I have long thought that we do not know how to talk about religion in public because we never talk about it in the classroom. Education is not just about learning things. It is also about learning how to talk about those things that matter most to us. Unfortunately, many teachers and school administrators are nervous about religion in the classroom. Schools can deal with virtually any topic these days, from race to sexual orientation, but somehow religion seems problematic.
Religion is too passionate, too personal, and too controversial.
Yet many of our students have their first contact with education in religious institutions, and religion serves as one of their primary motivations to learn in the first place. There is a growing consensus that religion needs to be returned to the schools, but there is much less agreement on how to accomplish this goal. For starters, liberals and conservatives both have their suspicions about religion courses in high schools. Liberals fear any break down in the so-called wall of separation between church and state. Conservatives fear that religion courses will reinforce notions of cultural relativism that pervade much of the academic ethos.