The Bible is his favorite book
Newtown Square mom brings church to kindergarten class in an activity called “All About Me Week.” One of the options for the lesson was for the child’s parent to come in and read from the child’s favorite book. Little Wesley’s mom, Donna Kay Busch, chose to read from the Bible. The school principle asked her not to read from the Bible on grounds of the risk to separation of Church and State.
Donna Kay Busch has sued and has lost her case twice. Now it may be heading to the Supreme Court. This case it not as black and white as one might normally think. On the one hand, this was not a teacher reading to the class which would be akin to endorsement, but it is a kindergarten class and clearly little Wesley could not find the Bible to be his favorite book. He would be a super genius if at kindergarten age he had actually read the entire Bible, understood it, and believed it to be his favorite book.
I could understand if it were a Bible for kids’ version of one particular Biblical story or something. While I think it is appalling that book publishers even make Bible books for kindergarteners and younger as a form of early indoctrination, I can certainly understand why a child that young would pick Noah’s Ark by Jerry Pinkney as his or her favorite book. The pictures and the animals are appealing to kids. But to claim that at kindergarten age a kid loves the Bible over all other books is ridiculous.
Clearly the child’s mother wasn’t content with indoctrinating her own children at such a young age, but felt the need to indoctrinate other people’s children as well. A clear test of this is easy. All we have to do is swap out the Bible for the Koran. Can you imagine what would happen if a child’s mother came into a kindergarten class and started reading from the Koran? It would certainly be on Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and a massive letter writing campaign would be well underway from multiple Christian fundamentalist groups.
So while I strongly support free speech and if the child really does think that the Bible is his favorite book, than he should of course be allowed to have it read as part of the lesson. However, in this case it is pretty obvious that young Wesley’s mother had picked her favorite book and not his favorite book.
That aside, there are still certain standards in a school setting. Those standards are even higher for children in younger classes. What if young Wesley wanted his mom to read from an erotic thriller? Should that be allowed? The bottom line here is that the Bible is inappropriate material for kindergarteners and his parents shouldn’t be trying to turn their child’s classroom into a Church.
If the Supreme Court does rule in her favor then I can’t wait until my son goes to kindergarten. His favor thing to read is Playboy.
Comments
I've always been under the impression that if a parent or person from the outside brought religion into the classroom in the form of reading a book or doing an activity, it was OK as long as it wasn't the school itself or the teacher presenting the information. If you are going to disallow the Bible from being read as a favorite book, and trust me, there are definitely 5 year olds out there who will choose that book, than you need to also make sure no Halloween stories, Kwanzaa stories, the Koran (like you mentioned), are also not read in class by another parent. Once you single out one religion, you must rule out all of them. Personally, I'd like to see complete separation of church and state in this manner.
How unfortunate this situation is!
The school principal would have done better to have spoken the truth!
"You silly woman! Children of this age cannot understand the bible and its message! This will bore them, and that's not what we're here to do..."
Instead, the principal tried diplomacy and came up with a 'reasonable reason' for not allowing this that did not reflect on the mother's idiocy.
If the mother wins her case (she won't) watch the numbers of homeschoolers increase.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!