Below are books and articles that educators can use to facilitate important conversations around religious issues and religious tolerance. The sources below will aid educators in developing their own skillset, building inclusive classrooms, and promoting a safe environment for all students.
Description:Founded by educators for educators, Lesson Planet is passionate about creating and delivering innovative digital tools and quality educational resources to help personalize student learning and inspire great teaching. For over 20 years, Lesson Planet’s team of experienced teachers have been curating and reviewing online, free and open educational resources (OER), as well as building tools that help educators save time discovering, planning, and implementing their curriculum. This source includes a variety of resoruces and lesson plans for educators on the topic of religious tolerance in schools.
Description:Religious toleration is enshrined as an ideal in our Constitution, but religious diversity has had a complicated history in the United States. Although Americans have taken justifiable pride in the rich array of religious faiths that help define our nation, for two centuries we have been grappling with the question of how we can coexist.
In this ambitious reappraisal of American religious history, William Hutchison chronicles the country’s struggle to fulfill the promise of its founding ideals. In 1800 the United States was an overwhelmingly Protestant nation. Over the next two centuries, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others would emerge to challenge the Protestant mainstream. Although their demands were often met with resistance, Hutchison demonstrates that as a result of these conflicts we have expanded our understanding of what it means to be a religiously diverse country. No longer satisfied with mere legal toleration, we now expect that all religious groups will share in creating our national agenda.
This book offers a groundbreaking and timely history of our efforts to become one nation under multiple gods.
Description: This Teaching Tolerance article highlights that a world religions course helps reduce intolerance among students without undermining students' religious beliefs.
Description:Supporting professionals to promote diversity and inclusion in early years settings, this book promotes awareness and understanding of the needs of children and families from diverse backgrounds, and provides the steps that practitioners can take to enhance their learning and help them reach their full potential.
Description: This article mentions that our world is getting smaller and there is a need for us to live and work together.The author encourages us to appeal to our common humanity, and the parts of religion that calls for each of us to take responsibility for living a life that benefits the world.
Lesson Plans
The following are a representative sampling of approaches that teachers may utilize to help students talk about disability.
24/7 Respect is a program, created by the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Office of Equity, to empower students to address and report bias-based and sexual misconduct, whether it is in-person or online.
Students in grades 6 through 12 watch and discuss the film, "24/7 Respect," to better understand how to identify and report bias-based and sexual misconduct. In addition, schools are provided with optional lesson plans, enabling students to deepen their understanding of how to foster a safe, respectful, and welcoming environment for all.
The BPS Office of Equity launched 24/7 Respect in the spring of 2019 in response to an alarming nationwide increase in students engaging in bias-based and sexual misconduct, including posting offensive racial comments online and "sexting."
You can learn more about the 24/7 Respect program, here.