About a week ago I was teaching some of the writings of the early Pilgrims (mostly poetry of Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, but also an excerpt from The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, which I just happened to find online) to my AP English class (Juniors). We got into discussions of the role religion played in the lives of these early Americans and I asked them (all right, I was goading them) about religious freedom in America today and whether or not there was a chill being placed on open religious expression. Several students began (rather forcefully, I might add) citing the Constitution’s “separation of church and state” as the correct way to understand why such expression should be omitted. When I tried to explain to them the true nature of that phrase, they looked at me as if I had grown a third eye (which, I was careful to not wear to class that day!) When I asked them to ponder the nature of these deeply religious folks (we had been studying them for two weeks, and the notion that there would come a day in their not-too-distant future where their offspring would actually legislate against their own deeply held beliefs, to wit, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s create a country where we are not allowed to openly practice what we most revere,” when I asked them to consider the absurdity of such a thought, about half the class took on a “light bulb going on” look, while the other half continued to snarl.
You see, their History teacher had told them, “separation of church and state was in the Constitution. Who is their English teacher to tell them otherwise! At the ripe old age of 16, their minds (some of them) had been successfully calibrated.
Get them while their young, folks!
Great work! I see a bit of hope for younger people. Many of them are savvy beyond their years due to the stream of information that they glean mostly off of the internet. The sad part is that many of them are jaded before they have really embarked on their journey. The good part is that many of them are skeptical, critical thinkers. They can look around themselves and see that things are bent, broken or lacking. They ponder it, and often without much respect for authority simply as authority. They want a reason or a proof of integrity.
Great guidance that you did there. Not all, but some of those seeds you planted will take root.