The Authors Respond to Alan Singer.
Saved in:
| Title: | The Authors Respond to Alan Singer. |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Sewall, Gilbert T., Wright, Elliott A., Lickona, Thomas, Nord, Warren A. |
| Source: | Phi Delta Kappan. Feb 2000 81(6):465-467. |
| Peer Reviewed: | N |
| Page Count: | 3 |
| Publication Date: | 2000 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Opinion Papers |
| Descriptors: | Educational History, Elementary Secondary Education, Moral Values, Religious Factors, State Church Separation, United States History |
| Laws, Policies and Program Identifiers: | Establishment Clause |
| ISSN: | 0031-7217 |
| Abstract: | Sewall argues that Alan Singer's denial of religion signifies a crabbed, intolerant view of human nature. Wright reaffirms his observations about universal values like the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. Lickona values religion's role in U.S. history, and Nord says religious viewpoints aid in understanding nature. (MLH) |
| Entry Date: | 2000 |
| Accession Number: | EJ601176 |
| Database: | ERIC |
|
Full text is not displayed to guests.
Login for full access.
|
|
| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwHelD-v3MikES7J1o8--c3NAAAA4TCB3gYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHQMIHNAgEAMIHHBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDHb2TuAJ8d0vKvj2bwIBEICBmYrJDTnDT3KmYNy7m5pYQ9AKA0Enm2-_0Oz3TmiXJ0611eyadQJZYt3dsC-iHg9LgaPIujZ_27JSu7RQemJ_VxwOx5tVxCyOrRmijKWShe0obr2XRoAKCsbm36jG-Mhgj6LSY4pK14Vml4OBaqPWuaLo9LqYKEipcpp7nx0R8rl1VgwLeaC3Zrx7gF1_4u54t1mfXQZBoNJ9Xg== Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0002770173;PDK01FEB.00;2000Feb25.16:31;v4.1</anid> <title id="AN0002770173-1">THE AUTHORS RESPOND TO ALAN SINGER </title> <sbt id="AN0002770173-2">A RESPONSE BY GILBERT T. SEWALL</sbt> <p>ALAN SINGER feels excluded by narrow Christianity and broader theology in the special section on "Religion and the Schools" in the September 1999 Kappan. A huge number of Americans would think otherwise. They reject his "separationist" system of belief as it influences the general and educational lives of their children. Most voters and parents believe that the public schools should somehow acknowledge the divine, broadly but unapologetically. And they increasingly wonder why this is not the case. </p> <p>Singer's long list of religion-inspired misfortunes - a tired point originated by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and others years ago - has more to do with absolutism than with religion. One can construct a counterlist of religion's benevolence. The "Creator" is integral to the founding of America, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Religion - notably the Christian religion - is foundational in the nation's humanities, arts, and letters, and much of this rich domain will escape any individual who is estranged from religion. </p> <p>My own views about religion are syncretic and heterodox, an outlook problematic for many conservative Christians. But these views do not mitigate my perception of religion's constitutive role in human life and education. </p> <p>I do think that conservative Christians have endured scorched-earth secularism for more than 30 years. They have reason to think that they "lost the schools" to, well, what shall we call it? Postmodernism? Secular materialism? They have lost something precious to them and possibly to us all, intellectually and ethically, a loss apparent in the ethos, look, and feel of many schools today. </p> <p>Denying religion, I would caution Singer, may result in a crabbed, incomplete, and intolerant view of human nature. It may avoid the ethical and metaphysical dimensions of human life, a matter hardly outside the tax-financed mission of the public schools. In the last few years, America's educators have in limited ways tried to embrace and rethink the place of religion in classrooms. They have begun to strengthen a part of education that textbook publishers and school boards enfeeble at risk to domestic tranquility. </p> <p>GILBERT T. SEWALL is the director of the American Textbook Council, New York, N.Y. He is the author of Learning About Religion, Learning from Religion (American Textbook Council, 1998) and the editor of The Eighties: A Reader (Perseus Books, 1998). </p> <hd id="AN0002770173-3">A RESPONSE BY ELLIOTT A. WRIGHT</hd> <p>LET ME first distinguish between what Alan Singer says I said and my understanding of what I wrote, particularly with regard to "universalized versions of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments," which seems to be at the core of his complaint. </p> <p>Singer describes my position as "promoting" such universalizing as the basis of moral or character education in public schools. I plead not guilty. I wrote as a historian, not as a promoter, and the sentence to which Singer reacts is set within descriptions of several options for interpreting the current character education movement. I asked whether the movement's intention is to take account of the fact of morality in history and culture or whether it wants to teach "actual morals and ethical values, whatever those might be." </p> <p>If the second is the objective, I said, then moral foundations and content must be identified, and I expressed a suspicion - not a belief as Singer alleges - that, in this particular society, such foundations and content would probably be universalized versions of the Golden Rule and Ten Commandments. That is not advocacy but observation. These two sources are perennial favorites of American educators and moralists. A "morals education" movement half a century ago discovered the Golden Rule in every world religion and offered a curriculum based on it to public schools, with the blessing of the National Education Association and the American Council on Education. </p> <p>I shall not comment on Singer's attempt to invalidate the moral soundness of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments by evoking Judeo-Christian hypocrisy. </p> <p>Singer also says that I "argued" that the Supreme Court decisions on prayer and Bible reading have been "misapplied and would puzzle" early American educational thinkers. I did make the statement about the puzzlement of prior generations, which is almost self-evident, but not about the misapplication. The fact that earlier Americans would not understand a contemporary court action neither undercuts the ruling nor indicts the progenitors. I happen to think, speaking historically, that the court decisions of the 1960s were appropriate. </p> <p>Singer is unhappy that I did not explain why the height of the wall of separation has increased over the years (he says 200, I would say 75). Such an explanation would have to be book length and would begin with the fact that much of the secular political philosophy of the Founders was reinterpreted in both policy and practice by the Second Great Awakening. It was well into the 20th century before law began to reach back to Jeffersonian principles, based in a deistic outlook, for guidance on religion in public education. Jefferson's deism, it might be noted, was based in large measure on universalized precepts, such as those of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. </p> <p>ELLIOTT A. WRIGHT has studied the history of religion and moral instruction in American public schools under grants from the Lilly Endowment. </p> <hd id="AN0002770173-4">A RESPONSE BY THOMAS LICKONA</hd> <p>MY proposals, which Alan Singer finds "troubling," were seven: 1) make students aware that the American founders considered our human rights "unalienable" because they are "endowed by our Creator," not given out by the government; 2) study the role religion has played in our nation's social reform movements; 3) examine motivation, including religious motives, in the lives of exemplars of altruism such as Mother Teresa; 4) where appropriate, include religious perspectives in the curriculum; 5) encourage students to consider the relevance of their religious beliefs when making moral decisions about matters such as social justice and sexual behavior; 6) raise the question of whether there are objectively true, universally binding moral standards; and 7) challenge students to develop a vision of life that addresses ultimate questions. </p> <p>Singer doesn't directly attack the logic or constitutionality of these proposals; instead, he worries that my real agenda is to use character education to promote my "Roman Catholic religious beliefs." In my article, I pointed out that character education promotes virtues such as respect, responsibility, compassion, and self-control - objectively good human qualities that "transcend cultural and religious differences." Similarly, I noted that sexual abstinence outside of marriage is affirmed by varied religious traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All my recommendations regarding religion are, I believe, in accord with the First Amendment and the spirit of the recent agreement on religion in public schools as set forth in Religious Liberty, Public Education, and the Future of American Democracy, signed by 24 organizations as diverse as the National Education Association, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and the Christian Educators Association. </p> <p>Singer concludes that introducing religious perspectives into character education would discourage "critical thinking." How so? Anyone who takes religion seriously would want students to consider, By what rational criteria should we evaluate the ethical legitimacy and internal coherence of a particular religion's beliefs and behaviors regarding the rights of others? Can one religion legitimately persecute another, as Christians scandalously did to Jews and even to differing Christian denominations? How can one reconcile such behavior with God's command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Can one religion kill or enslave "the infidel," as the Islamic fundamentalist government of Sudan is now doing to thousands of black Christian and animist citizens in its holy war to "Islamize" that country by force? How can that behavior logically be reconciled with the fact that God creates us with free will, free to believe or not believe? </p> <p>Students must be helped to see - as most religious faiths have come to recognize - that respect for everyone's religious liberty is the only thing that makes it possible for anyone to enjoy religious freedom. Students can also be helped to see through false arguments. While many of his contemporaries sought to use Scripture to rationalize American slavery, for example, Lincoln showed that slave holding failed the reciprocity test of the New Testament's preeminent moral principle, the Golden Rule, when he famously argued, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." </p> <p>THOMAS LICKONA is a professor of education and director of the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, State University of New York, Cortland. He is the author of Educating for Character (Bantam, 1991). </p> <hd id="AN0002770173-5">A RESPONSE BY WARREN A. NORD</hd> <p>IN MY Kappan article, I argued that a liberal education should initiate students into a conversation about how to make sense of nature, in which they hear all the major voices in our cultural marketplace - religious as well as secular. Singer notes, in response, that "religions, especially some versions of Christianity, have excluded themselves from the dialogue by demanding that religion be accepted as an alternative truth, not subject to empirical investigation or rules of evidence and with a veto over efforts to achieve scientific understanding." </p> <p>True, many theologians have refused to participate in the discussion, content to reassert the old truths. But not all by any means. Nowadays, many theologians are part of the conversation, and there are a variety of religious positions on science and nature, liberal as well as conservative. </p> <p>Singer worries that including religious voices in the conversation weakens efforts "to teach students a scientific and critical approach to thinking, one that supports conclusions based on evidence and recognizes that our knowledge of the world can never be considered absolute." Well, yes, I do want to weaken efforts to teach students to accept uncritically a scientific approach to thinking (and to nature). There are other conceptions of evidence and argument than that found in modern science. To limit the conversation about nature (or anything) to what can be caught in the methodological nets of modern science precludes the possibility of truly critical thinking; it is to make science a matter of faith (and a kind of absolute). </p> <p>Singer insists that "until organized religions in the U.S. are prepared to acknowledge that they are philosophical and institutional systems whose origins can be explained through anthropological and historical study, there cannot be the kind of conversation Nord advocates." But this, of course, gives science (or social science) a veto over religious self-understanding and exposes Singer's fundamentally illiberal approach to education. Why should science and social science get to define the ground rules by which religious claims are to be interpreted and assessed? </p> <p>What's really griping Singer? Throughout his essay he keeps returning to the claim that religion has been the source of endless evil in human history - and he suspects that if religion is admitted to the curriculum, this history will be whitewashed. Of course, religion has been the source of much evil. And, yes, there are great dangers that this history will be whitewashed. (Of course, the history of science is littered with wildly mistaken theories, some of which have been used by scientists and policy makers for evil ends - history that is typically ignored in science texts.) So let's be clear about what the relevant principle should be: when we disagree - as we do about how to interpret history, morality, sexuality, art, economics, politics, psychology, or nature - let's teach students the conflicts, not systematically bias them toward secular over religious alternatives. </p> <p>WARREN A. NORD teaches philosophy of religion and is director of the Program in the Humanities and Human Values at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma (University of North Carolina Press, 1995) and, with Charles C. Haynes, of Taking Religion Seriously Across the Curriculum (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998). </p> |
|---|---|
| Header | DbId: eric DbLabel: ERIC An: EJ601176 AccessLevel: 3 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
| IllustrationInfo | |
| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: The Authors Respond to Alan Singer. – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Sewall%2C+Gilbert+T%2E%22">Sewall, Gilbert T.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Wright%2C+Elliott+A%2E%22">Wright, Elliott A.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Lickona%2C+Thomas%22">Lickona, Thomas</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Nord%2C+Warren+A%2E%22">Nord, Warren A.</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Phi+Delta+Kappan%22"><i>Phi Delta Kappan</i></searchLink>. Feb 2000 81(6):465-467. – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: N – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 3 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2000 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Opinion Papers – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+History%22">Educational History</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Elementary+Secondary+Education%22">Elementary Secondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Moral+Values%22">Moral Values</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Religious+Factors%22">Religious Factors</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22State+Church+Separation%22">State Church Separation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+States+History%22">United States History</searchLink> – Name: SubjectThesaurus Label: Laws, Policies and Program Identifiers Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SU" term="%22Establishment+Clause%22">Establishment Clause</searchLink> – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0031-7217 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Sewall argues that Alan Singer's denial of religion signifies a crabbed, intolerant view of human nature. Wright reaffirms his observations about universal values like the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. Lickona values religion's role in U.S. history, and Nord says religious viewpoints aid in understanding nature. (MLH) – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2000 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ601176 |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ601176 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 3 StartPage: 465 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Educational History Type: general – SubjectFull: Elementary Secondary Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Moral Values Type: general – SubjectFull: Religious Factors Type: general – SubjectFull: State Church Separation Type: general – SubjectFull: United States History Type: general – SubjectFull: Establishment Clause Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: The Authors Respond to Alan Singer. Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Sewall, Gilbert T. – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Wright, Elliott A. – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Lickona, Thomas – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Nord, Warren A. IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2000 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0031-7217 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 81 – Type: issue Value: 6 Titles: – TitleFull: Phi Delta Kappan Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
