Something I have been noticing over the course of the semester is that my class was surprisingly Christian-oriented for such a diverse group of students. One of the main things that brought this to my attention was how nearly every morning message discussion we had circled back to Jesus and God. From the first day I took over morning meeting, I tried to use that time as an outlet for students to express themselves kindly and learn respect for one another. They rarely have time to talk during school and I wanted them to be able to open up to me and their classmates without fear of shushing or punishment.
The first day that God was brought up during morning meeting was easy to avoid because only one student had mentioned it. I simply went on to the next student who was telling me about his weekend. However, over time, the discussions became more and more detailed until the day when my students were discussing whether or not Jesus died for our sins. My mentor teacher never stepped in to break up the conversation, which made me feel like maybe I was overreacting.
That being said, I had always heard that teachers are not supposed to advocate their beliefs to their students because it might appear to be preaching or giving undue influence. I did not want to be caught in that situation even though I am proudly Christian. I agreed with what many of my students said and wanted to correct things that they had misunderstood from the Bible. Instead, I found myself consistently saying: "some people believe that..." After the discussion about Jesus dying for our sins, one of my students came up to me in the hallway and asked if I was a Christian and believed in God. I told him yes because I didn't want to lie and then told him that I didn't want to talk about it in depth because I didn't want anyone to feel that their personal beliefs were unwelcome in our classroom.
After that, the topic didn't come up again, but I started wondering what I would do in this situation in my future classroom. Legally, what are my obligations as a public schoolteacher? How can I share my life with my students without sharing information about what I believe? How can I try not to influence my students' beliefs when sharing my own? Oftentimes students model their thoughts and opinions after their teachers and I never want to be told by angry parents that I am indoctrinating their kids. So, I am continuing to puzzle over this. Have any of you encountered religion-based issues thus far in your placements? If so, what have you done to deal with them?
No comments:
Post a Comment