Written by Don Byrd
In Boston last week, chanting at a high school basketball game turned into religious taunts, even anti-Semitic cheers. The schools involved promised conversations with their students, holding assemblies and considering changes to the curriculum. However, as author Linda Wertheimer argues in a new column for Time Magazine, schools should be more proactive in educating their students about religious difference and the harms of intolerance.
Here is an excerpt:
The schools’ responses were admirable. But America has a huge problem, especially when it comes to understanding and respecting different faiths.
It’s great to react when there’s a crisis, but better yet, we need to start educating our children in schools at an early age about world religions. When I heard of the basketball chant, I could not help but think of the South Pacific song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” The song refers to the idea that children aren’t born hating those who are different. Someone has to teach them before they are age 6, 7, or 8 to hate whom their relatives hated, the song says. These students made it to adolescence thinking it was somehow OK to spew anti-Semitic vitriol at a basketball game, that it was OK to recite something the Catholic church itself had denounced in 1965.
She goes on to suggest that students as young as First Grade can learn about world religions. Read the whole thing.
