Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist: Coming to a School Near You

As readers may have guessed, I didn't receive a single response to the questions I asked of our Muhlenberg County school board candidates.  *(UPDATE: Since this posting, the letter I sent to Darrell Bowers has been returned marked "no such number, unable to forward," although the address on the envelope was the one listed on the Secretary of State's website.)*  This is disappointing, and I can't help but wonder aloud why all of the candidates were unwilling to respond.  My guess is that it seemed politically safer not to.  But how can one claim to be a voice for local citizens when he or she refuses to answer, even partially, some very earnest questions asked respectfully by a local citizen? 

Sigh.

In other news, I--your friendly neighborhood atheist--will soon be appearing at some of Muhlenberg County's public schools.  Specifically, I will be distributing literature from the Freedom from Religion Foundation at school-sponsored events.  This is the somewhat prolonged outcome of my accidental discovery this spring that the Gideons, booted from Muhlenberg County classrooms in 2011, were about to be allowed back into the schools (at afterschool events instead of during class time).  The complete history of my involvement is here, here, and here.

This is the email that I sent to school principals on October 15:

Dear [Principal]:

I am writing to request permission to distribute literature at [school name] during upcoming afterschool events.  I have been informed by Superintendent Dale Todd that any nonprofit organization may distribute literature at reading nights, open houses, and other official afterschool functions.  I am a local member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit group dedicated to the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state and to educating the public on matters relating to nontheism.

Please send me a list of the remaining events/dates during this school year that are available for this purpose.  I intend to distribute the Freedom from Religion Foundation publications Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children—a fun book that allows children of all ages to explore myths like Santa Claus and compare them with ideas like the existence of God—and Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists.  I will also be handing out bookmarks and "nontracts" promoting nontheism. The links that follow provide more information on these publications.

https://ffrf.org/shop/books/just-pretend-a-freethought-book-for-children https://ffrf.org/shop/books/godless-how-an-evangelical-preacher-became-one-of-america-s-leading-atheists
https://ffrf.org/shop/nontracts

Thanks in advance for your assistance.  I look forward to hearing from you.  

Sincerely,
Suzanne Lamb

The request was granted by all of the principals who received it, and depending on the school, I was either assigned an upcoming event or given a choice of events to attend.  (One middle school principal said I would have to wait until next fall's open house, as his school didn't have any other suitable events this year.)

A separate request to distribute literature, submitted by Western Kentucky University's Secular Student Alliance, was also granted.

I want to commend the school principals and the superintendent for making good on the school board's claim that when it voted to "approve plans for collaboration and efforts to support the Gideons [sic] organization" at the May 14 board meeting, it was actually creating a limited open forum that would allow any nonprofit group to distribute literature at afterschool functions. 

As anyone who regularly follows these types of stories can tell you, this is not how things usually turn out.  Many school districts maintain longstanding, privileged arrangements with the Gideons or other evangelical groups until someone complains; then officials say that, silly people, anyone can distribute literature, while crossing their fingers (or praying) that no groups representing viewpoints other than their own actually take them up on the offer.  As I noted in an earlier post, two North Carolina school boards decided to can literature distributions altogether after local residents tested so-called "open" policies by asking to distribute pagan literature.

If local residents are unhappy about my, or the Secular Student Alliance's, appearances at Muhlenberg County school functions, they can ask the board to craft a policy that prohibits all outside groups from distributing literature at school events.  School districts are in no way required by law to establish limited open forums.

While the Muhlenberg County school board has made much progress in complying with the law as it pertains to religion in the schools, it still has one practice to address.  The board's tradition of beginning school board meetings with prayer is in direct conflict with the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals' ruling in Coles Coles v. Cleveland Board of Education (1999), which found the practice to be a violation of the Establishment Clause.  As Kentucky is in the Sixth Circuit, that decision is considered binding.  Neither asking a student to lead the prayer, nor reminding those in attendance that the prayer is voluntary, makes the practice permissible.

I am so grateful for those friends and acquaintances--some of them Christians--who support my involvement with this issue.  And to my new atheist, agnostic, and freethinking friends in Muhlenberg and surrounding counties: your presence strengthens me. 

**UPDATE**

I am switching to moderated comments for this blog--at least for the time being.  This means that I will be reviewing comments before they are posted.  I am making this change because a few recent comments, which I have deleted, crossed a very obvious line of decency. 

Questions for School Board Candidates

My interest in education is both philosophical and practical.  I have long been fascinated with how people learn.  My mother and one sister are former public school teachers, and my other sister teaches at a private school.  My professional experience includes teaching college English, helping nontraditional college students document their life learning for college credit, and assisting high school students from low-income families in preparing academically for college.  I am the mother of three school-age children who are learning at home but may one day choose to attend public schools.  I am an advocate for the constitutional principle of church-state separation and for children's civil rights, both of which have obvious educational implications.

I have compiled a list of ten questions for the Muhlenberg County school board candidates running for election (or re-election) next month.  I am mailing the list to each candidate with a request for a response to be shared on this blog.  I have no idea if any candidates will respond, but I hope that some will, because as far as I can tell, no one else is asking most of these questions.

If you are a local reader with different questions, I encourage you to contact the candidates yourself.  They are listed at the bottom of this post.

Questions for Candidates:

1. Do you support continuing the district’s drug testing program, which requires all high school students to submit to random drug testing in order to participate in extra-curricular activities and to park on campus?  If so, what do you make of a large-scale national study showing no difference in drug use between schools that use drug testing and those that do not? 
2. The current school board recently voted against videotaping its meetings, which would allow citizens to view meetings on cable access.  Given the fact that it is difficult for many people to attend the five p.m. meetings, and considering that meeting minutes include only board decisions and not complete discussions of issues, should the meetings be videotaped?
3. Do you support the district's continued use of programs like Character Counts! and PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), given that these programs have been widely criticized for promoting unquestioning obedience to authority as the ultimate value?  (See, for example, Alfie Kohn's "How Not to Teach Values" and Chris Liebig's "Sacrificing Thought for 'Good Behavior.'")
4. Our district's school board meetings are opened with prayer.  Do you think our school board should continue this practice, given the fact that the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in Coles Coles v. Cleveland Board of Education (1999), found beginning school board meetings with prayer to be a violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause?  If you support continuing the prayers, do you think local taxpayers should be willing to pay plaintiffs' legal fees should the practice be successfully challenged in the courts?  (Note: Kentucky is in the sixth circuit.)
5. Do you approve of the current school board’s recent decision to create a limited public forum that allows all non-profit groups to distribute literature at official afterschool functions?  Should religious organizations such as the Gideons be allowed to distribute bibles at these events if that requires the district to allow all groups--including those representing Muslim, pagan, and atheist viewpoints, among others--to distribute literature to students?
6. Of a case in which a New Jersey public school teacher claimed that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific, the famous American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers."  Does the teaching of creationism have any place in our district’s classrooms?
7. What stance would you like to see the school board take on school policies that reward perfect student attendance with special picnics, pizza parties, etc., considering that such policies encourage parents to send their children to school sick in order to avoid missing out on these events? 
8. Many parents are concerned that the increasing use of high-stakes standardized testing (to evaluate students, teachers, and schools) is compromising important educational values.  Would you support a policy that would allow parents in the district to opt their children out of such testing?  
9. Parents in our district who homeschool their children provide tax support for our schools, and may be the kind of involved, supportive parents who can make positive contributions to the school district.  As such, do you support allowing homeschooled students in our district to participate in extra-curricular activities? 
10. Our district’s schools are very different from the schools most of us attended as children.  Students are surrounded by armed security personnel and security cameras that record their every move, and subjected to unprecedented amounts of standardized testing.  What can be done to make the schools in our district more humane environments for our students?

Muhlenberg County Board of Education Candidates:

Kevin Rice, 2nd district
Margaret Ann Williams, 2nd district
Sylvester "Sly" Johnson, 3rd district
Dr. Kelly Tarter, 3rd district
Scott Bivins, 3rd district
Darrell Bowers, 5th district
Jerry Winters, 5th district

There's a Name for That

It is fashionable these days to talk about how spoiled children are, and to speculate about the causes of the spoiling (see, for example, Elizabeth Kolbert's "Spoiled Rotten: Why Do Kids Rule the Roost?" from the New Yorker, and this popular Facebook meme).

It is less fashionable to point out, as Alfie Kohn did in a 2010 Washington Post essay, that Americans have been churning out nearly identical complaints about children since the early 1900s.

And if one wants to be so unfashionable as to be considered radical?  He or she might note that all of these discussions about spoiled kids do a really good job (as they have always done) of calling attention away from the fact that many of our beliefs about children are self-serving.

Here are some of the beliefs I'm talking about:

• Children's needs, feelings, and preferences are less important than the needs, feelings, and preferences of adults.
• Children have it easy compared to adults, and we should frequently remind them of such.
• It is appropriate for adults--even strangers--to correct children's grammar and quiz them on their reading ability.
• Children who aren't spanked will become entitled adults.
• There is nothing wrong with stores and public facilities holding children to rules different from the ones to which adult patrons are held (e.g., only two teens allowed in store at a time; even older children can't handle merchandise that adults are permitted to handle).
• Children shouldn't have any say in what, when, or how they learn, because they can't possibly know what's good for them.
• Children are lazy; if we don't force them to complete the lessons we provide, they won't learn anything worthwhile.
• Going out for recess, talking during lunch, and getting drinks of water are privileges that children in school should be required to earn.
• Religious groups have the right to evangelize children, even those who have not reached the age of reason, and even without the children's parents being present.
• It is okay to laugh at children when they do something that strikes us as cute (e.g., mispronouncing a word, making a mistake in a play or performance, confusing some idea that most adults understand).
• Because children are so cute, it is okay to dress them in uncomfortable clothing, spray them down with hairspray, and enter them in contests where they compete with other children to determine who among them is cutest. 

This list is my own, but my thinking on the subject has been influenced by the work of John Holt, a teacher-turned-unschooling advocate best known for the books How Children Fail (1964) and How Children Learn (1967).  Holt's lesser-known 1973 book Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children (out of print but still available in used copies) is arguably the most thorough examination of how harmful attitudes toward children affect public policy, parenting methods, and children's well-being.

In Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, published posthumously in January of this year, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl provides a name for the problem.  Praised by such diverse thinkers as Diane Ravitch, T. Berry Brazelton, and Carol Gilligan, Childism focuses primarily on how prejudice toward children is embedded in public policy (i.e., institutionalized), and at work in cases of abuse and neglect.  Young-Bruehl's argument is complex, and I don't share all of her conclusions.  Nonetheless, I think that the book is important, and that her justification for adopting the word childism is spot-on:

The history of the word "sexism," coined in 1965, shows how important it was to put under the same conceptual umbrella different acts, attitudes, and institutions that targeted women as a group.  If you understand that domestic violence against women and wage discrimination against women are similarly rationalized or legitimated by a prejudice--sexism--you can develop ways to explore the prejudice and resist it.  Without a synthesizing concept, you do not see that child poverty and child abuse are both rooted in and rationalized by prejudice against children.  (Young-Bruehl, from the book's Amazon.com page)
 

Respecting children's rights takes both time and energy, which is why it seems so much easier just to spank children, or take away their recess, when they won't do what we want.  And while honoring children's rights in no way diminishes the rights of adults, it tends to undermine adult privilege, which is another reason childist attitudes are so easy to justify--even when we, as former children, should know better.

Handling

This is a story about a seven-year-old girl--a girl who had recently taken a knitting class and happened to spot, on a street corner of the pretty town where she was vacationing with her family, a little yarn and crafts shop that had beautiful things in the windows.  Unfortunately, it was Sunday, and the shop was closed, and the girl had to accept her parents' reassurances that she could return some other day.

When this other day arrived, the girl bounded into the shop with her mother, and with great enjoyment began working her way around the shop's perimeter.  She looked at many things, asked her mother some questions, and gently caressed a few skeins of gorgeous hand-spun yarn, as did her mother.  The girl had spending money, and she noticed a glass bowl full of decorative pewter buttons.  She told her mother she thought they were beautiful, that she could use them for some projects, and that she wanted to look at the different designs to see which ones she liked best.

At this point, the girl's mother left her to look at the buttons, and walked about ten feet away to select some yarn for herself.  She looked back at her daughter several times, the last time just as the shop owner walked up to the girl and said, "I must ask that you not handle anything!" in a rather severe voice.  The girl quickly dropped the buttons back into the dish and walked over to her mother, reaching her just in time to release a torrent of tears.

After escorting the girl outside to the car where her father and brothers were waiting, and comforting the girl, and reassuring her that she hadn't done anything wrong, the mother went back inside and had a talk with the shop owner.

The conversation went like this:

Mother: Are you the owner?

Owner: Yes.

Mother: I believe you said something to my daughter.

Owner: Oh--um, yes.  I just asked her not to touch anything.

Mother: She was handling metal buttons, correct?

Owner: Yes.

Mother: And they were in no way breakable or fragile?

Owner: Well, that's true.  But I have a lot of kids who come in here and aren't supervised.

Mother: I was watching her carefully the whole time, taking responsibility for her.  You could see that I was with her.  If you had a concern about anything she was doing, you could have addressed it to me. 

Owner: I'm glad you're responsible for her, but I can't tell which parents are going to be responsible for their kids and which ones aren't.

Mother: Can you remember what it felt like to be seven years old, and how scary it was when an adult who wasn't your parent scolded you, especially when you weren't even doing anything wrong? 

Owner: (Silence)

Mother: Did you know that my daughter is learning to knit, and that she was going to spend money here?  That she spotted this store the other day when you were closed, and that we made a special trip back so she could shop here?  Now she's out in the car, sobbing.

Owner: Well, I'm sorry I upset her.  I had no way of knowing all that.  And if everyone handles things, then they aren't so nice to sell.

Mother: I understand your concerns as a business owner, and how frustrating it must be when people aren't respectful with your merchandise.  But my daughter wasn't being disrespectful.  There was no way to see the different designs on the buttons without picking them up.  And I noticed that the other customers who were in here were handling things as well, and you didn't say anything to them. 

Owner: (Stare)

Mother: Well, you've lost two customers.  I was going to buy some things as well.  I do hope I've given you something to think about.

* * *

There's a sort of happy ending to this story.  A week later, in a different town on our vacation, we found another yarn shop.  Understandably, my daughter was nervous about going inside.  I suggested that I hold her hand the whole time, and that before we started browsing we tell the person behind the counter that she and I were both new knitters.  The person at the counter introduced us to the owner, who was friendly and gracious.  She actually urged us to touch all the yarns, and she told my daughter she'd learned to knit at age seven, too.  We bought some yarn.

I shared the story about the first shop with a relative, who went on to tell me about how she'd broken a candle holder in a store, and how the store employee had come over and starting scolding her daughter, assuming she'd been the one who had broken the item.  As soon as the employee learned the mother was responsible, she changed her tone completely, and starting assuring the mother that she wouldn't have to pay for the item.

I have more to say in an upcoming post about prejudice against children, though I'm aware that the mere assertion that such a thing exists seems to infuriate some people.  Stay tuned.

Four Thoughts on a Wednesday Morning

1.  When people go out of their way to say, "I'm praying for you," to an atheist, do they realize it sounds pretty much like "F*** you," only with more syllables?

2.  Are Jehovah's Witnesses now sending lots of households in Muhlenberg County handwritten letters in the mail, or is my family just lucky?

3.  How would I look next month at Downtown Trick-or-Treat, standing on the corner near the Gideons, handing out little copies of the United States Constitution instead of those little orange bibles?

4.  Does anyone know where I can get little copies of the Constitution--or even just the Bill of Rights--at a price that would allow me to purchase fifty or so copies? 

I welcome your responses.

The Grades My Kids Aren't In

Here is something new.

When someone who knows we homeschool asks what grades the children are in, I'm no longer going to spout off a number. 

Instead I'm going to say, "We don't do grades, but this one is eight years old, this one is seven, and this one is five."  If the person looks at me with confusion--or contempt--I'm going to try very hard not to add, "If they were in school, they'd be in such-and-such grades."

The reason for this change is that I've stopped thinking of my children in terms of grade levels.  I no longer care what grades they would be in if they were in school.  It's no longer important to me that their skills are at or above grade level, whatever that means.  In fact, that goal seems utterly incompatible with the kind of deep, joyful learning my family values.

I have seen each of them, in turn, learn about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln because they were interested in money. 

They have learned about fractions because they are interested in being fair.

They are learning to write, at different paces and in different ways, because they have things they want to say.  Yesterday, one of them set up a booth with our face/body paints (the safe kind, in case anyone's wondering) and a sign that said "TATTOO CITY."  The other two paid a quarter each for custom-designed body art.  A few hours later, I noticed a discarded piece of paper that read "TATTOO SITTY."  I don't know the process by which the spelling was corrected, but neither I nor any other adult was involved.

By the way, I didn't come to this decision (realization?) about the kids' grade levels by myself.  A few things Sandra Dodd wrote crossed my path at the right time.  One was the essay, "How Holly Takes the World for Granted," from Moving a Puddle, though there may have been others.  Sandra has written a lot, for which I am grateful.

The Gideon Problem, Part 3: The Board of Education Says There Isn't a Problem

The Superintendent responded to my letter of complaint about the Board of Education's plans to bring the Gideons back into Muhlenberg County Schools under a revised policy.  The main points conveyed in his letter are that 1) the Board of Education believes its new policy is protected by the district's "Community Use of School Facilities" agreement; 2) the Board will allow any nonprofit group to distribute literature at designated school functions, even if doing so results in controversy; 3) the Board has no plans to put the new policy in writing, or to take any steps to make the public aware of it, since the press already attends Board meetings.

What puzzles me about the Superintendent's response is that the district's "Community Use of School Facilities" agreement, which is supposed to justify the new policy, seems only to set forth the conditions under which nonprofit groups can rent school facilities during non-school hours.  It would, in fact, be constitutionally permissible for the Board to rent district facilities to the Gideons, during times the district isn't using them.  (And if the district rents its facilities out to any community groups, it must not discriminate against groups simply because they are religious.)  But that is not what the new policy, as explained by the Board and Superintendent, is about.  The new policy is about allowing the Gideons to distribute literature at official school functions such as open houses and reading nights.  The distinction is not a small one.

I'm also dissatisfied with the Board's unwillingness to put in writing, and announce, its new policy.  Doing so would actually offer the district some measure of protection by making it clear that the policy is not being amended on a case-by-case basis to include or exclude certain groups.  And if the Board's intent is to establish a constitutionally defensible open forum, in which various religious and non-religious viewpoints are represented, then the boundaries of the forum need to be better defined.  It remains unclear if all school-sponsored events are included, or just open houses and reading nights.  What about basketball games and other sporting events?  Will nonprofit representatives be confined to a table, or permitted to circulate among students?  As I've said before, refusing to clarify these issues gives the impression that perhaps the Board doesn't want those with religious viewpoints different from the Gideons to know that the forum exists.

I want readers to know that I am sticking with this, although it might be a while before I have anything new to report.  I also want to answer two questions that have reached me, in slightly different forms, through numerous channels--including the comments section of this blog.

Q: If your children aren't in school, why do you care if the Gideons are there distributing bibles?

A: Liberal homeschooling parents have been accused--most notably by Slate columnist Dana Goldstein--of withdrawing much-needed support and involvement from our nation's public schools.  What kind of citizen (or human being) would I be if I didn't care what goes on in the schools simply because my children don't attend them?  As I said in my first post on the subject, I am particularly concerned about recent trends that infringe on students' civil liberties.  While the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause guarantees freedom of religion, the Establishment Clause offers citizens protection from state-sponsored religion.  Because these two clauses work together to provide Americans with tremendous religious freedom compared to other countries, the cause I am taking up does not belong solely to atheists.  I admire the work of Americans United, an organization made up of American citizens of various faiths and "dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all."  The organization is headed by the Reverend Barry Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.

Another reason I am voicing my concerns is that I recognize the many ways in which speaking out against religious proselytizing in the schools is a risky proposition.  Many who share my concerns will not speak out for fear they will be socially ostracized and harassed, or even lose their jobs.  I also think it's a good idea for people to identify the cause of church-state separation with a local citizen, as it helps to dispel the myth that challenges to state-sponsored religion are always the work of "outside agitators."  It seems too easy for some to ignore the fact that the reason local fifth-graders aren't still receiving bibles (and an exhortation to read them!) during instructional time is that a local parent of a fifth-grader reported the violation, albeit anonymously.

Finally, in justifying my interest in the district's handling of the Gideons, it seems ridiculous that I should have to point out the fact that I am a taxpayer.  Our public institutions--including libraries, roads, parks, and schools--belong to all of us.

Q: What if you are wrong in your disbelief, and hell is a real, terrible place?  Aren't you concerned about your and your children's salvation?

A: No.