Religious Liberty and Civic Education Who should have liberty to determine the content of children’s education, and on what grounds? How should the state respond to parents’ and/or children’s objections to specific lessons or practices in public schools?

Goal Draw on principled arguments about liberty and democracy, historical and social scientific understanding of fundamentalist Christianity and of school segregation and integration, and pragmatic considerations about inclusive and exclusive educational policy and practice to address the framing questions in the context of the Mozert case

Agenda Housekeeping: (1) Questions about paper due on Saturday? (2) Workshop #2 on April 28? Found poem What are the issues at stake in the Mozert case? Four Corners Liberty, democracy, and exposure to the occult

Found Poem Select one phrase or sentence from one of today’s readings (Spinner-Halev or Stolzenberg) that you found particularly provocative, insightful, or important Select one word from one of today’s readings that stood out to you

FOUR CORNERS

The state should ensure that all children are taught basic democratic principles, knowledge, and skills—including knowledge of and respect for differing ways of life.

The fact that a citizen believes he or she will suffer eternal damnation for engaging in an action, or even receiving information, should be taken seriously by courts, teachers, or other civic actors.

Gutmann claims that “the principle of nonrepression prevents the state, and any group within it, from using education to restrict rational deliberation of competing conceptions of the good life and good society” (p. 44). The Mozert case reveals that this principle is itself repressive.

Hawkins County School Board should have accommodated the Mozert parents on the reading curriculum in hopes of stealthily converting their kids to more democratic viewpoints. Changed “mainstream” to “democratic”

Non-evangelical students suffered a loss when the Mozert children left their school.

Brighouse and Swift’s concern for “eliminating the mechanisms by which inequalities and differences between parents turn into unequal developmental opportunities for children” (p. 30) is a reason to dismiss the Mozert parents’ claims.

Spinner-Halev’s pragmatic approach to accommodating religious families is a slippery slope toward selling out core democratic principles

Should parents have the liberty to prevent their children from being exposed to textbooks that teach the following? Why or why not? If so, what are the implications for democracy, if any? If not, what are the implications for religious freedom, and for private and home schooling rights, if any?

He drew a circle to shut me out— Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout He drew a circle to shut me out— Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in! How, if at all, should we read/understand this poem in relation to the Mozert case? What are the implications of reading the poem in this way or these ways?

Schools that “teach tolerance and rationality” are engaging in a kind of indoctrination. (Stolzenberg, 587)

Toleration can itself be intolerant.

In order to stop fundamentalist families from leaving the public system for unregulated private or home schools, school boards should accommodate parents’ requests for curricular modifications in English, history, science, health, and PE.