Northwest Ohio readers might open Linda K. Wertheimer’s book, Faith Ed.: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance, and take notice of Chapter 5, which centers on the Van Buren, Ohio, public schools and details her personal experience of intolerance.
Chapter 5 begins: “The day Jesus Christ entered my fourth-grade classroom, my childhood forever changed.”
It’s a then-and-now story. Ms. Wertheimer relates that a woman whom she called “the church lady” taught Bible classes weekly in the Van Buren classrooms. Ms. Wertheimer was in fourth grade in 1974. Proclaiming a particular religion in the public schools had been declared unconstitutional years earlier.
Linda and her brothers were the only Jewish students in the Van Buren schools, she said. “We were not that religious,” she told The Blade in a phone interview. But her parents did take her to Hebrew School at a temple in Lima, and later in life, she said, “I found a place for religion.”
When she was 9, she felt singled out for being Jewish. “During childhood, I was pretty upset about things as they were happening in terms of the religious classes and some of the things kids said to me,” Ms. Wertheimer said, “but I also had good times at Van Buren, which I referred to in the book. I was playing on the basketball team; I played in the band; I did have friends.”
She was also interested in journalism and wrote about Findlay High School’s TV station for The Blade’s Toledo Magazine 33 years ago. Don’t confuse Ms. Wertheimer with public radio’s Linda Wertheimer. Linda K. Wertheimer became an education reporter for newspapers and then a freelance writer. She now lives in Lexington, Mass.
Thirty years after fourth grade, Ms. Wertheimer found the “church lady,” Dorothy Powell, in Arlington, Ohio, and they spoke. In 2013, Mrs. Powell was still teaching the classes, but on church grounds. “[Mrs. Powell] couldn’t get out of her head how the kids had treated me, and wanted to talk a little bit more about that,” Ms. Wertheimer said. “She was a charming woman, a very nice woman. We’re not going to agree on certain things, but she was coming at it from the world in which she was raised and I was coming at it from the world in which I was raised — two very different worlds.”
Ms. Wertheimer doesn’t know if Mrs. Powell has read Faith Ed.
Outside of the Van Buren experience, the book looks at how public schools approach religion and the resulting community backlash.
In the classes, there were encounters — with Islam, especially, she reported — that were cause for parents’ complaints.
A teacher in Lumberton, Texas, let class members try on a burka, and a Facebook photo of a student wearing it upset local Christians.
Similar misunderstanding happened after non-Muslim sixth graders in Wellesley, Mass., were seen praying with worshipers during a field trip to a mosque.
An imam who was a guest speaker in Lutz, Fla., was unfairly linked to terrorism. In Wichita, Kan., objections were heard when a bulletin board on the five pillars of Islam was on display before the class instructing about the Muslim faith even began.
Ms. Wertheimer also told about Christians at or across the church-state boundary, such as youth pastors spending lunch time in school cafeterias and prayers given “in Jesus’ name” by school officials.
In her book, she questioned how religious literacy might be taught in schools and at what grade levels.
In Toledo Public Schools, religion is in parts of the fifth, sixth, and seventh grade curriculums — which is common nationally — and world religions are “approached through cultural history” in high school, said Linda Meyers, the transformational leader in charge of community relations, as well as of Scott and Waite High Schools and the Toledo Technology Academy.
“It’s pretty hard to teach history without ever speaking the word religion,” she said.
“In an ideal world,” Ms. Wertheimer said, “I’d like to see schools start teaching about the world’s religions much younger than they do now. … It’s more than just about reducing bullying; it’s about reducing ignorance.”
There is board policy for Toledo, Mrs. Meyers said, stating that “the schools need to foster mutual understanding and respect for all individuals and their beliefs.”
Mrs. Meyers said that Toledo Public Schools students can reserve rooms for after-hours meetings as long as there is adult supervision — and a pastor might be the adult. Organizations like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes are active on campuses after school hours. Children can be excused from school for religious holidays.
And, Mrs. Meyers said, “If a child brings a Bible or any kind of religious readings to school during the day and they’re at lunch or between classes and they open that book or open scripture and they want to read it, that’s perfectly acceptable.”
A positive involvement, Mrs. Meyers said, is school partnerships with 26 faith-based groups. “Most of them are churches; most of them are Christian-based,” she said. “We’re trying to get more different religions to come in. What we ask of those partners is, it’s a natural pool for tutoring.” Some of the arrangements have the faith-based partners providing meals, giving school supplies, and engaging in athletics.
As for Van Buren, it “is still a very religious community,” Ms. Wertheimer said. “That hasn’t changed. … They still have a religious club in the school; Christianity is still very present. ... But at least they’re following the rules for the most part that I can tell.”
Faith Ed. is personal for Ms. Wertheimer, but it has a larger aim too. “Because I gave my own story in the book,” she said, “people think that I’m just saying we need to do this because of religious minorities, and it’s not the only reason; it’s one reason. It’s about part of being an educated society.”
Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.
First Published November 14, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
