them to church on Sunday morning. (Or Saturday, depending upon the sect.)
I see no good reason for this program to continue preying on other people's kids in a public school setting. Taking them away from campus, making them miss classes, imposing their weird beliefs on children's minds... again, who thought this was a good idea?
That said, I probably would have bugged my folks to let me go, if it meant games, prizes, candy instead of gym class. Pretty sure they would have said no, and I'd have been butthurt about seeing my friends go off while me and Ahmad had to run around the field in gym class.
This program brings problems to children and families, while offering no benefit to them. Of course, the benefit is all to the preachers and churches participating in the program. New little minds to brainwash, enticing kids with prizes and candy.
The Ohio district that rescinded this policy is certainly on the right track, but you know those bible thumpers won't give up easily. Like terminators, "They'll be back." And the district had better be ready when they do.
Happily, the opposition is growing. Church attendance is down, and it seems there's a growing mindset among the public that churches should stay out of public schools and stay in their lane. Evangelistas may find it harder and harder to weasel their way into indoctrinating other people's kids.
But there are also a lot of MAGAts out there with time on their hands. Convince enough of those yahoos that they are being oppressed/threatened by this, and they might just be a force to be reckoned with.
That's what worries me. These folks are already radicalized to the nth degree. Somebody could whip that fervor into a mob of angry idiots ready to storm the school district admin buildings and do whatever the right-wingers want to cause major disruptions and headaches for everybody.
Looking up the school district that's 120 signups out of...14,500 students. In 23 schools (though most are elementary schools). So 0.8% of the students do released time. By all means small programs for small effort are acceptable, but if this particular small program is so disruptive, the amount of students using it doesn't justify it.
The numbers also make it clear why the fundies didn't simply push for having a bible-as-literature elective done in the school system. Initially you think "120? That's enough for four classes!", but that's not 120 students in a school, it's 120 students spread out over 23 schools. They probably can't muster 30 students' worth of interest in any single school to justify an elective. Not to mention that I bet if the opportunity to leave the grounds and the candy reward were taken off the table, a lot less than 120 students would be interested in bible study.
"if the opportunity to leave the grounds and the candy reward were taken off the table, a lot less than 120 students would be interested in bible study."
Nailed it. I know that a chance to leave the campus was always the cherry on top of every field trip for me.
We tell kids not to accept candy from strangers, but religious nutters are just fine, apparently.
I loved my bible as lit class in college, but fundies wouldn’t like that because it’s a secular class. If the bible isn’t taught as truth then it defeats their purpose ( I think I’ve mentioned that our teacher invited some religious kook who wanted to argue about it to vacate the class)
Christian public schoolchildren already receive religious instruction at home. They receive it in their houses of worship. They receive it in Sunday school. They even receive it at bible camp. That's more than enough.
Cutting into classtime at public schools? No. That's where the line needs to be drawn.
Of course. And here we let children leave school one day every December to visit a church and watch a sermon. It is so important for them to know what yule is all about. The original thing around here was to celebrate that daylight was coming back. They learn nothing about that in the church.
Well, if they were afraid that the release was interrupting the flow of the school day and that some students were being left behind, did they even consider an alternative solution? Inside of infringing on the rights of the church to indoctrinate kids, did they even consider just not having school. The school day wouldn't be interrupted. No one group of kids would be left behind compared to their peers. It would save the tax payers lots of money. And it will create the underclass that we will need once my soylent green factories come online. Win-win-win-win.
I live in a school district next door to Westerville and I'm Christian. I've had major concerns about LifeWise for some time now. I couldn't be happier with this outcome!
The “Released time” during school hours is important for LifeWise because their purpose is not only to give these schoolkids more religious education but also to give them less actual education. Ignorant children are easier to indoctrinate.
Hopefully that push fails. If it doesn't, then schools should 'send the bill' to the board and ideally the vendor. I.e. you total up the hours and cost that staff spends administering this program, and you request that either the board get more money to pay for it or that the cost be paid by the released time programs themselves.
^^^ perfectly stated, a short concise sentence of exactly what they are doing.
I have been responsible for hiring many people over my 30 years, if I found out that one of the young candidates had opted out of school to participate in religion, I would absolutely quietly disqualify them from hiring- there's no way they would be as qualified as other candidates who attended school full time without skipping out.
I was a manager/buyer for a Bookstore and the owner went Evangelical. As a result I had to hire a Evangelical Girl for the shipping department. She had graduated from a 2 year college ( unfortunately it was a Christian College which I didn't know). So I taught her how to use the computer and she did fine. After a week I went to teach her how to close at the end of the day. She said no, she didn't want to clutter up her brain. Totally shocked me. So I proposed that I fire her and she could forget everything I had taught her and her brain could be empty. She decided to learn how to close. That was the beginning of practically a book full of idiotic interactions including a lot of Bible waving. I would never hire a Evangelical again. They are certifiably nuts.
Okay, they have 120 participants across 23 schools. So they'll have to do a big loop to hit 23 schools with however many buses it takes to transport that many kids; burning fuel and wasting time.
This would only work to their benefit if the program is well and externally funded; probably by the churches participating in this ruse to indoctrinate other people's kiddies with lures of prizes and candy.
Extra money? For public schools? Did you forget that Ohio has a chronic case of the republicans? They only want more money for public schools if those schools are private religious ones.
It would depend on the makeup of the board; if the board approved this crap, it is likely a majority right-wing deal. At best they would ignore such a request. At worst, they might take note of who was behind the request and mark those individuals for some sort of reprisal.
It isn't as if this country suffers from such a dire shortage of churches that Bible study needs to come out of time allotted for actual learning. Shame on the people who thought this was a good idea in the first place. There is the widely held assumption religion makes people better so our culture continues to make excuses for it. I'm seventy-six years old, and I'm yet to see it. Religion clearly makes some people worse.
Religion makes some people bigger assholes than they were already.
Indeed it does because it can reinforce behavior that was already there. Some of the most mean-spirited and intollerant people I have ever known never missed church.
I hear ya.
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
> "I'm seventy-six years old,..."
Wait!! Are you my long lost twin?
LOL I don't remember you.
Hell, these days I don't remember much of anything.
I know how you feel.
Exactly, they set a dangerous precedent by allowing this to begin with.
Absolutely!
“𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑘𝑖𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦,” 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑆𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝐵𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝐾𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑦 𝑀𝑒𝑦𝑒𝑟.
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!!! So would I, if I had kids in Ohio's school systems right now. School time should be for school work and not for the crap that LifeWise and other such organizations are peddling If outfits like LifeWise want access to the kids (which they don't deserve!), they can organize after-school programs or rely on Sunday School.
Under NO circumstances should they be able to preempt school time. That's for actual LEARNING.
“Rep. Gary Click, said about Westerville, “the more they attack LifeWise, the more there is a consensus around the state that we have to do something.”“
Prove the district is attacking Lifewise in particular. Prove that there’s a consensus around the state. Prove that this policy is even reasonable. If parents want their children to learn religion they can enroll their children in a religious private school, have them attend church services on Sundays, Wednesday nights and any other time outside of school hours, or homeschool allowing lifewise to take them any time they want. There’s no reason students should be removed from classroom instruction in the public schools to attend this program. It would even be blessing to many parents if it was just an afterschool program to cover the hours when school is out and parents are still working. But this particular program isn’t designed to be just religious instruction, no, it is designed to remove children from real education and to get gullible people to believe they’re being oppressed when they are not.
If the policy was actually religiously neutral, then there’s no way that eliminating it is an attack on Christianity or lifewise, it is simply a move to address a problem the policy created. School district policies must be beneficial to the schools and the students’ educations, not a hinderance. They tried it, it was a mistake and now it’s time to end it. There’s no right to this. If parents really want it, they can choose any of the other options I listed above.
I simply do not believe that this thing that hasn’t been around for a decade is something that needs to be defended. It’s a bad policy, the program is harmful, and the players involved are not acting in good faith. I doubt there is a consensus across the state to take children out of school.
Ohio, please, for the love of all that is right, vote for the law that fixes the gerrymandering in your state. It affects the entire country.
Saying that LifeWise can't play in the school's sandbox amounts to an attack, insofar as LifeWise is concerned. They think that they deserve to have free rein to do as they please, because Jesus.
And they desperately need to be disabused of that notion.
You will need a 2 by 4 and a crowbar.
Familiar with both and know how to use 'em...
You should see what I can do with a simple walking stick. Remember the paintings of Jesus throwing the moneylenders out of the temple?
Yeah. It's a lot like that. :D
And if you break it ? That's when you will need the crowbar.
If I break it, I have two shorter weapons to wield. ;)
With sharp points.
Those are used to separate priests from altar boys.
Multitask tool.
Can I bring my Louisville Slugger?
I noticed it has been there since 2009, so not two decades. Still, it should never have gotten that far. This type of program is easily adjusted to happen outside of the school day. They just want to interfere in public school education.
🎯
Beat me to it!
“the more they attack LifeWise, the more there is a consensus around the state that we have to do something.”“
🎼 Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war....
Separation of Church and State is real and what made the United States exceptional. If I'm paying taxes for a public school, keep your religion out of it! Unless you want to teach COMPARATIVE RELIGION! Actually I think that's a great idea. Let's compare Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity both Catholic, Eastern Orthodox & Protestant, Judaism and Islam including Sunni, Shia, & Sufism. Include World History and how they spent their time killing others and end with why there's Separation of Church and State. I've left off quite a few other very interesting religions but they're only young kids.
The children are being transported away from the school for these Sunday school lessons. With the demonstrable need for after school child care, why does it need to be during school hours? The only real reason I can see for doing this is to 𝗳𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀. The reichwing's dream is to eliminate public schools altogether in favor of private for profit religious schools.
I guess you are correct about what they want this to result in. It will probably make life harder for those who not favour religious indoctrination.
They will make SURE life is harder for us.
Spot on.
It will reveal who's not onboard with them for later targeting.
🎯
“𝑊𝑒'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒𝑊𝑖𝑠𝑒, 𝑤𝑒'𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙,” 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 [𝐽𝑎𝑐𝑙𝑦𝑛] 𝐹𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑦 [𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝐴𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛]. “𝑀𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒.”
This is the fundamental problem with "release time". And it is good that a religious parent gets it. This is why potential consequences of any policies need to be discused before implementing those policies. It is why the Satanic Temple is so successful when it generates controversy. when crafting a policy that is facially religion neutral, but is likely to bring religious interest (like a release time policy or after school program), the government needs to ensyre that is is religion neutral in practice. Due to the vast resources that religious organizations can bring to bear for these things, the best way to remain religion neutral is to not offer those things.
The thing is, too, it's not just the time the kids spend in LifeWise. It's transport time, to and from, all of which takes away from the time they should be spending in the classroom. It clearly weakens the school's position in favor of the indoctrinators.
At least in one school district, this WON'T be happening.
I am so fed up with religion trying to crawl into every minute of waking consciousness kids have.
In my own experience, even in Kindergarten, I soon realized that this was one place where I would not have Bible verses thrown in my face ten times a day, or hear about how Jesus was so disappointed in little girls who (fill in the blank), or be reminded that I ought to be grateful for this or that blessing (usually something I most assuredly did NOT consider a 'blessing.')
I already had MORE than enough church and Sunday school (three hours in the morning, three hours in the evening, counting youth group and youth choir practice), Wednesday night youth Bible study and prayer meeting (two hours) and various Bible Study weeks, any "special services" for kids that somebody in the church dreamed up an put together (another evening or Saturday shot) and any revivals that came along. My mom hosted prayer groups at home several times a month.
So an entire wonderfully secular DAY away from that controlled atmosphere, where I could just BE, was a relief. First grade was the same way, a gift of several hours of not having to deal with churchy stuff.
However, in second grade, our teacher led us in the Lord's Prayer every morning and read us Bible stories after lunch.
At first I was perplexed, and I remember thinking "what's going on here? This isn't Sunday School!" I wanted to hear other stories, like the ones our first grade teacher had read to us, new stories I hadn't heard before, not this same old stuff.
Then, there were school-wide assemblies with local preachers speaking to us. And about once a month, somebody would come around to our class and talk to us about Jesus and their church. I remember a few times some nice ladies coming to our classroom with cookies and talking about their church and why they went to church. Snore. During one of those sessions, they asked every student in class which church they went to, and what they liked best about it. If the student said they didn't go to church, the ladies just went on to the next person. So when they got to me, I said I didn't go to church just to get out of talking about it. Since this was a small town, news of this outrageous behavior on my part reached my mom's ears before I even got home.
This continued on to the fifth grade, when it suddenly stopped. Once the Gideons had come by and passed out their little green New Testaments, there was nothing else that whole year. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Like somebody pulled a plug. I wondered what had happened, but after a while, it just kind of faded from my mind. School was once again a time away from church, church, church.
In my own life, religious activity at school was just one more tiny nudge away from religion as a whole, because I resented the time it took away from my day; especially when I already spent my non-school time pretty much knee-deep in church stuff.
I don't know if my experience is an anomaly, or if other people who were exposed to religious instruction in public schools, perhaps feel the same way. It would be interesting to find out.
I appreciate your rant and the reason for it. Thankfully, I never ran on to such a thing at least in most of my school experience.
An aside: if you weren't already a member, I would heartily recommend you join the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I think you'd find a lot of people there who share your point of view.
Thanks!
All I remember from school was the Gideons giving out their green and red litter.
Was this in the Deep South? I was in a very intense part of the Bible Belt.
Okiehoma.
Yikes. Home of Oral Roberts. My sincerest sympathies.
When and where was this? I don't remember anything like that happening in Illinois during the seventies.
I think it was pretty common in the Bible Belt South, especially small towns and rural areas. At the time, I didn't have a clue about the flagrant illegality of all this churchy intrusion into my school day -- I just knew I found it mostly irritating.
Sometimes, Gideon Society members would be guest speakers at our church, which would then take up a "love offering" specially for the purchase of those New Testaments for schoolchildren. This sort of fizzled out around the mid-seventies. (I recall one of those guest speakers was also our State Rep in Tallahassee. No conflict of interest there, I'm sure, but TBF, he did seem like a nice enough person, polite, personable....)
I believe this was mainly during the late sixties to early seventies; in my hometown at least fifth grade was the last I saw of any Gideon Bibles at school, and there were no more church people visiting classrooms or teachers reading us Bible stories. I wonder if somebody read them the riot act or something. I just ceased so quickly.
I arrived in St. Petersburg, Floriduh in April of 78, and I saw none of this stuff then.
Of course North Florida and South Florida are like two different countries, something I had no idea about until I started working for a South Florida Newspaper.
Why is 'Released Time' only for religious instruction? That right there seems like a 1st violation, even if it is open to all religions.
I'd be worried about liability without the clause, if I were the school.
It would be interesting to see if an atheist group like AA could get 'released time' to teach the true history of religion, including the atrocities committed in the name of various gods.
Much shorter list.
Haven't noticed any atheists slaughtering people at any time in known history. Only God fearing people murder over religious disagreements. They'll ever fight over whether they are sprinkled or dunked.
In theory it's not. It's just that the religious organizations such as lifeway are pretty much the only organizations willing and able to spend their own resources on it.
I mean, I can't see AA shelling out the money for a bus, driver, teacher, class space, materials etc. to teach an off-campus critical thinking or humanism class. Even TST probably doesn't have the resources to do it as a counter-example. Though if they did, that would probably shut down the program right quick.
I'd donate for TST to do it. Even get a tax deduction.
Ohio hs 2 Pro baseball tams...
Okay, first of all; that liability waiver. Bus accident? Oh c'mon, Youth Pastor Jimmy John has a closet and a pocket full of candy. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Wink wink.
Second, time spent in school is finite. This program is literally stealing school time, causing students to fall behind. The goal of a school should be in educating those little younglings, yet for some reason they're allowing this program to TAKE KIDS OFF CAMPUS! Worse, the children are required to make up the work they missed. With all the attention lately on absurd homework imposed on the kiddies, it means less family and free time for them at home.
Third, we've all seen the meme of a battered white van with FREE CANDY painted on the side. This is just that, with extra steps. Prizes! Free candy! Religious indoctrination during school hours!
Who the hell thought this was a good idea???
And finally, it's exclusive. No Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus... these are children, who see their peers getting out of school to go do "fun stuff" while they remain behind. Is this not divisive? Don't we have enough of that in real life these days?
As stated, if parents want their kids indoctrinated, they can take them to church on Sunday morning. (Or Saturday, depending upon the sect.)
I see no good reason for this program to continue preying on other people's kids in a public school setting. Taking them away from campus, making them miss classes, imposing their weird beliefs on children's minds... again, who thought this was a good idea?
That said, I probably would have bugged my folks to let me go, if it meant games, prizes, candy instead of gym class. Pretty sure they would have said no, and I'd have been butthurt about seeing my friends go off while me and Ahmad had to run around the field in gym class.
This program brings problems to children and families, while offering no benefit to them. Of course, the benefit is all to the preachers and churches participating in the program. New little minds to brainwash, enticing kids with prizes and candy.
The Ohio district that rescinded this policy is certainly on the right track, but you know those bible thumpers won't give up easily. Like terminators, "They'll be back." And the district had better be ready when they do.
Who thought this was a good idea? Evangelical kkkristers. And they'll be back as many times as it takes to wear down any opposition.
Happily, the opposition is growing. Church attendance is down, and it seems there's a growing mindset among the public that churches should stay out of public schools and stay in their lane. Evangelistas may find it harder and harder to weasel their way into indoctrinating other people's kids.
But there are also a lot of MAGAts out there with time on their hands. Convince enough of those yahoos that they are being oppressed/threatened by this, and they might just be a force to be reckoned with.
That's what worries me. These folks are already radicalized to the nth degree. Somebody could whip that fervor into a mob of angry idiots ready to storm the school district admin buildings and do whatever the right-wingers want to cause major disruptions and headaches for everybody.
Looking up the school district that's 120 signups out of...14,500 students. In 23 schools (though most are elementary schools). So 0.8% of the students do released time. By all means small programs for small effort are acceptable, but if this particular small program is so disruptive, the amount of students using it doesn't justify it.
The numbers also make it clear why the fundies didn't simply push for having a bible-as-literature elective done in the school system. Initially you think "120? That's enough for four classes!", but that's not 120 students in a school, it's 120 students spread out over 23 schools. They probably can't muster 30 students' worth of interest in any single school to justify an elective. Not to mention that I bet if the opportunity to leave the grounds and the candy reward were taken off the table, a lot less than 120 students would be interested in bible study.
"if the opportunity to leave the grounds and the candy reward were taken off the table, a lot less than 120 students would be interested in bible study."
Nailed it. I know that a chance to leave the campus was always the cherry on top of every field trip for me.
We tell kids not to accept candy from strangers, but religious nutters are just fine, apparently.
I think I'd rather trust the guy at the park with the windowless van and the free puppies sign.
I loved my bible as lit class in college, but fundies wouldn’t like that because it’s a secular class. If the bible isn’t taught as truth then it defeats their purpose ( I think I’ve mentioned that our teacher invited some religious kook who wanted to argue about it to vacate the class)
I believe the term they're seeking is, "Hitlerjugend"...
Christian public schoolchildren already receive religious instruction at home. They receive it in their houses of worship. They receive it in Sunday school. They even receive it at bible camp. That's more than enough.
Cutting into classtime at public schools? No. That's where the line needs to be drawn.
Of course. And here we let children leave school one day every December to visit a church and watch a sermon. It is so important for them to know what yule is all about. The original thing around here was to celebrate that daylight was coming back. They learn nothing about that in the church.
Well, if they were afraid that the release was interrupting the flow of the school day and that some students were being left behind, did they even consider an alternative solution? Inside of infringing on the rights of the church to indoctrinate kids, did they even consider just not having school. The school day wouldn't be interrupted. No one group of kids would be left behind compared to their peers. It would save the tax payers lots of money. And it will create the underclass that we will need once my soylent green factories come online. Win-win-win-win.
Rep Click-bait should read the First Amendment again and again and again.
"Is it the Second? No? It's only a suggestion then."
I live in a school district next door to Westerville and I'm Christian. I've had major concerns about LifeWise for some time now. I couldn't be happier with this outcome!
The “Released time” during school hours is important for LifeWise because their purpose is not only to give these schoolkids more religious education but also to give them less actual education. Ignorant children are easier to indoctrinate.
LifeWise is offering candy and prizes? Using the tactics of garden variety child molesters, are they? Are free puppies in the offing?
Oh wait, they're Christians. Child molestation is how they roll.
By getting the schools to bring them the children, they save on gas money, insurance, and windowless van payments.
𝑂ℎ𝑖𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛-𝑑𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 (𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑦𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑) 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑎 𝑝𝑢𝑠ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 “𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒” 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙
Hopefully that push fails. If it doesn't, then schools should 'send the bill' to the board and ideally the vendor. I.e. you total up the hours and cost that staff spends administering this program, and you request that either the board get more money to pay for it or that the cost be paid by the released time programs themselves.
Meanwhile, the kids are stuck at the kitchen table at 9 pm, making up the work they missed by participating in this religious theft of school time.
" religious theft of school time"
^^^ perfectly stated, a short concise sentence of exactly what they are doing.
I have been responsible for hiring many people over my 30 years, if I found out that one of the young candidates had opted out of school to participate in religion, I would absolutely quietly disqualify them from hiring- there's no way they would be as qualified as other candidates who attended school full time without skipping out.
I was a manager/buyer for a Bookstore and the owner went Evangelical. As a result I had to hire a Evangelical Girl for the shipping department. She had graduated from a 2 year college ( unfortunately it was a Christian College which I didn't know). So I taught her how to use the computer and she did fine. After a week I went to teach her how to close at the end of the day. She said no, she didn't want to clutter up her brain. Totally shocked me. So I proposed that I fire her and she could forget everything I had taught her and her brain could be empty. She decided to learn how to close. That was the beginning of practically a book full of idiotic interactions including a lot of Bible waving. I would never hire a Evangelical again. They are certifiably nuts.
Okay, they have 120 participants across 23 schools. So they'll have to do a big loop to hit 23 schools with however many buses it takes to transport that many kids; burning fuel and wasting time.
This would only work to their benefit if the program is well and externally funded; probably by the churches participating in this ruse to indoctrinate other people's kiddies with lures of prizes and candy.
Extra money? For public schools? Did you forget that Ohio has a chronic case of the republicans? They only want more money for public schools if those schools are private religious ones.
It would depend on the makeup of the board; if the board approved this crap, it is likely a majority right-wing deal. At best they would ignore such a request. At worst, they might take note of who was behind the request and mark those individuals for some sort of reprisal.