U.S. Schools Will Be Offered Religious Liberty Curriculum

WASHINGTON —  The nation’s schools will be offered a new curriculum on religious liberty that aims to circumvent a minefield of controversies by focusing on the historical role of religion in society, project officials said Wednesday.

“A constructive handling of religious liberty is essential to good teaching about religion, democratic first principles and American common core values,” said Charles Haynes, president of the National Council on Religion and Public Education.

The curriculum, evaluated and refined by a host of top educators, integrates what Haynes describes as “the new three Rs”--rights, responsibilities and respect into social studies lessons tailored for upper elementary, junior high, and high school students.

The goals of the curriculum, entitled “Living with Our Deepest Differences: Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Society,” are to explain the history and significance of the First Amendment religious liberty clause and examine the advantages and responsibilities of living in a modern society with numerous races and religions.

“This curriculum represents a major stride forward for the school reform movement in this country,” said Ernest Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and former U.S. commissioner of education.

“Students simply cannot know the history of art, for example, without discovering how religion inspired painting and architecture, from the Hindu Cave Paintings of Ajanta to the Buddhist Art of Asai, from the Greeks and the Egyptians, to the majestic cathedrals that so inspired Henry Adams and Chagall, just to name a few.”

Boyer headed a group of educators, scholars, and religious leaders who helped during development of the curriculum.

The project has been endorsed by the California State Board of Education, which offered extensive help in selecting a wide mix of schools for the field test of the curriculum.