8. BridgeBuilder Workshops/DisarmingFears2

Yeah, yeah To fear Yeah, and the advantage you have there in your local school district the question was but if the fundraising letters are generated by fear Then you know how are you gonna fight that the reality is this what you get to say to people I do with Christian parents all the time I show up in school district and and they're concerned and they're upset and they're angry on stuff I say you know what? I know you've read all that stuff, but let's find out now if it's true in your school district and The distance you have is to say yeah boy if it and I tell administrators face when they get a an outlandish fear Like someone comes in saying I'm afraid you're using my child's test To harm them for scholarships in their future or you're trying to put my kid on a vocational track They may not want what the best things not oh come on man. We never do that. No Hey, I'm a parent too. If that's happening in the school district boy. I would care about that. What can you and I do? To find out whether or not that's happening here Don't engage the national debate because in some school districts. It might be happening What you can say is an ours. How can we show you? How can we work through this together and the biggest thing we'll talk about in the last section of what I'll Do today is if you build relationships with members of the religious community just like schools do with the business community and other Communities if you build relationships then when a conflict hits those school districts that work out Well our school districts that have already built relationships with religious partners So when the conflict eats up they've got known faces to bring in when a class grader is telling me We didn't grade for values in worlds. We've merely graded for religious expression and the ability to defend it Because I knew the woman I Had no reason to distrust her answer But people who didn't know her who had not worked with her thought she would stand up there if they were using it to punish students for Scholarships, but she just lied to them that would mean problem. And if you don't know the person they can deny it and not be believed So in some sense your partner there aren't many People that carry these kind of fears enough to come in and rank all your cage in your office But if those who do get a chance to walk through and get to see that their fears are unfounded at least in this school You're not talking about Massachusetts, and I go to Massachusetts now help it I don't know the Massachusetts things really nuts about what I do and so I've gone there three times now to help with various department of various school districts and The long way to go off and I sit there and say, you know, I don't know About your school district. I might find out that this school district is very hostile to people of religious faith I mean that she's pretty liberal play So if I find that out, we're gonna be honest with the parents and say, how do we fix this public edge private education? Maybe a fix I'm not against private education. I say to some Christian parents You know it sounds to me like you want you want a Christian education for your child, and you know, that's why there's private education That's why this homeschooling. There's ways for you to get a Christian education for your child There are ways and they're legitimate and our society's made room for those but in a public forum How do we work together? How do you work with someone who disagrees it? You know my recommendation to our new superintendent in town Came and this is interesting for me because I was a pastor a very conservative church and a very conservative viewpoint about a lot of things And the superintendent that encouraged me to do what I'm doing with you today Said you know the recommender that I talked to you and I said no who said the director of family planning if I say She said you gotta talk to this Wayne Jacobson guy. I disagree with about everything he says In terms of position He's the most fair and honest man. I know let's talk to him about this thing She said my recommendation like that about you. I said, I gotta meet this guy There are ways to build respect with people who disagree with you This is a big society. Our society's not 82% Christian. We say that that's people identify that with the Christian God Let me give you another statistic that helped mitigate that deals with pastor seminars all the time Gallup when it does the religious census of the American population also determines the depth of religious conviction They have a series of identifiers that seek to identify whether or not That someone who says well, they believe in the Christian God or the Hindu God or whatever gods That how do how deep is that conviction what they're looking for is? Are you convinced enough about your religion that you would be willing to sacrifice something? In other words, if it cost you something you'd pay the cost you you know It's not just a matter of convenience. You understand they don't say how they measure that because they don't want to skew it But that's their intent to measure that among that 96% they primarily skewed because they primarily look for it in in and read it out by religion and I have this the statistics on the Christian side of that because I deal with pastors and seminaries and stuff all the time And we take a look at it. Here's the statistic in 1972 25% of that 82% that identify themselves as serving the Christian God 25% considered their Christian religious faith So important that they would make some sacrifice to keep it 25% In 1982 that number had fallen to 12% In 1992 that number has fallen to 6% So even though that Christianity is broad in our society. It is not always deep In terms, I don't know how that's fairly measured, but that's a statistic that's used a lot in Circles that prepare Christian leadership for the future. Yeah I Do yeah, and the day-long in-service that I do we take a lot of time with this video We really want people to understand it to sort it through to say now what these the statistics are accurate But the rise in divorce the rise those are not inaccurate statistics the question is cause and effect what caused what and and SAT tests and why they're higher in private schools than not just because they pray when the day starts and other other Mitigating factors, so there are a lot of mitigating factors in those things and yeah We do take time to do that in this session only got two hours I think we're looking basically to give you a sense of perspective about where these people coming from so we can address it I don't I don't despise people who believe this I have to help them understand whether or not this is valid and if not then how do I begin to think about the World I live in the world is a scarier place. I think we all say that The rise in violence and crime is incredible and it's a scarier place to raise kids Drug use and whatever is higher. It's much higher public school campuses. I mean it's just it's rampant I don't think it has to do with the fact that we don't pray before school I mean, I'm I don't think that's the factor in fact I understand that someone told me how true this is but Saturday night live did a skit off of this kind of thing and put These statistics up and all this stuff changed in 1963 And they went back and examined and found out that that was the year the pop-top had been invented on aluminum cans and so that's why and That's kind of humorous, but it does make the point that there's a lot of things that happen leading up to 1963 and beyond in fact Nord in his book as he traces through the whole basis of religion of America will say that secularism in our society really increased significantly prior to through and after World War two and with the Supreme Court did in 1963 reflected a trend of about 40 years of people becoming increasingly secular and increasingly less religious conscious and family oriented and much more oriented toward secular success and those kinds of things so there are the factors in that and yeah, we do try to talk about it more our Limited time today and allows to do that here. Yes Okay I Depends on the issue the question is what about your people parents who choose to opt out and We've had a policy that's free them to do that But people are wanting whatever the curriculum they're concerned about to be people really need to opt in so it's not generally available Somebody has to pay attention to get their kid in and what do you do about that? Depends on the school districts. Sometimes it's a good answer. There's the school districts where particularly family life education at lower levels down to Fourth fifth and sixth do that opt in I think that when these wider issues are being involved There are ways to sit down. It's bigger than fixing the issue I think that's the point I want to make when there's multiple issues and multiple Then there's something wider that a group of parents inviting a group of pastors in Communicate with the religious community so that at some point if these are people that are extreme in their concerns Then that becomes noticed in the community as a whole and even noticed to them One community I was invited me say when these kind of conflicts start like the one you're talking about in any Okay, I was not involved there in any way professionally though I did meet with some people in the district just personally because I wanted to know what was going on and did meet with the parent group in The library one evening for a while me there are there a number of conservative groups That are ready to come to town and scare the pants off of people in your community. They're just sorry and And I said through one and I went wow And and what I know is most of what he's and we take the most extreme things that have happened in California in the last 50 years and then make it sound like every school district is doing those things and what I say is you need a Communication arm to a wider element of the Christian community in that city You need pastors to be involved in fact the reason I wasn't anti-ocked because you brought it up Pastor called me saying this is tearing my church apart. I got people that are raising all these issues I've got people in my church who are educators who don't feel like there's any validity to those issues and my church is would you come Up here and just see what you can do and so the concern is wider when it gets to that level and let me encourage you I think there are ways I People like me the three Rs people and if you get people to come from there to sit down Have a luncheon with pastors in the community talk through some of these concerns. How valid are they? How can we find a working arrangement? We're trying the school district apart This isn't helpful and have an outside mediator help with that is incredibly helpful And if you can't solve it in-house get somebody to come in help you that's not advertisement for me I'm just telling you if you don't nip it in the bud alone early on you're not gonna Nip it in the bud six months later without some help to bring somebody in say let's talk Let's bring some pastors in of these people and help them communicate so that we can find out whether this is really a problem book or not But it's not just the issues There's a larger mistrust in fear that sometimes ends up in homeschooling or whatever and sometimes for parents That's a great answer. You know what this is isn't the system for you You know we care about you this book though the general to me doesn't feel the same way We want this to be safe for you And And Doesn't work What I think I'm trying to convey to you is most of the people of religious conviction in your community don't carry it Or is there a small group that is convinced are there groups being trained to dismantle public education? I would deny that for a moment. They're out there Can you help them see what's really going on in your public school district and leave you at those fears at times? We've been able to do that at times where you can't do it You're right what you have to do then is move beyond them to the wider religious community and have some connections that Undermine the fears that they're trying to ferment in the community. That's the step beyond what you're talking about at some point You say we can't work with these people. They're not we've done what we can to open doors to let them see to engage it But they're they're just overrun with fears So then how do we invite other people in that I hate to use the words I don't think it's very nice But if people are going to be irrational and not listen then their interests have to be Marginalized for the good of the community so that the community can go on in a healthy way Most people of religious conviction in your society are not out to dismantle your school district That's what I'm trying to tell you are there some who want to and hear this rhetoric and have been trained at clandestin means Yes But oftentimes if you can expose their efforts and what they're doing and bring other people in From your own community and work with them You can do that in a way that undermines the fear they're trying to foment if you don't undermine the fear though It takes very little of this kind of stuff to make that 10 people become a group of 70 80 a hundred two hundred So you want to mitigate it early on now? How do we reintegrate bring those people at the tail because some incredible partnerships going on between schools and churches to Help with tutorials and to help with those coming There's some stuff going on out there that is very helpful and some sort of school we can't do it Because it's a church or you can bring it in church people have to understand how they come in Synagogue sure. Yeah, I don't mean to leave them out. Thank you. I don't want to get us Identifying even 10 people in your community as the crazies, you know as the extremists I consider every person still fair game to somehow reach out and engage and if you've missed them Maybe someone else can find them I think that's not say people haven't done enough to do that But I'm all for not saying the crazies in it because if you do this in the community You got to stand among the Christian religions specifically where this conflict comes from there's a real disparity between what are known as Liberal denominations and what are known as conservative denominations and you can go out and brace the liberal denominations much a part of interfaith councils Etc. And still miss out what you're saying a whole segment of the community that are not out to destroy public education What you have to do and I haven't got this part of this part to that we're working on the very next thing is We've got to help our community accept the plurality of the public forum Fact it is no longer a Christian forum And I think that has as much to offer Christians as it does anybody else I think it's done awful lot to offer people from Jewish faith from Islamic faith I've got a school district that had a young Islamic student that had to pray his five times a day And one of them was right in the middle of this one class he had and so he talked to teacher saying I supposed to pray What can I do and the school could have driven a hard line with that fortunately the school just said well How can we do this? He said well, I just need to kneel down. He said you have to pray out loud He said no, I don't pray out loud and play to myself Can you do it here in the classroom? And you know it's like throw it so I got a little prayer mat thing Well, can you bring it and throw it down right there by your chair and kneel down and just do it quietly And then rejoin the class and the students said yeah, I could do that And he said would you mind just sharing with our class what you're doing before you do it so that they Understand what that's about and so the student got up front and said No, I belong to this thing and part of it's praying five times a day and one of them happens to be right at the time I'm in this class and so I put him in the corner back where he could just slide out of his desk and kneel right there for He said for two weeks It was a horrible distraction our classroom because all kids But after that was no problem at all. I just it just was fine. I think there's a lot to offer us here I think most people in our society even most conservative religious people Can really embrace what plurality offers us as a culture and but but it who? Here's the question who's helping us embrace the plurality of our society And that's not to say I'm a conservative Christian. I live my life totally by the scriptures I believe everything in I've talked to most of my life I believe all I said I live my life, but I don't I think inherent to Christianity into most other religions is You can't embrace this by compulsion You can only embrace this by choice. I think I talked to pastors and we run up that little continuum Most of them even talk about I want four and five by the time we're done Parent-forms same thing. We're all moving to three and saying, you know what the best this American experiment in democracy Is an experiment of a religious liberty that allows you to be religious? However, you choose to be doesn't compel you to be religious in any way And how do we live that out only in the last 30 years as our country done this? And if the groups on the either extreme that are raising funds can only promote fear to advance their agenda Then who is it if it's not going to be some of us? School district people whoever in our community to say we're going to invest some effort in some parent forums So that our community as a whole Understands the plurality offer something to everybody that our government is not trying to take kids away and haul them to a place And we had just count some of those fears and people who know it's not there need to speak out And I'm involved engaged with the religious people who know better and need to be doing some rhetoric along the question I probably got earlier. We'll be doing nationally to infect the rhetoric here I met for three hours with the president of and I'll not get the name of this organization It's out of Orange County. It's probably you guys know about it fairly. Well, it's a it's a Christian group That's tried to do some things education. We sit down for a long time and talked about the fears of that group is for men And what can we do? And he even said to me yes, some of the fears that people believe from not what we're saying in the arc stream So what can we do to bring the rhetoric back to something real? Because if we don't help our communities embrace pluralism and The values of it doesn't mean that and I like I like what you said on this this pamphlet the last page of this I'm gonna get to your question. I've seen your hand back there This statement of principles last page is not an attempt to minimize or ignore our differences that are important and abiding But rather it is a reaffirmation of what we share as American citizens across our differences Democratic citizenship does not require a compromise of our deepest convictions We invite all men and women of goodwill to join us in affirming these principles and putting them into action The time has come for us to work together for academic excellence fairness and shared civic values in our nation's school Now Christian coalition is on here They're one of the ones that I know you would be alleged to do some of the training that came up here earlier They're on here saying we believe in this so when I sit down with Christian coalition parents By the way, these are free you can call freedom form and get one for every person in your city, you know, you got You can help build a framework to say look this is your own group signed on here Also, I'm looking for is not to have a say it's out to destroy religious faith But how can we partner together and I'm sorry your turn? Graham is rights respect and responsibility. It comes out of this same organization right here freedom forum You can get ahold of them through there. It's Charles Haynes. It's a whole curriculum It's a it's a great group They will come into your school district and they'll do some training of what can it can't be done legally in the schools in terms of Religious issues help you build bridges. They're a great group to do that. I'd recommend them highly Responsibilities and how important those are in our culture and how that allows for religious diversity. Let me get this other question here There's a book on the back table as you leave you probably seen this finding common ground this this book is the most incredible Incredible resource. It's in your bibliography. This book's only nine dollars and fifty cents every school district on the planet ought to have one It covers everything having to do with okay. Now what I'm gonna tell you is this on the back table I have a flyer just take one send that to them with nine dollars and fifty cents and you'll get one of these Okay, and you can look through it. It includes everything how to work through these controversies What to do who this is put out by the free arts people and it's it's incredible get ahold of it There are some people behind the scenes here that have got an agenda of whatever But even some of the people in your own school, they're not irrational fears to them It's because they care very deeply for their kids and they're really concerned these things are happening And so if we can't disarm that then we've got to mitigate it and there's ways to do that too But the hope is that we can come together in a framework that allows us to either get through to those parents or work Around them, but we have to or they're going to destroy what's going on because but what I want you to stand is they're not Crazies and they're not zealots. They're people who care very deeply for their kids Society has moved away from them in their fear. They're caught up trying to do some things that are very very harmful and very destructive Exactly and and and that's probably what we're talking about doing in some cases in some communities You've got to marginalize some input of some people you have to so school district can go on But the first thing you want to do and if you've tried that you've tried that The first thing you want to do is somehow bring them in and help them understand and realize how a pluralistic environment is best for all of us I don't want even these groups that want to take over the United States for religious purposes There's not much about their agenda that I'd want to be a part of I Say the pastors all the time when I do this very conservative pastors who say boy We need a Christian American they start out there and I say, okay, what does that look like? Who heads that up? Is that your denominational officials and they all start laughing because they don't know that ain't it Just what is it? What is a Christian American me? Can you give me any example from history? where Ecclesiastical Church and civil authority have been combined in one entity and it's been helpful for Christianity and I can't name it. It's not there and So that makes people wake up and say you know the best that we can hope for in our society is Religious liberty and freedom of religious expression and I'm not trying to destroy yours. Don't try and destroy mine Can we live together with the integrity of the individual conscience and and the leader of my particular religion? Jesus Christ demonstrated that tremendously I'm not trying to you want to come calm But you have come and he didn't try and take the reins of the of civil authority to enforce his will and I I feel under no mandate to do that so some of the teaching that these people have gotten Need to be mitigating. I think there's a process that happened. I Come out of these kind of meetings with with administrators and I've heard some of them just say you know what I've been doing this for 35 years This is the first time I've ever had a chance to sit down and talk about some of these religious concerns And I didn't even know how some of this stuff worked And I think when the situations like that come up and there's this thing of support in this books evil and then censorship And when we stereotype and name-call and we got literature out there against the religious right You've got literature out there against the liberal left and and you're fermenting that kind of animosity and you're I went to a Workshop at the AASA conference last year and it was a conference about dealing with AIDS curriculum in the religious community So I thought I'm interested in this because I deal with it quite a bit and their point was if you're getting conflict about AIDS Education from the religious conservatives and what you do is and here's where you can find all the religious liberals Go out and get them in and then you can overrun those people and I'm sitting there thinking Okay, if you're desperate you got to do that But I'm telling you don't make the war go away by adding soldiers to the conflict because then they'll just go out and get more people What you want to do is somehow sit down and have some rational Dialogue with people who can because there are broad consensus on issues like this and the other blue sheep There's broad consensus here that if we can impose these things are not Implemented yet in public schools and when anything happens if there's a principle in Missouri That stops some kid for praying over his lunch just pertain stop But you can't do that here that shows up in a newsletter somewhere our schools are against prayer and kids can't The principal didn't know that obviously you can't stand up on his table invite everybody to join him But he can pray for his meal There was a court case not long ago in our newspaper how it played out the student had written a paper on Jesus Christ and The teacher had given her an F and it appealed all the Supreme Court and Supreme Court refused to review it letting a lower court case Stand which was that the woman the girl had been flunked in the assignment because she'd written a paper on Jesus Christ Now that played in my paper was you can't write a paper on Jesus Christ in the public school system Jesus Christ is persona non grata and I'm going now that ain't true. I know that isn't true I know you can write a paper if it fits the assignment the teacher's given can have a religious thing You can do it so I did so I got the New York Times and I read it and the point was this the teacher gave an assignment I want you to choose something that you don't know anything about and I want you to do some original research And come to an opinion and then write a paper defending your opinion Topics had to be approved in advance the students submitted topic paper on Jesus Christ The teacher knows girl was from a conservative religious family was a deeply devoted Christian girl didn't said no I want you to do something that you've not have any previous knowledge about and so he declined the topic She did it anyway, so many what the Supreme Court upheld was not that you can't write religious themes read the blue sheet There's people for the American way agree you can write pink papers on religious themes and make speeches on religious things You can do that, but it has to meet the assignment and teachers can't construct an assignment specifically to include something really exclude something religious You can't do that either There's a forum here that plays out fairly if we use it But most of us don't know what it is and most teachers then get fearful to do anything We sat with a group of teachers in Massachusetts and I gave them an assignment Why don't you spend the next 10 minutes? And let's think of as many uses as we can for the Bible in a public education environment appropriate use of the Bible And they came up with 55 appropriate uses for the Bible in public education And I said, okay How many have used the Bible in the last year in any of these ways and not one person because I don't get to tell Man, I don't get thrown out the Supreme Court decision that outlawed State-sponsored school prayer had in it It could be argued that if a student graduates in our society from a public school without a working knowledge of the literary Content of the Old and New Testament they could say to be uneducated So the Supreme Court wasn't saying religious themes are out What is saying is the state cannot endorse the state cannot sponsor the state cannot compel But neither can the state deny Okay, let's get on to some of this we only got about 15 minutes back here and then I'm going to go on right here Yeah, and that's the best example of this the idea of building bridges goes both ways The idea is that we bring people in and we have school districts that really reflect That we that we honor those with religious conviction and we don't despise those who don't have religious conviction The school districts got to be neutral on those kinds of points and it can be neutral in a supportive way if you have religious faith That's great It's an important part of your life wonderful if you don't don't feel you don't need to be trashed on or Compelled to do anything else if we can find a level of mutual respect which paves through the top those things that have to happen If we are going to embrace religious neutrality these things have to happen We have to embrace the common a common objective. We're trying to educate all the children in the public school We're not trying to educate just a limited Sectarian orientation of our kids. It's all the kids We've got to accept the plurality of the forum appeal to fairness for all I said on family life education committee and there's certain things I want There's certain envelopes that are being pushed by others on the committee The larger question is not what do my kids need? So what's best for this whole community and I sit down with people that have just the rhetoric I got before I arrived in town was we're against the school doing anything in in sex education is the responsibility of the parents school There's no business just we want them out of it blah blah blah and I said well Just let me get there. Let's sit down talk about it and when I get there and sit down talk about it And we'll talk about what are the needs in this community? And here's what one of those guys said who called me in advance and I got there and halfway through the thing He stops when he says you know what I? Want responsibility for this with my kids. I want to make sure that I'm the one that teaches my kids these things But you know what I was that's not working for everybody in this county Our school is gonna have to do something. Well, isn't it better that he discovered that than someone told him Hey shut up. We got to do this because all we need to bring people into the process and to be honest Well, don't think that me schools have not always been the best particularly teachers of bringing people into the process There's a certain professionalism of we've been trained and we know best and and the schools They're gonna succeed in the 21st century the schools that are gonna get past some of this is by bringing some parents in By being a more open district and allowing people to have input to these kinds of issues so that they can discover the needs I left that school district half of that group that met with us that day was against any family life Education below sixth grade in the public school. We asked because we started Before I even started that so can tell me where you're at what what grade should family life education start in the school? Seven seven seven first second kindergarten seven seven seven time we got done They were all saying you know what need to put a little bit of stuff down there K through three You put some stuff in four through six, but they came to discover that So the problem is what I said to you when I first started mostly when we talk about religious issues We only talk about it with our own club When we talk about the people already agree with where I'm at and we can vilify and and make villains out of those who disagree with us And I'm not encouraging that from any side of this issue What I'm saying is I believe this country still big enough for people to sit down and be rational and I I Because of my persuasion. I'm gonna pass her for 20 years I don't mind sitting down with a group of people as I did who I saw them in a meeting Gail and bash the school district and they came out of the meeting just saying boy wasn't that great I say great for what? So we sure got our point across I said let me tell you what your point you got across and I open up first Peter chapter 3 verse 15 If you haven't read it, you can read it sometime first Peter first Peter chapter 3 verse 14 15 and 16 and Peter writes And he says something like this always be ready to give an account for the hope that lies within you with Outsiders people not part of the faith and do this with all gentleness and respect And so I read the scripture to him I look at myself once you tell me question when you come out at mean tonight did those school district people feel like number one You respected them in number two you were gentle And you should have seen the faces it was it was classic you don't walk out of there with anybody I've talked to and they could say about Wayne. You know what I? Had his respect and he was gentle with me And if I haven't done that then even advancing what I might Perceive to be the agenda of my God. I have it not advanced his character In my understanding the New Testament God's much more concerned with his character than he is some political agenda So do I talk to people that way? I certainly do I met with a professor a teacher? Excuse me of math in a high school. He spent three days in his couple problems going on the school district that we were part of This was a part of and the school was going to dismiss him He'd already been in touch with the ACLJ and they thought they were gonna enter a lawsuit for wrongful termination on the other side It is when I met with them were a day away from firing this math teacher who everybody said is a great math teacher a Devoted Christian and I said, what's the problem three things? He's leading a campus climate program on campus and It's about litter and language and teachers moving out of their classrooms during passing periods and helping with some of that going on But he did a memo recently and he put some prayer requests on memos that he sent to teachers He thought would be okay with prayer requests and he sent another memo that was identical except without the prayer request To those he thought might be offended from that pretty good intentions. Maybe but look what happened He made a judgment for the whole school district who wasn't wasn't a Christian and morale between the faculty was Micious and he'd done this two or three times when the principal asked him not to He did three days in a math problem in the classroom He did three days trying to solve this long multiplication division problem and they finally get to the end of it in two days He has his class guess what it is that they've solved and what they've tried to solve in this whole process Is how many students are not in that classroom with them today because 18 years ago? They were aborted by their mothers and then did two days of anti-abortion rhetoric really inflamed a number of students He had two Jewish students in his classroom and every time he graded homework in market He'd stamp the sign of the fish the Christian symbol the fish on the homework and these two Jewish students had come and asked him Would he please not do that and he said it's my right? I can do whatever I want and he was there the parents came and asked him if he'd please stop and he said no It's my right and he's quoting from a California code books and I'd write you this that anything he said look He said no, I'm sitting in the office. They're day from firing him. He doesn't know yet And I'm with a legal rep from the district and I'm with the principal and him and for about the first 45 minutes He is arrogant angry brash and I'm appalled And when he got done with all his rhetoric and interrupting his principal and all that kind of stuff And she looked at me and said when can you help us? I picked up first Corinthians I had to do this I pick up first Corinthians 9 and 10 I just start reading to him Paul says I become all things to all people the Jew I become a Jew the Gentile become a Gentile and I just I read part of that I look at him and says what good is it for you to take the gospel of Jesus Christ and pervert it With this kind of manipulation of people and he was just he was crying He started to cry and he said I am sorry I've done wrong turn to the principal and apologize to her. He said I'm sorry. I didn't get this This is someone the school had no hope in at all He said I want you to call those parents and invite him in here and I want to apologize to them and the students I Want next faculty meeting I want to stand up and I want to apologize for what I've done I won't do a memo like that anymore and the math problem not gonna do it anymore I had reason to be in the school district recently and I asked the principal because she's still at the school I says he's still there still here How's he doing? I'm the best teachers we've got His Christian witnesses. No kids. No, he's a Christian not hidden He's not doing anything about that now in a way that is taking away from the public school environment His Christian testimony is twice as good as it was So there are ways to do this without denying who we are as people know our religious faith But we're not getting to this part First Corinthians 9 and 10 yeah 10 and 11 Oh There's a lot of that going there's churches that go down and offer help at schools like that and the social workers on the campus We'll give them names of families that don't have a lot of food and churches put together food baskets for Christmas Thanksgiving and get let the school distribute them to the to the families There's a lot of that stuff going on if we're not afraid of this Churches synagogues and others can you help us here? You gotta realize what that's about You don't get to come down here and evangelize today You get to come down here and help tutor can people be trained to that? Yes Do most people want to embrace that? Yes Do a lot of grandparents from churches synagogues and mosques willing to come in and help kids by one-on-one? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's why we can't be afraid of this. We've got to build the bridges that say it's okay to do those kinds of things and you're right There's a lot of great stories out there of People who may have deep religious conviction But are willing to live it out in the plurality of the society and that's not a bad thing for us The church is in our history expelled students and turned them out to get around in the semester gone We get the one-to-one in the love digital. What do you do? What are you from? Okay to hatch is that feet And all value. Yeah That should be does the same thing it just I mean they've got the churches that take these kids under their wings And they've got a process to help them get through with the youth program and some of the youth directors with the idea of Turning them back into the schools in a semester Credible stuff. There's there's a lot of time and energy. They're waiting to be tapped if we can resolve some of these issues There is nothing right now, and I'm not an attorney. I want to be very clear about this I'm not giving you legal advice and where things get itchy and take talk to an attorney I'm not giving you legal advice I know nothing in the law that prohibits that in the same way with the Congress of the United States What what the Supreme Court determines different for adults in an environment than they do children who are more of a captive audience I don't necessarily encourage it if school boards want to I know our school board has a moment of meditation that someone gives before and it May come from a different religious persuasion depending on who on the board is giving it But a board member does that it's a fine thing, but I say this it's not worth splitting a community over If you try to hold on to a prayer before a board meeting and it's offensive to some people in the community I just have people just drop it, you know your prayer life is no less powerful when it's in your closet In fact, that's where Jesus said to keep it for the most part that is out in the public docket So I know people want to have those Christian things as the passages of society and feel like we've lost a lot because they're not there But I think we gain a whole lot too Now if we respect each other's parenthood If we respect the plurality of the system we're in then we can build this on this common ground that we've talked about page Three, let me just go over these very briefly because we've got four minutes before I'm supposed to dismiss you And I will do that, but I'll hang around for questions if you want to let me just talk about this real quickly The pot I don't know what questions specifically might be here about how do we open up the the forum to allow Religious groups to help in classroom settings to partner and man I know some great can retired construction workers who go to vocational shop classes and help with students and in many school districts and vocational shop classes are where you've got some of the kids that are struggling hard and These older retired construction people go in there and they come from the churches and they work with the kids and can All that kind of stuff can happen and it does and there's ways and when you ask when you ask churches for help You will you will find churches honored that they're asked you will very rarely find no one that coming down there You bunch of evil people you find that move on I know the church the most part you're gonna find churches saying you Are well, we'll find some volunteers for you. We'd love to we'll help that or synagogues Building bridges reassess the message of your district to the religious community reassess it understand that you and I In this arena because of the rhetoric that's out there negatively. We start in a hole There's a wealth of misinformation out there There's a wealth of fear that is unbased in reality, but they don't know it So we've got to reassess the message Putting some of these things into like San Ramon did into some kind is in here from San Ramon by the way Okay Putting it into a policy statement distributing it to teachers and parents goes a long way to say hey This is safe these school districts not trying to destroy my kid. So I believe that about most school districts I don't think they're trying to destroy anybody's kid. Okay teachers going destroy a religious value in a student Why pray tell you know I didn't I had a school district I had a teacher from a school district in Southern, California who's a science teacher and he told me I'm an atheist Can you tell me how I teach origin of the species in a way? That's true to science, but does not denigrate those who might have a religious persuasion about how the world came to be And I meet with science teachers and we do that because that's that can be done doesn't mean well We have to add creationism along there to science because there are some things that doesn't don't make that possible including the Law of the land. Okay, but there are ways to present science in a way that doesn't undermine religious faith There are ways to do it So what kind of message are we giving number one number two make sure you're educating not indoctrinating this lovely little statement right here Strategy number two letter a make room for divergent beliefs within the curriculum Not everyone in our culture sees this the same way This would be an excellent thing discussed with your parents church synagogue. I'll ask whatever I'm so a lot of people in our community are very uncomfortable with how our curriculum addresses homosexuality and I I just feel like hey if you're legitimate about that I don't have a problem if you tell me the homosexual lifestyle is a normal alternative. Well, you just told my kids I like them not the curriculum says many Social scientists in our society see homosexuality as a normal alternative lifestyle. I'm not gonna argue with you there That's that's true But not all groups agree This would be something very important for you to talk about now How do we treat people whose lifestyle choices or values are different than ours? Let's talk about that So you make a lot of room in the curriculum. You can do the science thing. This is how science by observation whatever Things how the origin of the species happen. There are people with religious faith who see this happening a whole different way There's nothing wrong with that. This is important thing for you to talk about I think there ought to be some exposure to it in the colleges not as science necessarily Because for the rest of your life, you believe in evolution. You're gonna be near people who believe in creation I had a science teacher walk out in service said you know what I've never before seen how a Reasonable rational intelligent person in this day and age could believe in a god who created until today and I don't agree with you But I now understand how an intelligent person could believe in creation. That's all that needs to be asked for people I do believe in a god who created. I don't know in what context and sicker Let me finish because I'm gonna dismiss people and I'll take whatever questions as we stay on a bit later Do not discourage appropriate forms of religious expression I think you just got to equip staff and some of the kinds of things that go on here takes one principle One teacher to make a mistake and it'll come back to haunt you in a thousand ways If you can understand the boundaries and most teachers have had absolutely no exposure We do a half-day thing out of bridge builders what can and can't be done in public school setting for teachers So they can understand it Christian clubs. How can they or can they not fit on campus? Can you have a Bible on your desk what you can if it's there for your personal reading if you put neon lights on it You're trying to use to convert people in the classroom. No, you can have it there You know me some of these things don't have those universal rule It's an understanding and appreciation and respect for people that differ with us So equip staff to understand religious neutrality number four make room at the table man. You're doing family life when I was in New Arizona, they did this whole AIDS curriculum had not one time access the community. It was all done in-house by educators So then no wonder they're flamed Invite them in talk about it together find a curriculum that works These people who were brought into that environment who are the most hostile about it became some of the greatest contributors to changing it And even the superintendent was shocked we went out the same man I never thought that would happen community forums somehow the religious parent in the public school system Let's talk about there's value in doing that invite them when you got a committee that skirts religious issues and bring people on From churches from synagogues from mosques bring men. Let's talk about this again. We're training them. What's fair for all of us? Not what's best for your group? What's best for our whole community? What can we find that's fair that doesn't disparage religion? And can work and I tell you there's some creative solutions that are there when people really get together and say, okay My religion doesn't have to win here We need to find a level playing field for everybody and I what's really to gain is understandings about various holidays I mean Chris and if I moved to Nepal I've been to Nepal if I moved to Nepal next week I would expect my kids to be dismissed on Hindu holiday. It's a Hindu country So yeah, Christmas Easter breaks are there, but you know what it gives an excellent time I think every school at a deal with Hanukkah when that comes around Excellent opportunities to teach the diversity of religion and appreciate those differences and it can't be done finally clarify a process for handling religious issues If you don't do it Beforehand you're gonna run from behind and every little mistake every little pause these people are set to see as stonewalling their ambitions and desires They don't trust you to start with and so if you don't think this thing through and how to respond early on Do it read battleground the smallest decisions Became major implications in the community because somebody wouldn't stop and say let's just sit down talk about this rationally You've got this kid problem. We've got this problem doing with this. What can we do? The the Hain stuff the finding common ground book that I recommended to you They they got excellent tips for teachers and parents in there tips for parents are asked for the minimal thing that you really need Now people say wait are you for censorship of books? That's a flame word Don't throw a censorship. It may just like don't throw religious right at me Do we all have a threshold of some kind of literature that you think is inappropriate for students of certain ages? Don't we all that's not censorship? That's just Responsible parenthood and education. So yeah, are those lines may differ for some of it? Yeah So how does our community work out if there is a problem with a library book? See and what that ends up at the school board and a parent in a fight and what you ought to have is a process Here's a committee that deals with library books You have a problem take it there And you'll find a lot of those committees They won't get their way family life committee when people don't like something it's in a video I've been on the family life committee myself for 14 years. I've seen every movie we've shown I've seen every bit and when people have a problem come to the committee We'll show the tape again and that will say what are your objections and then we'll put it to a vote in the committee And you know people appreciate being heard we rarely go with the objection But what that person sees is there are pastors in here There are people from family life committee sitting in here There are people from family planning sitting in here There's health educators sitting here and there's a whole group and we'll talk about it We'll say you know some of us have that same concern but in a broader sense We think this video is fair and here's why and most people who've left that room say hey I was her and I understand their viewpoint now. I'm not near a threatened boy