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ORIGINAL: artemis

Teachers can talk about religion in the classroom, but they should be very careful about what they say, why they say it and how it comes across. Like Kernsfamily pointed out, if you are OK with a Christian teacher talking about God, then you have to be OK about another teacher talking about Allah, Buddah, or whatever other aspect of another religion they want to.

The Bible comes up in my classroom a lot. I teach Spanish and Catholicism is a huge part of hispanic culture. I always stress to my students that we are learning a particular story or custom because it is part of the culture and not because they are required to believe the story. We talk about the Christmas story when we study about the 3 kings (who bring gifts to all good little hispanic girls and boys ) and when we learn about the legend of the poinsettia (where a little boy brings some weeds as a gift for baby Jesus and they are miraculously turned into flowers). We also spend a few days talking about the Virgin of Guadalupe. So yeah, I talk about religion, but within context and as it relates to the class.

I know that the history teachers around here talk about both Christianity and Islam when they cover the crusades. I'm sure God comes up in other contexts as well. It is still best to be careful, though. For the record, I don't talk about my political views with my students either