If you were (or are) an Oklahoma teacher, would you be comfortable teaching the Bible mandatorily in your classes? Or would you look to leave teaching or go teach in another state? I'm afraid this type of legislature is coming for Arizona next.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/26/oklahoma-public-schools-teachers-bible/
How do they evaluate whether you are teaching it "right"?
The Catholic way? The evangelical way?
Will they put admin through seminary?
Not sure how I'd deal with that. I would imagine that if I lived in one of the states with that kind of chicanery going on I'd probably have no choice but to see how it's implemented and try to deal with it. The long-term goal, of course, is to drive people out of teaching and destroy the public school system. That may succeed.
In college I had a class where we actually had to read the Bible and analyze it. We didn’t look at it through a religious lens. I feel like I was somewhat drifting from the Catholic Church by that point and really starting to realize how hypocritical most of the Catholics in my life were/continue to be. Analyzing the Bible really sealed the deal for me. I’m not totally sure if this will work out as the Oklahoma superintendent plans for it to!
Don't worry, it won't last long. Religious right nuts are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Read the legislation carefully. From what I've understood no one is being asked to teach the Bible in that way. Rather the role of the Bible in the lives of our founding fathers and it's influences in our system of government, courts and foundation.
And what exactly would you teach about that?
We coveted land. We lied, killed, and stole to get the land
Multiple Commandments broken over and over there
We actually stole human beings from their homes and families to build up the nation and accumulate wealth. And we have plenty of graven images to honor the people who fought to preserve that "tradition". Plenty of people were killed in that pursuit as well.
The commandment dealing with adultery? I didn't think we were supposed to sexualize our students. If they aren't able to handle gay penguins then they definitely should be shielded from the truth about the sexual behavior of the founders.
Absolutely fcking not
I grew up and went to college in Oklahoma. All of my classmates have left the state to make a living wage. This is going to send more teachers to higher paying states and increase the severe teacher shortage in Oklahoma.
Rising Star
I've got a lovely annotated bible with lots of footnotes discussing sources and how the book was compiled together out of prior existing stories and traditions, as well as discussing alternate readings and internal inconsistencies.
It's dry stuff, but sort of fascinating in the sense of how a religious document gets cobbled together, over time and sort of accidentally. If I were ever forced to teach the bible, that's how I'd approach it.