Pennsylvania '72: Growth in the Study of

Religious Literature and Tradition in the

Secondary Schools

by JOHN R. WHITNEY*

The year 1972 is turning out to be a year of solid growth for the aca-demic study of religious literature and tradition in the public schools ofthe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From a 1967-68 pilot project count-ing thirty-one selected schools in an experimental course, Religious Litera-ture of the West, school adoptions or adaptations of that course now haveincreased to 150. Student involvement in the course has grown from anexperimental 700 to a current 1971-72 enrollment conservatively estimatedat 3,500. Teacher interest in introducing the course into the curricula ofadditional schools is increasing in inverse proportion to a measureable re-laxation of anxiety on the part of administrators with regard to the pres-ence of religion as an object of academic study in the particular schools forwhich they are responsible. Overwhelmingly, the public relations signspoint to a parent-public satisfaction with the current trend. Scholarlyevaluation of the officially sponsored course material continues in a favor-able vein from a variety of university and seminary sources.1

Pennsylvania's 1972 promotional efforts for the growth of the courseare centering in a series of ten one-day workshops taking place in variousconvenient locations around the Commonwealth. The cost of these work-shops is being shared by the Pennsylvania Department of Education'sBureau of General and Academic Education, the publishers of the courseresource book,2 and the school districts that are producing the teacher par-ticipants in connection with in-service teacher education programs. Inmid-June, Shippensburg State College will provide the facilities for a gen-eral conference of four days' duration for 60-70 of the teachers previouslyinvolved in the workshops. The program for that study conference willcomprise a breadth and depth elaboration of material introduced at the re-gional sessions.

The workshops typically occupy six full hours of lecture and discus-sion. They include the following elements of content: 1) some intro-

* Project Director for Pennsylvania Religious Literature Courses, and Assistant Professor,Department of Religious Studies, Penn State University.

1 See "Religious Studies in Public Schools: A Review and Discussion of Religious Literatureof the West" by William Klassen in Studies in Religion/'A Canadian Journal/Vol. 1, No. 3,Winter 1971, pp. 241-245. Also a review by Gentry A. Shelton, Religious Education, March-April 1972, pp. 157-158.

2 The Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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ductory reassurances concerning the legality of the course and the positivereception it has enjoyed in schools where it already exists, 2) some com-ments regarding the semantic problems inherent in such conveniently apol-ogetic phrases as "teaching about religion" and "objective teaching," 3) ageneral description of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as elements of a"Hebrasemitic" tradition, 4) an overview of certain themes that reoccurin the literature, such as covenant, sacrifice, creation, prophecy, eschatology,5) the literary marks of these tradition writings, 6) an explanation ofthe organization and content of the course guide, 7) an explanation of thecomplexities of the myth concept and its various definitions, 8) a discus-sion of Bible versions and Qur'an translations plus additional course bibli-ography, 9) some caveats regarding certain avoidance behaviors resortedto by teachers who feel inadequately prepared either generally for thecourse or specifically for a class (e.g. regression to familiar English Liter-ature material; substitution of uninformed discussion; undue flight toaudio-visual aids; diversion into pop-art and pop-research; the Sunday-school syndrome, that is, the substitution of "Scranton Piety" or "AltoonaMorality" for a scholarly analysis of Biblical or Qur'anic Ethics), 10) aninvitation to learning at the Shippensburg Conference.

SOUND EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLE

As a general policy this year with teachers, consistent efforts are beingmade to modify their concern for the public school study of religious idiomas a Church-State problem toward a concern for that same study as aneducational and pedagogical problem inherently appropriate to the Schoolas a basic social community in its own right. The effort here is to es-tablish the question, "Is this good education?", as a consideration moredignifying to the student than the question, "Is this legal?", or, "Willthis offend a sensitive worshiping community?" Indeed, a goal for manyof us during the next triennium consists in establishing, as a good and trueidea, the prospect of Religion as a distinct and independent division inthe public school curriculum.

Expectation in Pennsylvania sees a doubling during the next year ofthe number of students involved in Religious Literature of the West fromthe current 3,500 to 7,000 or more. Prospects are growing that the com-panion course treating religions of the East will be established experi-mentally by the school year 1973-74, after some delay. Educators confi-dently expect that the latter course will enjoy a large measure of initialinterest on the part of students. The exotic nature of the cultures repre-sented by courses touching Eastern religion suggests that such a course willnot entail as cautious a development "en milieu" as has the Western course,where the ethnic-ecumenic and inter-ethnic tensions represented by theliterature have been reflected in the classroom and on the faculty.

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While Pennsylvania educators are largely gratified by local develop-ments touching the academic study of religion in the public schools, theyare far from satisfied. The fact that Pennsylvania has a viable coursedoes not cloud the fact that the Commonwealth lags far behind such statesas Michigan in the development and encouragement of criteria for teacherpreparation in the field. The 1972 workshops and the summer conferenceare a large step in the right direction in that they both provide some intro-ductory assistance to teachers. Also, by virtue of that introduction, theyimpress upon teachers the somewhat awe-inspiring scope of their generalnaivete in the field. One hopes, and one can see positive signs to the ef-fect, that in the very growth of course adoption and enrollment, a kind ofexperiential imperative will develop to accent the need for, and acceleratethe movement toward, the establishment of solidly responsible criteria forstudying religion academically in the schools.

It appears that such criteria should touch the curriculum at two levels,namely, that of the teacher preparation institution and that of the individ-ual teacher himself. In other words, one looks forward in Pennsylvaniato the day when the Commonwealth can boast both a system of certifiedinstitutions of teacher education for work with religious idiom and also acorps of certified teachers individually competent as professionals in thisparticular scholarly discipline.

With regard to this movement, the role of the university departmentsof Religion together with the university departments of Secondary Edu-cation, English Education and Cultural Foundations of Education becomescrucial. Where departments of Religion command expertise in the aca-demic field involved, the colleges of Education command a complementaryand necessary expertise in teaching methods, student teaching procedureand teacher placement. For the long-run production of a healthy curricu-lum in the study of religious idiom, the job needs to be seen as a neces-sarily common task shared by Academic Religion and Professional Educa-tion. This must mean very early in the game a thorough relaxation ofthose traditional stereotypes that Liberal Arts Religion and ProfessionalEducation have held regarding each other. This may not be easy to ac-complish. Nevertheless, the alternative may turn out to be something veryundesireable, namely, a turning on the part of the one or the other to ec-clesiastical-political sources outside the school and university for an author-itative resolution of problems involving the appropriate presentation of re-ligious study material in the popular classroom.

As a venture into the new world of cooperation between Religionand appropriate Education departments at Penn State, three cross-listedcourses are being offered during the next year. One is a course in Westernreligious literature for teachers, cross-listed with Secondary Education. Thesecond is a similar course in Eastern religious literature. The third is a

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course entitled, Religious Factors in Public School Development, cross-listed with Cultural Foundations of Education and offered only at thegraduate level. It explores the religious influences and issues that have af-fected the development of American public school curriculum and policy,with special attention to recent developments in the content and ambienceof courses involving the academic study of religion.

This and similar small initiatives in various universities around thecountry are only hesitant first steps. For the accomplishment of the qual-ity and intensity of cooperation needed among university departments,such prestigious organizations as the American Academy of Religion andthe National Education Association must take an active and supportive in-terest. They must do this both in the relationship patterns connecting theuniversity and the public school and in that broader interprofessional con-versation and negotiation inherent in the membership nexus of the Na-tional Council on Religion and Public Education. Teachers and admin-istrators are rightly disappointed when professors of Religion remain aloofand professors of Education remain aloft in the face of grass-roots curric-ular problems that require their extra-mural attention. Workshop andclassroom experience in Pennsylvania has demonstrated that teachers andadministrators gladly look to the universities for guidance in these mat-ters of curriculum development—guidance that should be both informedby responsible conversation with religious leadership and fed by carefulresearch in the concrete situation of the public classroom.