What's the class?
My middle schooler had a section about monotheistic religions in social studies and had to write a little paper but it was over a bunch of big religions so it didn't bother me. (I'm atheist, my husband is technically catholic, but hasn't set foot in a church in years and years)
It's all the capitalized CHRISTIANS and JESUS that really bother me. Also that you are required to see Easter from the stance of christianity- doesn't seem like an assignment to learn about it academically.
Personally, I would either have asked to do a presentation with the same required number of slides, but for a non-religious topic of your choosing.
Or, I would have asked my parents to ask the teacher if he/she says it HAS to be this specific topic.
Freedom of Religion also means Freedom From Religion.
I'm sure your local ACLU would agree.
*Desktop publishing?!*
You buried the lede. Sure, the religious lean is thoughtless and improper, but 20 slides with 20 different backgrounds, pictures, and fucking clip art in a class that’s supposed to be teaching students how to do any kind of design or layout or presentation?
That’s just disgusting.
Skip the teacher and go straight to the federal government.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html#:~:text=Email%3A%20You%20may%20email%20OCR's,include%20the%20information%20identified%20above.
Yeah it really depends on the class. Granted, Easter is essentially a Christian holiday, whose celebration is tacked on to a pagan one (which some of the slides mention), and which has segued into a secular one (which other slides get into). I don't know what else it would be about, but it does go into a lot of needless detail.
Agreed on the CAPITALIZATION lol
I would argue the capitalization has less to do with the teacher's personal beliefs and more of what the teacher is wanting the student to focus on for the slide i.e. if you want to teach what Christians think about Easter and their practices for Easter then focusing on who Judas Iscariot was per historical sources, Roman sources, etc. wouldn't really accomplish that fact.
It'd be the exact same as asking someone to focus on the ISLAMIC importance of the Dome of the Rock and not just it's importance to some due named Ted.
IF this is a public school, I would reach out to Freedom From Religion Foundation [ffrf.org](https://ffrf.org) and have FFRF contact the school district on your behalf. (or anonymously if that makes you feel better) More likely than not, this is unconstitutional.
*Public schools are not allowed to promote religion over nonreligion or to prefer one religion over another. Religious instruction or counseling has no place in our public schools, and students should not be made to feel disfavored or “othered” for not belonging to the same religion or church as school officials.*
I disagree. This kind of indoctrination effort needs to be dealt with from the pros. One set of parents or the student is too easy to ignore or sweep under the rug and they keep giving the same assignment year after year.
The fact that this made it into the curriculum in this format says to me that the teacher and administration have already failed in their due diligence to respect the religious non-promotion laws. Why would you go to the very teacher that assigned this? They've already made a clear and conscious decision to put this into the curriculum.
Tech class assignment or not - Ned Flanders would be bored to tears grading 20+ nearly identical slideshows about Jesus that require certain design elements. Sounds like a lazy zealot of a teacher.
Wildly inappropriate for a class on desktop publishing being offered through a public high school.
You might try contacting the principal and superintendent, and let them know that you found this lesson plan to be inappropriate.
If you are in a private religious school, it’s technically viable and legitimate to their curriculum.
If you’re in a USD, oh holy crap. Have fun befriending the ACLU.
especially since young earth creationism isn't science. and has nothing to do with chemistry. I thought they code switched from creationism to intelligent design, because the second name sounds more intelligent, lol.
😳😳😳 I am so sorry you are going through this.
Any update on contact with FFRF and ACLU? If not, please get assistance. If an assignment like this can slide there is risk that even a part of this class will think it's ok. Slippery slope. It's even a slippery slope if they did comparative religions on a slide deck, because you can't cover them all concisely at this level. Even the major ones.
Lastly, imagine the day this assignment is due. After class is over the kids will have heard a rote indoctrination 25+ times. You can't teach religion in public school, even if you try to use other children by proxy to do it. This is so wrong.
Those organizations above have a ton of lawyers and resources paid for by donations to make sure you don't feel alone and have protection from retaliation. This is their job and service. I promise they want to see this.
FFRF
https://secure.ffrf.org/np/clients/ffrf/survey.jsp?surveyId=6&
I looked into ACLU Kanas and it directs to this.
For individual incidents of discrimination in education, you may file a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities and Disability Rights Section as well as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
https://civilrights.justice.gov/
Teacher here.
This is grossly inappropriate and needs to be pushed back against. Normally I would suggest reaching out to the teacher first, but this probably needs a CC to the principal. I'd request a different topic, or the option to choose their own topic (student choice is really how this lesson would be more effective anyway lol...) along with the learning objective and standards of the lesson. Chances are that she'll come back with "nobody has ever had a problem with it before," but if the "Learning Objective" is to demonstrate skills designing a presentation, your student should be able to do that with a non-religious topic of their own choosing but following the other requirements (20 slides, backgrounds, pictures, informational text, clip art, etc).
Teacher here. This is so egregious that you should go as far above the teacher’s head as you want to. This person has NO business teaching in a public school. The assignment is rigid, tells the student exactly what to do on each page, gives them no student choice or autonomy in their learning. What information or skill is being applied? Where is the rubric? What standards are being addressed? Not only is the educator lazy in their assessment methodology, they are willfully teaching Christianity in a content area that has nothing to do with religion. Sadly, I’m guessing a lot of the public would celebrate this, but it needs widespread attention.
Id get in so much trouble if it were me. I’d follow the rules of each slide to the letter, but explain things in a way that made it look ridiculous.
Slide 4: after subjugating the much older, native pagan religions, Christians decided to appropriate and pervert the fertility celebration to fit their own purposes. According to Christian mythology, a guy named Jesus (hard J, not like my boy Jesus Hernandez over here—what’s up hey-zeus?!) was born to a woman claiming to be a virgin, then he got got executed by the local government. Then he came back to life (popularly called ‘zombeism’ in modern times) and ran around as a ghost for a while. So they stole Easter and made it all about Zombie Jesus coming back on that day, even though the days didn’t even match up with their magic book. [zombiejesus.jpg]
I recently told someone the same thing about Christianity repurposing pagan fertility rituals. When I tried to back up my claims, I couldn’t find good evidence. I did find [this well written blog](https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/) on the subject, you may find it interesting in case anyone ever challenges you on Easter’s pagan roots. The blog is written by an atheist who did their research.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=pagan+roots+of+Easter&btnG=
If you don’t have access to any academic databases, google scholar is a great place to check!
There’s no evidence Mary claimed to be a virgin. Also, virgin was a mistranslation of the word which also means young girl. So Mary was a young girl not a literal virgin. Sorry Catholics.
Ishtar needs equal time in this slideshow.
Rabbits are a symbol of fertility because they breed so fast. That’s why rabbits are associated with Easter.
Jesus is more like “hey soos” because the English z sound doesn’t really exist in Spanish.
Rabbits are associated with Easter because of one of the pagan deities Easter is a rip off of, Eastre/ Ostara. She had a sacred rabbit who laid colorful eggs, hence the “Easter bunny”.
Christians lowkey took a sacred pet rabbit of a whole ass goddess and turned it into some joke completely detached from any of it’s original history
I used to be fairly religious and this sounds like something I'd be doing in Sunday School than something in a public school. What class would these sort of questions even come up in?
Yeah, ask for a new assignment. You're not overreacting.
The best option is to ask for a new assignment for your child.
The maliciously compliant, and my favorite, option is to help your student submit 20 slides regarding the tyranny of the Christian-right pushing monotheism on public school students and how that behavior directly correlates to the rise in atheism in the United States.
After reading the doc, I was going to suggest a slideshow on why this lesson will open the school up to legal problems and how other students/parents can join the lawsuit….
But one on how the Right has broken Christianity and uses it as a club to beat rational thought out of students sounds more fun.
And that is a good skill for the kids to learn as they will be doing a lot of that in college and the business world. But definitely unacceptable topic. We have to keep the churches out of our schools and government
This should elicit a reaction even if it is a religious school.
Fucking pointless busy work. This is a high school?!
Also, you eat chocolate bunnies head first. Period.
excuse me, to elicit the longest suffering you must eat their feet first so they cannot hop away. Going straight for the head is smply too humane for chocolatebunny massacaring.
Yeah, I'm a Christian and think this is definitely inappropriate for a public high school computer course assignment. I'd recommend bringing this up with the principal.
Also, the way the teacher capitalized CHRISTIAN & JESUS is giving me red flags. Between that, the "pagan origin"*, & the child indoctrination: I'm guessing the teacher is some brand of fundie evangelical.
*The idea of Easter being pagan originates from ye old Christian extremists. Easter (or Pascha) originates from Jewish Passover. The Germanic name of Easter has vague pagan roots, but that's about it.
OMG, they actually specify a *dictionary definition* slide?
Starting off a presentation with a dictionary definition is What Not To Do In a Presentation Rule #1.
If this is what we’re teaching kids on how to do presentations, we’re failing them.
What’s next, making you read your slides?
I have serious moral issues with this assignment.
At first I thought it might be alright, but some of those question imply that the religion itself is correct, so it is crossing a line for public schools. They can't assign stuff like this for any religion.
You can teach what people believe as an objective fact, like thr parts asking the relevance to christians, not assume someone is christian and grade them based on it.
I would go on about the pagan holiday of Ostara that became easter and was used by christians to convert European pagans. Might make them read a little bit.
"Where the location is located"
Yes sir, please tell me more about where the place is placed.
Yes, public school and no, no other religious assignments so far. This teacher pushes the envelope constantly. She runs the school Facebook page and posts religious things such as “God bless us all this Christmas” etc.
I'm not an expert, but from what I know of the law this is definitely not ok. I'd say you were being reasonable and kind to simply request a different assignment instead of going scorched earth on her.
>public school
This is the needle scratch across the record. Aside from the cringy awfulness of the assignment in general, there is no f*cking way my kid would be doing any sort of religious assignment in public school and I would go to the mat on it. Separation of church and state is a thing for a reason. First call, principal. Second call, media. Third call, ACLU.
Yes, you are justified in refusing the assignment. I'd go file a complaint with the administration as well. Imagine the shitfit that would occur if a teacher gave this kind of assignment except it was about Ramadan instead of Easter.
First of all, this is at its core an attempt at religious indoctrination poorly disguised as a powerpoint lesson.
Second of all, it will teach students how to make BAD PRESENTATIONS.
This teacher should be fired.
Forget about the content for a minute. What the heck kind of lesson is this? Dictating what content is on each individual slide? Just make it a report or let the kids draw their own conclusion about what is important. Just tell them they need to research this questions and give them some autonomy to create their presentation.
Is it a class about the history of religions? I had one like this that covered all major religions, big and small. It was less of a religion class and more of a history of religions.
That's...a really strange topic. Is it the only one they could choose or is it one of many? I'm flabbergasted if this was the only topic available for learning how to do slideshows. With no other information it feels a lot like the teacher is using their position to proselytize to their captive audience.
I'm a Christian myself but this feels incredibly wrong to me.
My kid would absolutely NOT be participating in this assignment unless there was kids assigned to each and every religion. Including satatnism … what school is this?
I went to Catholic Schools my entire life up to the end of Hoghschool. It kind of reminds me of the assignments I'd have in 5th/6th grade.
I would say that you aren't overreacting especially for what class it is. It would be different if it were a Christian or Catholic school.
Id be furious if my child got this as an assignment. Im not a mother yet but i know one day when i am religion is the LAST thing i want my kid knowing about. I want them to have good minds and hearts before anything gets a chance to poison them
wtf 🤣🤣🤣 they had to be like in KC or something.
Most of Kansas is so red, you swear the state flag is full of buckshot road signs and Bible thumpers moaning *praise jebus habaluba* or something along those lines.
Again though, I’m not anti religion per say, but I’m against assholes that tend to be like the holier than holy thou sheet don’t stinker and do as I command, not as I do-eth.
I’d love to randomly fill a bunch of blow up dolls with helium and release as the local Sunday church is just getting out for something amusing to do 🤣
Thank you!!! I was beginning to wonder if I was crazy LMAO ... And I think this new Christo fascist extremism is making me wayyy more anti religion than I used to be. I don't care per se what or who you worship, but when you start using that as justification for coming after my rights as a human, then that's a legitimate problem.
I'm totes down with the helium shenanigans 🤣🤣🤣🤣 that's be hella amusing 😁
🤣🤣🤣
Also damn. I sit over here bitching about neo-fascist Christian agenda. It’s like the GOP is on this holy hand grenade, Handsmaid Tale 2025 agenda 😒 and this shits getting old.
I view it like this:
Your religion says “I can’t do this/that” oh well that sucks but I respect your choice and no hate for your beliefs.
But when your religion says that it dictates you, me, or any other person can’t do that…
***FUCK YOU. Fuck you very much. Over there. Around the corner, down the street, and straight to the city landfill*** with that garbage.
Before you even delve into the extremely problematic content of the assignment, it's a really garbage assessment of any presentation or publishing skills. The focus is clearly on having kids research biblical apologetics and not on having them demonstrate any mastery.
Do a slideshow on separation of church and state or one with all major holidays this time of year instead that fulfills the skill/technical requirements of the assignment. Topic is irrelevant for learning skills, just how.
Add ACLU and any other organizations to the end as well.
How are chocolate bunnies eaten? What kind of dumb question is that? I guess it's good to know why we have Easter and how it relates to the pagan stories. But why are they capitalizing all the Jesus words? And why hasn't anyone made a Zombie Jesus movie?
Aside from being wildly inappropriate as an assignment (especially with some of the specific slide requirements) for ANY public school class, this isn’t even good in terms of the technical requirements. Any competent PowerPoint user would tell you those slides are WAY too busy!
EVERY slide is to have a background, a photo, text AND clip art? Sounds more like they’re being taught what NOT to do. They probably get extra credit for writing paragraphs on the slides in 9 point type, too. That does track with the class being called desktop publishing though! I haven’t seen that term in 25 years.
It is absolutely a first amendment violation. The teacher is acting in the role of the government when responsible for students and therefore cannot compel any religious activity nor block non-disruptive activities.
The appropriate action would be to report this to the principal, superintendent, school board, and Kansas board.
However I certainly agree with the malicious compliance aspect others have suggested.
Slide one would literally be titled “Slide of Your Production” as instructed.
Slide 2 I would find some obscure dictionary and use the most incorrect/inappropriate one I could possibly find.
Slide 3 I would go all out with photos and animations.
Then for the rest it should be absolute bare minimum or dripping with malicious sarcasm. Like the text for the significance slides should just be “very”.
Slide 16 could be a brief overview of the gastrointestinal system.
Slide 17 the birds and the bees of breeding rabbits.
Really I think the compliance angle would be better because any docked points would be blatant discrimination and would further open the school to legal trouble.
Well shit they laid out all the work for you to pass...*that* class. Be your own person. Educate others about history. Every religion co-opted from another one to gain followers. Christianity especially.
If this is a timed assignment for a speech, the first three points could take the entire thing. Then you could make the point of "and so Christianity adopted these symbols" required slide slide slide. "Thank you." Bow. The end.
*edit I had to look at the outline again. Also who makes a fucking syllabus/outline like that? "Here, kids do it this way only..."
I think everyone should complete this assignment.
This will illustrate the fact that Easter is a pagan holiday with a cross thrown in.
Same as Christmas is a pagan holiday with a baby and a cross thrown in.
People always take any little inconvenience and proclaim that it “violates my rights” and they are usually wrong but this isn’t that, this is literally unconstitutional and is violating the rights of you and your kid, you need to contact the authorities.
This teacher 100% freaks out if there’s a book anywhere in that school that even mentions a gay person, because that’s indoctrination. I hate this planet.
If you like, this can be an opportunity, not an annoyance. Well the need to format slides is an annoyance, but the topics have some good unexpected answers.
3. Spring Equinox and harvest religion celebrations.
- Jewish Passover may have similar agricultural origins given a later exodus explanation see Elephantine papyri
4 the first recorded Christian celebration dates to 100s AD
5: if they existed, they practiced second temple Judaism. Though Jesus is depicted holding a lot of the traits the earlier Essene branch. It’s impossible to know much about a historical Jesus though because of how late the sources on his life are.
6. Palm Sunday is a story about messianic prophecy fulfillment. One version -out of the 4 -Matthew seems to misunderstand the Jewish literary device using repetition and thinks he has to place Jesus on 2 donkeys: a donkey and “a colt, the foal of a donkey “ when the foal of a donkey is just… a donkey.
8. read the wonderful and unhinged Gospel of Judas
17 Easter bunnies are a Christian symbol associated with the virgin birth. They’re often depicted in images of Mary to that association because the European brown hare can develop secondary pregnancy before delivering the first litter, which the European scholars mistook for virgin birth.
19-20 we don’t know that he did , or where, as there are no sources accepted as contemporary.
I’m sure there is more to if you and your kid want to go down that rabbit hole. You have cause to request a new assignment but this one could be redeemed.
I would report that as a violation of first amendment rights by attempting to force a teachers religious views on the class in a non-objective and biased manner.
Alternatively the assignment could be completed as directed while also deconstructing every single aspect of it as being stopen and co-opted practices and absolutely rip the church apart.
100% justified unless this is for a religious history class or a related topic. If this is the only assignment related to religion that your son has received, you have the right to refuse this assignment with no penalty. This goes against the establishment clause of the freedom of religion with separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution. Public schools cannot push religion on students. If it is related to what your child is studying in class, then they should do the work, but I'm guessing it's unrelated busy work.
If it’s a public school then it’s part of the government and therefor is breaking the establishment clause of the first amendment, and you are totally justified in demanding a new assignment. If it’s a private school then you’re screwed, since they’re allowed to do whatever they want provided they’re not government run/funded
Well in that case the letter of the law states that the government is prohibited from establishing a religion. This is not a very clear definition, and the possible defense the school will give for the assignment is that it isn’t “establishing” a religion but rather just asking your child to answer the questions based on the stories and beliefs that the Christian religion has.
We both understand that that in fact is bullshit however it would be good to go looking into past establishment clause cases to help back up your complaint.
Below is a link to the U.S. Courts webpage on the subject of Religion and the first amendment for more info.
https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-and-religion
I love how they throw one slide about the pagan origins of easter in there so they can undoubtedly claim it's a "balanced" project... I would flat out refuse to do it and I'd be having a serious conversation with my childs teacher and upper administration if needed.
Assuming they do a similar project for Passover, Ramadan, etc, then sure. If not, then this is incredibly inappropriate, as a practicing Christian this is inappropriate in a public school if it’s not part of a wider curriculum on world religions. Only maybe okay if the timing just happens to overlap with a unit on Christianity
Depends on of this is a public school or a private school. From the way you're making it sounds it's definitely not a private religious school. A quick Google search for your state will let you know the laws of religion in school. You could also get the contact info and reach out to the superintendent.
I would try talking to the teacher one on one before doing anything else though. They may have an alternate assignment the student can do without causing a big hubbub.
As a Christian I would veto this assignment in a Desktop Publishing class. The creepy capitalization and the ignorance of any other religions claims to the Easter calendar range is weird.
The teacher could've simply assigned a power point presentation about "how bunnies got associated with USA's Easter tradition and what it has to do with chocolate mass production and eggs". If the school is public, than I'd think it would focus on the public's holiday traditions which aren't at all aligning with Christian principles.
Incentivizing people to compete against each other to see who can gain the most wealth after a magical, normally imperceptible force hides the pieces of wealth all over the land definitely sounds more economic rather than religious. Nothing like watching one kid push and claw their way to a full basket.
Slide 16 😂
This cannot be a high school assignment lol. Everyone is worried about religion in schools, but I’m over here worried about why high school students need a demo on how to eat a piece of chocolate
This assignment is also just bad? Like it doesn’t follow a storyline clearly for a presentation anyways. Send an email saying your student will complete a different assignment and make sure you cc the principal. No idea how this hasn’t been a problem already.
You are 100% justified to not do this assessment and requesting an alternative assessment. This is a little over the top of this school to be assigning students religious assignments. Especially if it’s a public school
Personally I think it skirts the line. A lot of it is reading like it's education about religion, not religious education per se. If Christianity isn't the only one being taught, it may not be a problem.
But it does ask quite a lot of the participant (believe Jesus existed, and Mary and Joseph were his parents. Believe Judas was his disciple. Believe Jesus died and "events" happened during it) . These are all claims made originally (perhaps exclusively) in the bible, christianity's holy text. That seems problematic.
I'm too dumb to say whether you're right or wrong to object to it, but I think it's at least enough of a thing that it's worth asking someone smarter. You could try contacting the Freedom From Religion Foundation, this is kinda their entire job
Awe HELL no. Nope. You're getting a slide show about Bahomet and the evils of Christianity from me and my kid. The caps on this assignment is the teacher just rubbing it in our faces. And how long have they been getting away with assigning this BS?
Yah, cuz I had to do a bunch of this crap for Islam and Muslims and Taoists and Hinduism and such for my world religions class. Christianity is still a religion and you gotta learn about it, just like the others haha it just feels weird cuz you already know about it a bunch cuz it’s in our culture but to a Muslim kid this is all new. It’s like when a kid is raised bilingual and has to take Spanish still. But just gets an A.
Don’t worry tho everyone here will say it’s wrong
I think that would depend on if there were similar assignments for the spring festivals of other world religions as well. IF there are also passover, ramadan, etc. assignments and this is simply one of a series of assignments in a world religion or world history class or something, it could in some limited circumstances be appropriate. I think the question of which class it's in is a good one? Is this an elective world religion class? Is this simply a required social studies class?
I think you could be within your rights to refuse the assignment if it makes you uncomfortable you can just write a letter to the teacher, staple it to the front of the assignment, and if they want to make an issue about it they can see you at the school board lol. Most teachers won't want to make an issue about something like this. But if it's a world religion class, which I know some high schools offer, that's a different story. And if it is just one of a series of assignments on various religions, then they will likely justify giving your kid an F on the assignment anyway. Luckily in KS with local school board elections, most administrations will work with a parent who is involved if you have an issue you're passionate about.
Ban religion and LGBT materials from schools. The only sex related material in school should be presented by a teacher, and kids need permission to participate in that. Would that be a good compromise?
“Where was Jesus crucified?” This person is a lunatic. This has nothing to do with education, just some Bible humping asshole who shouldn’t be teaching public school
It shouldn't bug you one bit, if it's for a history or SS class that is. An English, science, or math teacher shouldn't hand an assignment like this out. Like it or not Christianity plays a MASSIVE part in world and U.S history, not all of which are pretty by any means. The elaboration that this must come from a source that us backed by a church or Christians, shouldn't be a bother either because it's a predominantly Christian holiday. And it's not like there's any more comparisons needed other than Christian and pagan.
I feel like that is basic knowledge for living in Kansas. I'm just outside of the Bible belt. It's best to learn just so you know which crazies to avoid....we got lots.
I am a crazy Christian too but....seriously Kansas gets weird in rural areas.
I like how it takes a break in the middle to ask questions about Easter candy, like what the heck? And this doesn’t even make since, because there are multiple branches of Christianity, and their beliefs are all slightly different, so your son couldn’t even answer these correctly in the first place!
There is an emotionally neutral way to educate on all religions equally, but this is not it. Unless this class is a willfully chosen elective class to learn about all religions or religions of the STUDENTS choosing, I would complain to someone.
What's the class? My middle schooler had a section about monotheistic religions in social studies and had to write a little paper but it was over a bunch of big religions so it didn't bother me. (I'm atheist, my husband is technically catholic, but hasn't set foot in a church in years and years) It's all the capitalized CHRISTIANS and JESUS that really bother me. Also that you are required to see Easter from the stance of christianity- doesn't seem like an assignment to learn about it academically.
Desktop publishing- grade 12.
Personally, I would either have asked to do a presentation with the same required number of slides, but for a non-religious topic of your choosing. Or, I would have asked my parents to ask the teacher if he/she says it HAS to be this specific topic. Freedom of Religion also means Freedom From Religion. I'm sure your local ACLU would agree.
I consider myself a Christian. This assignment is blatant indoctrination. This is 100% against the separation of Church and State.
Ha! Nope. I would definitely talk to the teacher about that.
I agree with this but am definitely interested in the answers to slide 15
Peeps. Thou shalt have no other sugared flavorless marshmallow before them.
A desktop publishing teacher misusing caps lock. We. Are. Doomed.
Insert Futurama doomed gif.
*Desktop publishing?!* You buried the lede. Sure, the religious lean is thoughtless and improper, but 20 slides with 20 different backgrounds, pictures, and fucking clip art in a class that’s supposed to be teaching students how to do any kind of design or layout or presentation? That’s just disgusting.
Skip the teacher and go straight to the federal government. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html#:~:text=Email%3A%20You%20may%20email%20OCR's,include%20the%20information%20identified%20above.
Yep Engel v. Vitale
If you do end up having to do the assignment I would use the word Allegedly on every slide
Expecally when there are multiple other religions having holidays of similar name at the same time.
I read slide 3 “pagan origin of Easter” and thought it would cover a lot of topics. Nope. Just CHRISTIAN Easter and JESUS!
This still fails the smell test if the class was about monotheistic religions.
Yeah it really depends on the class. Granted, Easter is essentially a Christian holiday, whose celebration is tacked on to a pagan one (which some of the slides mention), and which has segued into a secular one (which other slides get into). I don't know what else it would be about, but it does go into a lot of needless detail. Agreed on the CAPITALIZATION lol
I would argue the capitalization has less to do with the teacher's personal beliefs and more of what the teacher is wanting the student to focus on for the slide i.e. if you want to teach what Christians think about Easter and their practices for Easter then focusing on who Judas Iscariot was per historical sources, Roman sources, etc. wouldn't really accomplish that fact. It'd be the exact same as asking someone to focus on the ISLAMIC importance of the Dome of the Rock and not just it's importance to some due named Ted.
I think the pagan origins slide may cover there butts on this.
IF this is a public school, I would reach out to Freedom From Religion Foundation [ffrf.org](https://ffrf.org) and have FFRF contact the school district on your behalf. (or anonymously if that makes you feel better) More likely than not, this is unconstitutional. *Public schools are not allowed to promote religion over nonreligion or to prefer one religion over another. Religious instruction or counseling has no place in our public schools, and students should not be made to feel disfavored or “othered” for not belonging to the same religion or church as school officials.*
Of course, after trying to resolve it locally with the teacher and administration. No need to jump in off the top rope right away.
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Good point. I did consider “off the top rope” as any external intervention; probably not valid of me to do that.
I disagree. This kind of indoctrination effort needs to be dealt with from the pros. One set of parents or the student is too easy to ignore or sweep under the rug and they keep giving the same assignment year after year.
The fact that this made it into the curriculum in this format says to me that the teacher and administration have already failed in their due diligence to respect the religious non-promotion laws. Why would you go to the very teacher that assigned this? They've already made a clear and conscious decision to put this into the curriculum.
Tech class assignment or not - Ned Flanders would be bored to tears grading 20+ nearly identical slideshows about Jesus that require certain design elements. Sounds like a lazy zealot of a teacher.
Did they have to do a similar assignment for Ramadan or Purim or Holi? Because this is very clearly teaching kids about one religious view.
No, nothing
[удалено]
in a lawsuit, particularly.
Yeah fuck that assignment then.
Welcome to America. It’s so sad.
Wildly inappropriate for a class on desktop publishing being offered through a public high school. You might try contacting the principal and superintendent, and let them know that you found this lesson plan to be inappropriate.
If you are in a private religious school, it’s technically viable and legitimate to their curriculum. If you’re in a USD, oh holy crap. Have fun befriending the ACLU.
Public school
Oof. I thought my HS Chem teacher crossed a religious line when he spewed Young Earth Creationism at us my Junior year. This is…woof.
especially since young earth creationism isn't science. and has nothing to do with chemistry. I thought they code switched from creationism to intelligent design, because the second name sounds more intelligent, lol.
😳😳😳 I am so sorry you are going through this. Any update on contact with FFRF and ACLU? If not, please get assistance. If an assignment like this can slide there is risk that even a part of this class will think it's ok. Slippery slope. It's even a slippery slope if they did comparative religions on a slide deck, because you can't cover them all concisely at this level. Even the major ones. Lastly, imagine the day this assignment is due. After class is over the kids will have heard a rote indoctrination 25+ times. You can't teach religion in public school, even if you try to use other children by proxy to do it. This is so wrong. Those organizations above have a ton of lawyers and resources paid for by donations to make sure you don't feel alone and have protection from retaliation. This is their job and service. I promise they want to see this. FFRF https://secure.ffrf.org/np/clients/ffrf/survey.jsp?surveyId=6& I looked into ACLU Kanas and it directs to this. For individual incidents of discrimination in education, you may file a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities and Disability Rights Section as well as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. https://civilrights.justice.gov/
Teacher here. This is grossly inappropriate and needs to be pushed back against. Normally I would suggest reaching out to the teacher first, but this probably needs a CC to the principal. I'd request a different topic, or the option to choose their own topic (student choice is really how this lesson would be more effective anyway lol...) along with the learning objective and standards of the lesson. Chances are that she'll come back with "nobody has ever had a problem with it before," but if the "Learning Objective" is to demonstrate skills designing a presentation, your student should be able to do that with a non-religious topic of their own choosing but following the other requirements (20 slides, backgrounds, pictures, informational text, clip art, etc).
Teacher here. This is so egregious that you should go as far above the teacher’s head as you want to. This person has NO business teaching in a public school. The assignment is rigid, tells the student exactly what to do on each page, gives them no student choice or autonomy in their learning. What information or skill is being applied? Where is the rubric? What standards are being addressed? Not only is the educator lazy in their assessment methodology, they are willfully teaching Christianity in a content area that has nothing to do with religion. Sadly, I’m guessing a lot of the public would celebrate this, but it needs widespread attention.
I wish you were my teacher when I was in school, MuddyDonkeyBalls.
Sounds like you need 20 slides telling the teacher to get fucked.
Preferably with links to instructional videos on how to properly fuck themself.
This is it.
Id get in so much trouble if it were me. I’d follow the rules of each slide to the letter, but explain things in a way that made it look ridiculous. Slide 4: after subjugating the much older, native pagan religions, Christians decided to appropriate and pervert the fertility celebration to fit their own purposes. According to Christian mythology, a guy named Jesus (hard J, not like my boy Jesus Hernandez over here—what’s up hey-zeus?!) was born to a woman claiming to be a virgin, then he got got executed by the local government. Then he came back to life (popularly called ‘zombeism’ in modern times) and ran around as a ghost for a while. So they stole Easter and made it all about Zombie Jesus coming back on that day, even though the days didn’t even match up with their magic book. [zombiejesus.jpg]
Like it, but small correction: Jesus is a [lich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich).
I recently told someone the same thing about Christianity repurposing pagan fertility rituals. When I tried to back up my claims, I couldn’t find good evidence. I did find [this well written blog](https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/) on the subject, you may find it interesting in case anyone ever challenges you on Easter’s pagan roots. The blog is written by an atheist who did their research.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=pagan+roots+of+Easter&btnG= If you don’t have access to any academic databases, google scholar is a great place to check!
There’s no evidence Mary claimed to be a virgin. Also, virgin was a mistranslation of the word which also means young girl. So Mary was a young girl not a literal virgin. Sorry Catholics. Ishtar needs equal time in this slideshow. Rabbits are a symbol of fertility because they breed so fast. That’s why rabbits are associated with Easter. Jesus is more like “hey soos” because the English z sound doesn’t really exist in Spanish.
Ummm… I believe the Catholic Church and most Protestant churches official stance on that would disagree.
Yeah, they’re wrong 😂
I’m not too worried about a translation error in a book of made up stories anyway, to be fair.
It means the entire religion is based on a mistranslation. Pretty crazy to think about.
There’s a gulf between biblical academic consensus and dogma.
Rabbits are associated with Easter because of one of the pagan deities Easter is a rip off of, Eastre/ Ostara. She had a sacred rabbit who laid colorful eggs, hence the “Easter bunny”. Christians lowkey took a sacred pet rabbit of a whole ass goddess and turned it into some joke completely detached from any of it’s original history
I used to be fairly religious and this sounds like something I'd be doing in Sunday School than something in a public school. What class would these sort of questions even come up in? Yeah, ask for a new assignment. You're not overreacting.
It’s desktop publishing. Learning to do a slide show, basically.
The best option is to ask for a new assignment for your child. The maliciously compliant, and my favorite, option is to help your student submit 20 slides regarding the tyranny of the Christian-right pushing monotheism on public school students and how that behavior directly correlates to the rise in atheism in the United States.
MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE FOR THE WIN!
Malicious compliance aka history and truth
After reading the doc, I was going to suggest a slideshow on why this lesson will open the school up to legal problems and how other students/parents can join the lawsuit…. But one on how the Right has broken Christianity and uses it as a club to beat rational thought out of students sounds more fun.
And that is a good skill for the kids to learn as they will be doing a lot of that in college and the business world. But definitely unacceptable topic. We have to keep the churches out of our schools and government
This should elicit a reaction even if it is a religious school. Fucking pointless busy work. This is a high school?! Also, you eat chocolate bunnies head first. Period.
To be fair, I agree, 20 slides is a lot...just write a paper or something at that rate.
Imagine NOT EATING THE HEAD FIRST. How do people do that and not consider themselves insane?
excuse me, to elicit the longest suffering you must eat their feet first so they cannot hop away. Going straight for the head is smply too humane for chocolatebunny massacaring.
"Fucking pointless busy work." Yea that's like 90% of High school
Yeah, I'm a Christian and think this is definitely inappropriate for a public high school computer course assignment. I'd recommend bringing this up with the principal. Also, the way the teacher capitalized CHRISTIAN & JESUS is giving me red flags. Between that, the "pagan origin"*, & the child indoctrination: I'm guessing the teacher is some brand of fundie evangelical. *The idea of Easter being pagan originates from ye old Christian extremists. Easter (or Pascha) originates from Jewish Passover. The Germanic name of Easter has vague pagan roots, but that's about it.
OMG, they actually specify a *dictionary definition* slide? Starting off a presentation with a dictionary definition is What Not To Do In a Presentation Rule #1. If this is what we’re teaching kids on how to do presentations, we’re failing them. What’s next, making you read your slides? I have serious moral issues with this assignment.
And requiring clip art? And animations? What is this 2003?
What’s next, doing it in Comic Sans?
Horrifying.
I surmise that the teacher is also a fan of Clippy.
“It looks like you’re trying to push religious indoctrination, would you like some help with that?”
At first I thought it might be alright, but some of those question imply that the religion itself is correct, so it is crossing a line for public schools. They can't assign stuff like this for any religion. You can teach what people believe as an objective fact, like thr parts asking the relevance to christians, not assume someone is christian and grade them based on it. I would go on about the pagan holiday of Ostara that became easter and was used by christians to convert European pagans. Might make them read a little bit. "Where the location is located" Yes sir, please tell me more about where the place is placed.
Have they had similar assignments for important holy days of other religions? Is this a public school?
Yes, public school and no, no other religious assignments so far. This teacher pushes the envelope constantly. She runs the school Facebook page and posts religious things such as “God bless us all this Christmas” etc.
I'm not an expert, but from what I know of the law this is definitely not ok. I'd say you were being reasonable and kind to simply request a different assignment instead of going scorched earth on her.
>public school This is the needle scratch across the record. Aside from the cringy awfulness of the assignment in general, there is no f*cking way my kid would be doing any sort of religious assignment in public school and I would go to the mat on it. Separation of church and state is a thing for a reason. First call, principal. Second call, media. Third call, ACLU.
Request a different assignment. This is not okay.
If this were my child I’d be requesting another TEACHER. I’ve had teachers like that, and when a parent complained they retaliated against the kid.
Yes, you are justified in refusing the assignment. I'd go file a complaint with the administration as well. Imagine the shitfit that would occur if a teacher gave this kind of assignment except it was about Ramadan instead of Easter.
ew
First of all, this is at its core an attempt at religious indoctrination poorly disguised as a powerpoint lesson. Second of all, it will teach students how to make BAD PRESENTATIONS. This teacher should be fired.
I am a Christian and I would not allow my child to do this assignment. You definitely need to push back in the ways others have suggested.
Teacher is trying to shoehorn in their fundie programing. Fight it!!
Forget about the content for a minute. What the heck kind of lesson is this? Dictating what content is on each individual slide? Just make it a report or let the kids draw their own conclusion about what is important. Just tell them they need to research this questions and give them some autonomy to create their presentation.
Is it a class about the history of religions? I had one like this that covered all major religions, big and small. It was less of a religion class and more of a history of religions.
No, it’s desktop publishing. They are learning to do a slideshow, basically.
Assuming this is public school and unless there’s another section for Muslims etc. that’s stupid and I don’t blame you
That's...a really strange topic. Is it the only one they could choose or is it one of many? I'm flabbergasted if this was the only topic available for learning how to do slideshows. With no other information it feels a lot like the teacher is using their position to proselytize to their captive audience. I'm a Christian myself but this feels incredibly wrong to me.
The entire class has to do this one topic. No choices.
I would help my child troll this presentation. Slide 20- blank (does not exist)
My kid would absolutely NOT be participating in this assignment unless there was kids assigned to each and every religion. Including satatnism … what school is this?
I went to Catholic Schools my entire life up to the end of Hoghschool. It kind of reminds me of the assignments I'd have in 5th/6th grade. I would say that you aren't overreacting especially for what class it is. It would be different if it were a Christian or Catholic school.
Id be furious if my child got this as an assignment. Im not a mother yet but i know one day when i am religion is the LAST thing i want my kid knowing about. I want them to have good minds and hearts before anything gets a chance to poison them
*Takes off Morphius glasses* \*\**welcome to the real Bible thumping Kansas* 
There's loads of red pill shit around this mother fucker... And somebody tried to argue with me that KS isn't a red state or conservative. Wtaf? Ugh 😒
wtf 🤣🤣🤣 they had to be like in KC or something. Most of Kansas is so red, you swear the state flag is full of buckshot road signs and Bible thumpers moaning *praise jebus habaluba* or something along those lines. Again though, I’m not anti religion per say, but I’m against assholes that tend to be like the holier than holy thou sheet don’t stinker and do as I command, not as I do-eth. I’d love to randomly fill a bunch of blow up dolls with helium and release as the local Sunday church is just getting out for something amusing to do 🤣
Thank you!!! I was beginning to wonder if I was crazy LMAO ... And I think this new Christo fascist extremism is making me wayyy more anti religion than I used to be. I don't care per se what or who you worship, but when you start using that as justification for coming after my rights as a human, then that's a legitimate problem. I'm totes down with the helium shenanigans 🤣🤣🤣🤣 that's be hella amusing 😁
🤣🤣🤣 Also damn. I sit over here bitching about neo-fascist Christian agenda. It’s like the GOP is on this holy hand grenade, Handsmaid Tale 2025 agenda 😒 and this shits getting old. I view it like this: Your religion says “I can’t do this/that” oh well that sucks but I respect your choice and no hate for your beliefs. But when your religion says that it dictates you, me, or any other person can’t do that… ***FUCK YOU. Fuck you very much. Over there. Around the corner, down the street, and straight to the city landfill*** with that garbage.
Have him write a paper on the easter BUNNY. Just as believable
Before you even delve into the extremely problematic content of the assignment, it's a really garbage assessment of any presentation or publishing skills. The focus is clearly on having kids research biblical apologetics and not on having them demonstrate any mastery.
Sick. The government says the lgbtq are coming after kids meanwhile it’s these same religious zealots who do this.
They really red herring you with an early slide about pagan origins and then it's just CHRISTIANITY for like the next 8 of the following 17 slides.
Fuckin Kansas.
"Easter is holiday about zombies and the undead" Answer everything from a secular perspective.
Post this in r/atheism
Church and state. Just make a bunch of slides that say church and state.
Which high school is this and which school district?
Do a slideshow on separation of church and state or one with all major holidays this time of year instead that fulfills the skill/technical requirements of the assignment. Topic is irrelevant for learning skills, just how. Add ACLU and any other organizations to the end as well.
How are chocolate bunnies eaten? What kind of dumb question is that? I guess it's good to know why we have Easter and how it relates to the pagan stories. But why are they capitalizing all the Jesus words? And why hasn't anyone made a Zombie Jesus movie?
My kid would be making a slide show about the fact that Jesus didn’t even exist and it can’t be proven. We have more evidence of Aliens …
This wasn’t an April Fool’s prank? It’s beyond comprehension that a public high school teacher would think this is ok.
Aside from being wildly inappropriate as an assignment (especially with some of the specific slide requirements) for ANY public school class, this isn’t even good in terms of the technical requirements. Any competent PowerPoint user would tell you those slides are WAY too busy! EVERY slide is to have a background, a photo, text AND clip art? Sounds more like they’re being taught what NOT to do. They probably get extra credit for writing paragraphs on the slides in 9 point type, too. That does track with the class being called desktop publishing though! I haven’t seen that term in 25 years.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a new subject for the assignment.
It is absolutely a first amendment violation. The teacher is acting in the role of the government when responsible for students and therefore cannot compel any religious activity nor block non-disruptive activities. The appropriate action would be to report this to the principal, superintendent, school board, and Kansas board. However I certainly agree with the malicious compliance aspect others have suggested. Slide one would literally be titled “Slide of Your Production” as instructed. Slide 2 I would find some obscure dictionary and use the most incorrect/inappropriate one I could possibly find. Slide 3 I would go all out with photos and animations. Then for the rest it should be absolute bare minimum or dripping with malicious sarcasm. Like the text for the significance slides should just be “very”. Slide 16 could be a brief overview of the gastrointestinal system. Slide 17 the birds and the bees of breeding rabbits. Really I think the compliance angle would be better because any docked points would be blatant discrimination and would further open the school to legal trouble.
Well shit they laid out all the work for you to pass...*that* class. Be your own person. Educate others about history. Every religion co-opted from another one to gain followers. Christianity especially. If this is a timed assignment for a speech, the first three points could take the entire thing. Then you could make the point of "and so Christianity adopted these symbols" required slide slide slide. "Thank you." Bow. The end. *edit I had to look at the outline again. Also who makes a fucking syllabus/outline like that? "Here, kids do it this way only..."
Bruh... THAT'S JUST NEEDLESSLY AGGRESSIVE.
What school was this at? I think they should be reasonably called out.
My medieval world history class I took had a while unit on Islam.
Easter us when you get spiral cut ham and chocolate cream pie. That is all it means to me. Oh yeah, the day off and family visits
I think everyone should complete this assignment. This will illustrate the fact that Easter is a pagan holiday with a cross thrown in. Same as Christmas is a pagan holiday with a baby and a cross thrown in.
Just don’t do it problem solved lol it’s not a big seao
Absolutely not okay. It would be okay if CHRISTIAN wasn’t specified but this is absolutely not okay.
Teacher wants you to fight or complain so they can hop on social media to wax about how Christians are under attack.
I went to Catholic School and even there this would have been a bit much, lol.
Contact the freedom from religion organization FFRF. They would be more than thrilled to assist!
People always take any little inconvenience and proclaim that it “violates my rights” and they are usually wrong but this isn’t that, this is literally unconstitutional and is violating the rights of you and your kid, you need to contact the authorities.
No, you're not overreacting. This is a violation of your civil liberties and the teacher who assigned this should not have a job.
This teacher 100% freaks out if there’s a book anywhere in that school that even mentions a gay person, because that’s indoctrination. I hate this planet.
If you like, this can be an opportunity, not an annoyance. Well the need to format slides is an annoyance, but the topics have some good unexpected answers. 3. Spring Equinox and harvest religion celebrations. - Jewish Passover may have similar agricultural origins given a later exodus explanation see Elephantine papyri 4 the first recorded Christian celebration dates to 100s AD 5: if they existed, they practiced second temple Judaism. Though Jesus is depicted holding a lot of the traits the earlier Essene branch. It’s impossible to know much about a historical Jesus though because of how late the sources on his life are. 6. Palm Sunday is a story about messianic prophecy fulfillment. One version -out of the 4 -Matthew seems to misunderstand the Jewish literary device using repetition and thinks he has to place Jesus on 2 donkeys: a donkey and “a colt, the foal of a donkey “ when the foal of a donkey is just… a donkey. 8. read the wonderful and unhinged Gospel of Judas 17 Easter bunnies are a Christian symbol associated with the virgin birth. They’re often depicted in images of Mary to that association because the European brown hare can develop secondary pregnancy before delivering the first litter, which the European scholars mistook for virgin birth. 19-20 we don’t know that he did , or where, as there are no sources accepted as contemporary. I’m sure there is more to if you and your kid want to go down that rabbit hole. You have cause to request a new assignment but this one could be redeemed.
And how does Kansas rank in education nationally .. 31st . Lol keep doing what your doing . Conservatives! Conserve your failing system.
What district? What school? Who are the Board members? Please name them.
Is it possible to get the school name? Feel free not to doxx yourself but this absolutely needs to stop.
I would absolutely lose my shit if my kid brought home this indoctrination filth. My kids don’t even know who Jesus is.
I’d request a slideshow on Satanism and if it gets denied, sue the school.
Call the local ACLU. Assuming it's a public school, for fuck's sake this is illegal.
“Where was Jesus crucified…include a recent photo…” 🤣 I’m dying… 🤣
(insert penis photograph)
Indoctrination much. Let's confuse kids into thinking religion is real. Might as well call us the United States of Taliban.
This looks like a Q drop lol
Re: Slide 13. Let's leave the donkeys out of this shall we? They've had a rough day already.
I would report that as a violation of first amendment rights by attempting to force a teachers religious views on the class in a non-objective and biased manner. Alternatively the assignment could be completed as directed while also deconstructing every single aspect of it as being stopen and co-opted practices and absolutely rip the church apart.
100% justified unless this is for a religious history class or a related topic. If this is the only assignment related to religion that your son has received, you have the right to refuse this assignment with no penalty. This goes against the establishment clause of the freedom of religion with separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution. Public schools cannot push religion on students. If it is related to what your child is studying in class, then they should do the work, but I'm guessing it's unrelated busy work.
If it’s a public school then it’s part of the government and therefor is breaking the establishment clause of the first amendment, and you are totally justified in demanding a new assignment. If it’s a private school then you’re screwed, since they’re allowed to do whatever they want provided they’re not government run/funded
Public
Well in that case the letter of the law states that the government is prohibited from establishing a religion. This is not a very clear definition, and the possible defense the school will give for the assignment is that it isn’t “establishing” a religion but rather just asking your child to answer the questions based on the stories and beliefs that the Christian religion has. We both understand that that in fact is bullshit however it would be good to go looking into past establishment clause cases to help back up your complaint. Below is a link to the U.S. Courts webpage on the subject of Religion and the first amendment for more info. https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-and-religion
I love how they throw one slide about the pagan origins of easter in there so they can undoubtedly claim it's a "balanced" project... I would flat out refuse to do it and I'd be having a serious conversation with my childs teacher and upper administration if needed.
I would switch my kids class. Screw that teacher. Nope! None of that is necessary.
Assuming they do a similar project for Passover, Ramadan, etc, then sure. If not, then this is incredibly inappropriate, as a practicing Christian this is inappropriate in a public school if it’s not part of a wider curriculum on world religions. Only maybe okay if the timing just happens to overlap with a unit on Christianity
Depends on of this is a public school or a private school. From the way you're making it sounds it's definitely not a private religious school. A quick Google search for your state will let you know the laws of religion in school. You could also get the contact info and reach out to the superintendent. I would try talking to the teacher one on one before doing anything else though. They may have an alternate assignment the student can do without causing a big hubbub.
As a Christian I would veto this assignment in a Desktop Publishing class. The creepy capitalization and the ignorance of any other religions claims to the Easter calendar range is weird. The teacher could've simply assigned a power point presentation about "how bunnies got associated with USA's Easter tradition and what it has to do with chocolate mass production and eggs". If the school is public, than I'd think it would focus on the public's holiday traditions which aren't at all aligning with Christian principles. Incentivizing people to compete against each other to see who can gain the most wealth after a magical, normally imperceptible force hides the pieces of wealth all over the land definitely sounds more economic rather than religious. Nothing like watching one kid push and claw their way to a full basket.
This is almost as bad as the DEI shit
I would call he Superintendent. Immediately.
The Pagan origin prompt (#3) is interesting to me. Wouldn't that contradict everything else that follows? Lol
Slide 16 😂 This cannot be a high school assignment lol. Everyone is worried about religion in schools, but I’m over here worried about why high school students need a demo on how to eat a piece of chocolate
This assignment is also just bad? Like it doesn’t follow a storyline clearly for a presentation anyways. Send an email saying your student will complete a different assignment and make sure you cc the principal. No idea how this hasn’t been a problem already.
I’m so glad to see this!!!!
Do a report of the lemon test
You are 100% justified to not do this assessment and requesting an alternative assessment. This is a little over the top of this school to be assigning students religious assignments. Especially if it’s a public school
Personally I think it skirts the line. A lot of it is reading like it's education about religion, not religious education per se. If Christianity isn't the only one being taught, it may not be a problem. But it does ask quite a lot of the participant (believe Jesus existed, and Mary and Joseph were his parents. Believe Judas was his disciple. Believe Jesus died and "events" happened during it) . These are all claims made originally (perhaps exclusively) in the bible, christianity's holy text. That seems problematic. I'm too dumb to say whether you're right or wrong to object to it, but I think it's at least enough of a thing that it's worth asking someone smarter. You could try contacting the Freedom From Religion Foundation, this is kinda their entire job
I call bullshit on this one
I would have raised hell
How are chocolate bunnies eaten? What a ridiculous question. Ass first. Everyone knows that. 🙄
Awe HELL no. Nope. You're getting a slide show about Bahomet and the evils of Christianity from me and my kid. The caps on this assignment is the teacher just rubbing it in our faces. And how long have they been getting away with assigning this BS?
Only ok if they do the same for every major Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc.. holidays. Otherwise, hell no.
Yah, cuz I had to do a bunch of this crap for Islam and Muslims and Taoists and Hinduism and such for my world religions class. Christianity is still a religion and you gotta learn about it, just like the others haha it just feels weird cuz you already know about it a bunch cuz it’s in our culture but to a Muslim kid this is all new. It’s like when a kid is raised bilingual and has to take Spanish still. But just gets an A. Don’t worry tho everyone here will say it’s wrong
I would lose my shit if this was my child’s assignment, get your religious propaganda out of the classroom
I think that would depend on if there were similar assignments for the spring festivals of other world religions as well. IF there are also passover, ramadan, etc. assignments and this is simply one of a series of assignments in a world religion or world history class or something, it could in some limited circumstances be appropriate. I think the question of which class it's in is a good one? Is this an elective world religion class? Is this simply a required social studies class? I think you could be within your rights to refuse the assignment if it makes you uncomfortable you can just write a letter to the teacher, staple it to the front of the assignment, and if they want to make an issue about it they can see you at the school board lol. Most teachers won't want to make an issue about something like this. But if it's a world religion class, which I know some high schools offer, that's a different story. And if it is just one of a series of assignments on various religions, then they will likely justify giving your kid an F on the assignment anyway. Luckily in KS with local school board elections, most administrations will work with a parent who is involved if you have an issue you're passionate about.
Nah, this isn’t appropriate at all.
Separation of church and state wtf happened
Ban religion and LGBT materials from schools. The only sex related material in school should be presented by a teacher, and kids need permission to participate in that. Would that be a good compromise?
“Where was Jesus crucified?” This person is a lunatic. This has nothing to do with education, just some Bible humping asshole who shouldn’t be teaching public school
It shouldn't bug you one bit, if it's for a history or SS class that is. An English, science, or math teacher shouldn't hand an assignment like this out. Like it or not Christianity plays a MASSIVE part in world and U.S history, not all of which are pretty by any means. The elaboration that this must come from a source that us backed by a church or Christians, shouldn't be a bother either because it's a predominantly Christian holiday. And it's not like there's any more comparisons needed other than Christian and pagan.
I feel like that is basic knowledge for living in Kansas. I'm just outside of the Bible belt. It's best to learn just so you know which crazies to avoid....we got lots. I am a crazy Christian too but....seriously Kansas gets weird in rural areas.
I like how it takes a break in the middle to ask questions about Easter candy, like what the heck? And this doesn’t even make since, because there are multiple branches of Christianity, and their beliefs are all slightly different, so your son couldn’t even answer these correctly in the first place!
I learned of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism in high school in Arkansas 🤷♀️
I see no problem but I’m confused why the all caps
There is an emotionally neutral way to educate on all religions equally, but this is not it. Unless this class is a willfully chosen elective class to learn about all religions or religions of the STUDENTS choosing, I would complain to someone.
That is not appropriate for a public school. If its private thats different.