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September 12, 2019
Vol. 15
No. 1

Global Education Meets Religious Literacy

All too often, students' parents share with me how they felt their social studies and history classes were not relevant to their children and the issues they faced. When the bell rings on the first day of school, I make sure students know they will have a very different experience in my classroom.
To succeed in building culturally diverse lessons that represent the demographic realities of our nation and world, teachers need to equip themselves with global knowledge and skills. Organizations such as World Savvy and IREX have been incredibly helpful to my growth as a globally minded teacher. Both offer programs for educators to expand their international knowledge and pedagogical skills (including IREX's new Global Education 101 course) and give them opportunities to travel the world.
The more I dug into these frameworks, the more I realized how vital it is for teachers and students to learn about the world's religions, many of which are still misunderstood and vilified through lack of education. I fell in love with teaching about religion because of its practical implications in bringing context to modern-day issues. If students and teachers are truly going to be globally minded, religious studies needs to take a front seat.
In Montgomery County Public Schools where I taught for 13 years, students originate from more than 100 countries around the world. While we don't specifically discuss students' personal backgrounds or religious beliefs unless they volunteer that information, I realized how little I (and most of my colleagues) knew about the cultural practices of many students.

The Path to Religious Literacy

My journey to become a more religiously literate teacher began at the Religious Freedom Center with courses about teaching religion in public schools. The way I teach students is strictly academic and analytical, so that students don't feel they are being forced to accept any religious beliefs or practices (and so that my classes don't violate the First Amendment rule prohibiting indoctrination of any one religion). Instead, they learn factual information to build their understanding and empathy for practitioners of other religions, which is necessary for global competency.
I've found contemporary films tackle the thornier issues within religions better than a verbal lecture, as the content is filtered through outside experts. Students watch investigative documentaries that explore the intersection of sexual orientation and religion, including For the Bible Tells Me So and For They Know Not What They Do, as well as explanatory documentaries that dismantle common misconceptions about religious communities, such as Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. When I teach about ancient India and the rise of Hinduism, we watch the Pixar film Sanjay's Super Team, which shows students that Hinduism is still a flourishing religion with roughly 1 billion adherents.
I was also empowered to create and facilitate a district-level course on religious literacy for fellow educators. To date, more than 270 people—from occupational therapists to kindergarten teachers—have learned about the richness of the U.S. religious landscape through summer and evening classes. We visit local religious sites, such as mosques and synagogues, and have experts lead discussions on what it means to be Catholic, Sunni, or atheist.
Two public school educators in the Chicago area I met through professional development (PD)—John Camardella and Seth Brady—helped inform my approach. They created PD opportunities for their respective school districts, including academic guidelines for teaching about religions. At the national level, the National Council for the Social Studies published Teaching about Religion in the Social Studies Classroom, edited by Charles Haynes, which outlines the basic ways to avoid violations of the U.S. Constitution. Although we can, for example, teach about the Bible from an academic context, we can't lead a Christian prayer.
Once teachers develop their own understanding, they can start to share their knowledge in the classroom.

Curriculum to Grow Understanding

I don't often dive into religious topics with my students until we've discussed other basics of global education. Because the current generation of students have been taught to be both inquisitive and skeptical learners, educators should use every opportunity to bring outside sources into the classroom. My classes have Skyped with speakers from various organizations, including Girl Rising, the United States Institute of Peace, and the U.S. State Department, who shared the importance of having a basic understanding of the world's history, customs, and cultures. Many of these organizations are quick to return emails about speaking requests for students and are excited to share their viewpoints.
It's even better when experts can speak to students in person. Through our school's alumni network, I invited Claire Nowlin, a senior project manager at Management Systems International, to share her experiences working in Namibia and to give advice to my sophomores on the skills they need to work in a global economy.
From this exposure, many students then choose to join my elective class about world religions. While teaching to juniors and seniors at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., Generation Global facilitated a free hour-long dialogue with students in the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. The organization provided the modules and a trained moderator for conversations around our shared values and goals. As my students talked with young people who had such vastly different worldviews, my class was surprised at the many similarities they found. One of my students, who grew up in Israel, said that the video conference was the first time she had ever had a dialogue with a Palestinian student her own age.
We had a similar conversation with students in Mexico, which allowed my students to put faces and voices to our southern neighbors, who often find themselves as U.S. political targets.
Expanding teenage minds to the wonders of the world and its billions of inhabitants is what motivates me every day. With the right framework, learning about these commonly avoided topics is transformative for students and ourselves.

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