Thoughts on Teachers Who Wear Religious Articles of Clothing

In an earlier post I asked for you to vote on whether Oregon teachers should be allowed to wear articles of religious clothing in the classroom. As I write this, Oregon is one of only two states that forbids public schoolteachers from wearing such garb through a statewide law, though many states give individual districts the option of banning religious articles in their local dress codes.

My informal survey is now closed; five readers voted against allowing religious clothing, and two voted in favor. As an erstwhile statistics tutor, I am contractually obligated to point out that the results of this poll may not be truly representative of the opinions held by the larger student-teaching community. The sample was small but more importantly it was self-selected; people who abstain from voluntary questionnaires tend to hold different viewpoints from those who choose to respond. (Those in the polling business refer to this phenomenon as non-response bias. Keep that in mind the next time your local TV news or Cosmopolitan-knockoff rag posts the results of a viewer/reader survey.) For all I know, the larger teaching community may only oppose classroom religious garb by a 4:3 ratio, or may even favor lifting the ban by a 51:49 ratio. My surveys are strictly for fun, dear readers; don't read too much into their results.

Enough stalling; the time has come for me to lay my cards on the table as promised. Yes, I strongly favor the separation of church and state, and not just because I am an atheist. (Believers have an equally good reason to keep religion out of government. Separation cuts both ways: not only does it protect government policy from religious dogmatism, it also protects the faithful from the corrupting influence of political ambition and power. So argued Roger Williams, the extremely religious founder of Rhode Island and an early proponent of church-state separation.) Since public education is currently the province of the state, any line drawn between church and state must pass through our schools. It may then surprise you to learn that I do not feel that the issue of religious garb on teachers marks a good place to draw this line.

That's right; I may well be the only atheist to favor lifting the ban. Here's why. In spite of our nation's claims of religious pluralism, Christianity is often perceived as the default spiritual inclination for any American who does not make other beliefs known to their acquaintances. I would like to undermine this assumption, especially among our schoolchildren. Part of receiving a well-rounded education is learning that there exist a staggering variety of viewpoints on any topic you care to name. Some viewpoints may be more useful than others (see the evolution-versus-intelligent-creation debate), but any teacher who only exposes students to one way of looking at anything dishonors their profession. Lifting the ban on religious garb may open the public teaching profession to good people who hold more exotic faiths, which could make our students more comfortable with the idea that the spiritual beliefs they were taught as children are not the only valid ones for a role model to hold. On a more practical note, our schools are chronically understaffed -- we need all the good teachers we can hire, and religious affiliation is a piss-poor reason for discouraging highly qualified applicants. If the best algebra teacher we can find is a Muslim woman who wears the traditional head scarf, then I want to see her working a public classroom. And I would pay good money to watch the druid blogger and historian John Michael Greer (a fellow Oregonian from Ashland) teach social studies next door.

My astute readers will no doubt raise a cogent objection: what effect would lifting the ban have on conservative rural districts? We may find great diversity in the more populous regions of the state, but removing a check on the more strident elements of rural American Christianity could make these districts even greater pits of intolerance -- right? It could work out that way, but I am willing to take that risk. Quite frankly, I don't see how conditions could grow that much worse than they already are. If teachers have the freedom to wear a tasteful crucifix in class (tasteful is a relative term here of course), then maybe a few of the more open-minded and liberal Christian teachers will wear them as well. This could show students that Christianity need not be coterminous with right-wing politics, an important lesson to learn in the post-Bush era. And if I ever find myself teaching in a district that heavily agitates for intelligent design propaganda in biology (sociological discussions are fine), I would like to have the legal right to wear some Pastafarian gear in class to get my epic counter-protest lulz. Yeah, I teach math, but that's no reason not to get involved -- especially if lulz are at stake.

My last comment does lead to a greater concern that must still be addressed, however. How do we keep openly-worn religious iconography from derailing the instruction of our regularly-scheduled curriculum? This is a very serious constitutional question; we flirt now with the finer edge of the First Amendment's establishment clause. I would argue that teachers who make the conscientious decision to wear their religious accessories to class have an obligation to briefly answer any questions about their gear while deflecting any attempts by students to open an in-class theological debate. Kids are curious -- that's perfectly natural and should even be encouraged -- but they also need to learn that there's a proper time and place for every discussion. Any teacher who cannot balance these considerations has no business flashing his or her gear, and might not be well-suited for teaching at all.

With that, I surrender the floor to my fellow CJs once again. Agree with me, disagree with me, but never let it be said that I fear to tap-dance on the electrified third rail.