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sible use.
• ___
• Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, May 26, 2013
• Bible course is a curriculum we don't need
• Superintendent Tim Mitchell is asking the Rapid City Area Schools Board, in response to a non-binding resolution by the 2012 South Dakota Legislature that encourages the academic study of the Bible in public schools, to consider a Bible curriculum, or at least a policy on teaching about religion.
• We're asking them not to.
• We already expect our overextended and underfunded school system to do so much. In addition to making students proficient in reading, writing, math, science, language, and other basic educational tasks, we expect schools to teach music, art, foreign languages, health and physical education, too. Then we ask them to nurture the social and emotional health of students in their care, as well, by providing counseling, guidance and a host of other social services and mental health help in the school setting.
• Must they also now take responsibility for providing the "content, characters and narratives of the Bible" for students?
• We think not.
• At least, not in a separate, semester-long course devoted entirely to examining the Bible's influence in the culture, literature and art of the world, and, more specifically, its role in the writing of the constitution of the United States.
• It would be a colossal undertaking of time and effort just to reach agreement on what to teach in such a curriculum and which works of literature and art to include in any such course syllabus. It would be virtually impossible to reach meaningful consensus, given the inherent limitations of a high school curriculum, on more intangible things, such as what role did the Bible and the religious beliefs of America's founding fathers play in the framing of the U.S. Constitution and our democracy. Just as there are many differing interpretations of the creation story in the Book of Genesis, there are many perspectives on the spiritual beliefs of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and other founding fathers. Which ones should we teach?
• Opening that can of worms, when our school budgets are struggling with tangible things such as overcrowded kindergarten rooms and disappointing high school graduation rates, just doesn't make any sense to us. We want public schools to teach English literacy, not biblical literacy.
• If a literature course needs to examine the Biblical references found in a Shakespearean play or the Christian themes of a Flannery O'Connor short story, by all means, talk about them. If an American government class needs to put the concept

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