| Updated: 8/10/2009 8:42 am |
Published: 8/09/2009 10:05 pm |
A high school principal and athletic director in Florida now face criminal charges. They're accused of leading a blessing at a public school function.
In Little Rock, public school teachers from across central Arkansas learned how to keep religion out of the classroom without giving up their beliefs. Ray Moore uses songs, movies and books to teach teachers helping them keep their faith in the classroom without crossing the line.
"It's one-hundred percent. My faith has been with me all my life, you know, I grew up in church," says Dorothy Malone.
Malone teaches third grade at Terry Elementary. "I can teach goodness. How to have compassion and how to be kind to others and even the golden rule," she says.
While she has nearly twenty years’ experience in the classroom, it's her first "Called to Teach" seminar. She already has a handle on how to teach values without teaching religion. "I bring it to the classroom because I can teach the goodness. Although we have that separation of state and church and you think about, 'well, how can I separate it?' Because that's who I am, and I want to be a better person and I want to teach my students how to be a better person," says Malone.
She's using Moore's seminar to get new ideas. At "Called to Teach," Moore fills a glass with different drinks to show how kids have bad influences in their lives. Then, he pours water into the glass. By the end of the seminar, the teachers get the tools they need to help the students clear up some of the bad things in their lives.
Malone is already there and wishes every one called to teach could go to something like this. "You show by example. You do the good things. You show compassion. You help each other," she says.
