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Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters: Teachers who won't teach Bible could lose license
(www.nbcnews.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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In what way was Thomas Aquinas an important influence on the founding of the United States and in what way would that be appropriate to teach elementary school kids?
It's not appropriate for an elementary school kids. Per the article, this applies to grades 5 through 12. So what, 1 year of elementary with the primary focus of impact on junior high and high school?
But if you are getting into questions of "what was more important to our founding fathers, rome or christianity?" I'd say that's pretty difficult to separate because of thinkers like Thomas Aquinas that married Greek Philosophy with Christianity. When you begin with a point that God is the source of reason, and build off of that, I think you can't easily separate that out.
No, I asked in what way Thomas Aquinas contributed to the founding of the U.S. It seems like your reasoning is pretty damn indirect and it's even more indirectly related to the Bible, so this law does not apply.
And it either isn't appropriate for elementary school or it should be taught in the fifth grade (also, sixth grade is still elementary school in many districts). Which is it?
You said this:
this statement says nothing about what should be taught in schools, it's a statement of history. my statement is simply stating it is very difficult to separate out the roman influence from the christian influence because of thomas aquinas linking christian tradition to greek thought. I would say that from a intellectual POV, founding fathers were probably equally or more influenced by greeks than romans, but at the end of the day we can just call it all classical thought. that's pretty apparent in our architecture of state houses. This is a tangential discussion where we are not discussing what should be taught in schools, but just historical thought in the USA. Please re-read your own to catch up on the conversation topic.
My statement was made within the context of the article I posted. I’m not sure why you think I would have made it otherwise.
The statement was in response to another commenting not talking about the specific policy, but making a general comment that in order to understand US History and thought of early American Settlers you likely need to have some understanding of the bible. That has nothing to do with this specific teaching policy, and the comment you responded to calls out the commenter didn't trust the superintendent:
And yet this never has been necessary for public schools in the past. Which suggests there is no such need.
Well understanding for a 5rh grader is different than high schooler, or graduate student, or historian. But because protestantism is such a critical historical theme in early America it makes sense to understand to some degree what those religious beliefs are. I'm not saying a fifth grader needs to dive into it, but for high schooler and college students, it's a bit more important to have a general understanding of it. But I think that understanding also extends to learning about other religions.
Okay, but we're talking about grade schoolers and, again, it has never been necessary for public schools to teach about the Bible in the past to give kids an education in American history.
So why you're trying to justify Walters' decision I don't know.
Also, you can teach about Christianity without teaching about the Bible beyond generalities and without venerating it as a sacred document that was also primary founding document for the nation. Which it simply wasn't. I'm not sure why the First Amendment alone doesn't make that clear to you.