Guest Blog: Vicki Michela Garlock, Ph.D., Editor, Religion Matters Review of Teaching Religious Literacy to Combat Religious Bullying: Insights from North American Secondary Schools by W.Y. Alice Chan (Routledge, 2021) We’ve read about increased antisemitism in the U.S. (Shveda/CNN, 2023). We might have heard that the majority of Sikh school students are harassed and ridiculed […]
Social Studies
Are Belief Systems a Unifying or Dividing Force? A Lesson Reflection
Guest Blog: Gretchyn Bedard, National Board Certified Social Studies Teacher Religions and belief systems have brought people together and torn groups apart. This phenomenon is something most students can comprehend, at least as it relates to the recent past and today. However, I have discovered that many of my students are largely unaware of how [...]
Religious Literacy in French Classes: Changing Understandings of Laïcité
Guest Blog: Elsa Kunz, Graduate Student, Harvard Divinity School Cultivating religious literacy goes beyond the social studies classroom. In fact, world language teachers have some of the greatest opportunities to incorporate the academic study of religion into their lessons. Using a cultural studies approach and the framework from Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity […]
Religion All Around: Engaging Students with the Category of Religion
Guest Blog: Elsa Kunz, Graduate Student, Harvard Divinity School The category of “religion” is a challenging one, and many students arrive in the classroom with unexplored assumption about what “counts” as religion. For many students, “religion” is an isolatable category that occurs in designated spaces, places, and people. Yet the reality is that religion does […]
Benjamin Franklin’s Contribution to Jewish Practice
Guest Post: Shai Afsai Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s Founding Fathers, was born on this date, January 17, in 1706. In addition to being a well-known statesman, he was a successful newspaper editor and inventor. He was also one of the founders of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, a predecessor of the University of […]