Gorsuch West Elementary School: A Case Study

Communication within the Westside School District No. 5 between the school district and the communities and families that it serves is a very dynamic process. I talked with district administrators, community members, researched pertinent information in the Arkansas State University library, and various governmental online sources and found very helpful information to include in this sociological inventory. Westside Consolidated School District No. 5 is a consolidation of primarily three school districts Bono, Cash and Egypt located in Craighead County, Arkansas in 1966 (Westside, 2017). The district also includes parts of Walnut Ridge and Alicia in Lawrence County and parts of Jonesboro in Craighead County. The district has three school buildings housing students from pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade. The elementary school is the school for

and write in the hope that the boy could get to know the Bible. When

that the book was “full of filth. My son is being raised in a Christian home and this book takes the Lord‟s name in vain and h

Students, however may read the bible during non-instructional times (Essex, 2012). In a Cypress Fairbanks Indiana School Case, a second grade student was reading the bible during

The wife was so silent, the story only explained what she looked like never one conversation in all of the scenes. At the home the children made fun of grandma but the husband and wife allowed the kids to be disrespectful to their grandma and did not correct them. Even at the restaurant neither parent said a word when June was rude to the owner’s wife. During the ride instead of disciplining John for kicking the seat, he turned the car around and went in the direction the kids wanted him to go. The Bible says if you spare the rod you spoil the child. There is no rod being used on these

The second book I’ve read for this literature project is kissing doorknobs written by Terry Spencer Hesser. This book is about Tara, a girl who is eleven years old at the start of this book. The story begins when Tara is in fifth grade, and first hears the phrase: step on a crack, break your mother’s back. She gets so scared, that she starts to obsessively count the cracks in the sidewalk. Because of this, she needs to walk alone every single day, otherwise she might lose count and break her mother’s back. After a little while, her counting the cracks turns into praying. Every time Tara hears, sees, feels or just thinks something “bad” she has to pray. This drives her atheist mother completely nuts, and their relationship gets worse and worse as the book progresses. Tara’s mother, in an attempt to stop the praying, starts hitting her. But violence, of course, is bad in Tara’s books, and as soon as her mother hits her, she starts mumbling prayers. This goes on for many years, at least until Tara is fourteen years old, and starts eighth

In fact, these were also children of the master, that he had conceived with some of his favorite slave girls. Many girls were illiterate, but others, like Linda, had taught themselves how to read and write, sometimes with the help of a compassionate mistress. However, when these slave girls reach an age in which the master would start to abuse them, the mistresses would become jealous of them. Linda’s master’s mistress, for example, knew that something was happening between Linda and the master, and she questioned Linda over the Bible. However, Linda had remained pure and told the mistress of the dirty attentions she was given by the master.

Katya is a thirteen year old girl who started eighth grade year at Martin Van Murrin middle school. She left early during the day because she hated school so much. She wanted to be a naturalist after going to a summer camp. She created an essay for a scholarship to the wilderness camp. She won the scholarship and went to the camp against her parent’s wishes. She loved the camp and she hated school. She did not like school because it did not have anything to do with the outdoors. She made a binder filled with information about homeschooling. She had some example lesson plans, good reasons to be homeschooled, and bad reasons to be homeschooled. She spent a lot of time on the binder. She also made a five page essay about how good homeschooling was. She came up with schedules and told her parents it would

Yet the woman kept on living with her Bible, neither disturbed nor angered by all the teasing. Finally, one day she knelt down in the midst of those who laughed at her. Holding the Bible high above her head, she said with a big smile: “Yes, of course, there are many books which I could read. But there is only one book which reads me!”

It became to be known as “the little Bible” because religious instruction was integrated into the grammar lessons. The eighty-page book taught the alphabet as well as moral and spiritual principles. After graduating from high school, you could go to college. However, in order to be accepted, there were strict requirements that one had to follow. Every student should be “able to read, construe, and parse Tully, Virgil, and the Greek NT; and to write true Latin in prose and to understand common arithmetic.” Nevertheless, not only will they have to accomplish all these, but they also have to live a religious, blameless life in God. Every student was forced to constantly pray in the school hallways every morning and evening; as well as read a passage of scripture. The professors were to take turns preaching from God’s Word in the halls. Additionally, if any student were to act rudely or profane the Sabbath, they would be harshly disciplined. Unfortunately, the government governed even their schools strictly.

Our parents wanted us to be free to choose our own religion as adults, therefore, they raised us without a particular religious denomination, nevertheless, they routinely read to us from a popular collection of children’s books known as “Little Golden Books; the Story of the Bible.” How I loved climbing on my father’s lap, Ellen cuddling up on mom’s, as we listened to those stories. We learned how to kneel on our bed, close our eyes and clasp our hands to say a simple prayer, sincerely from the heart, before we went to sleep:

Yes, the student should be allowed to read his biblical story in class. The class text infers that all teachers should be familiar with the policies and use of religion in schools, “Bible-teaching policies should be communicated effectively to teachers, students, and parents.” (Essex, 39). This situation can be seen as a violation of the law if the teacher familiar wit policies and does not manage this assignment in a just manner. While the student is reading the story, the teacher must guide the lesson so that it focuses solely on the curriculum. Essex states, “The Bible must be taught objectively and in a strictly secular manner” (39). For example, if the

In areas of New England, the preacher acted as the teacher. Many children from Puritan and Quaker backgrounds were taught to read by their mothers as it was engrained in their religion that children should be able to read the bible (Kerber, L.K.).

When I was in grammar school, which was Catholic, the book was forbidden from the

The Bible is not a children’s book. Not only is it beyond the length and reading level appropriate for younger audiences, it often covers what some parents might consider inappropriate topics. Imagine finding an illustrated children’s bible containing graphic stories about talking to “ghosts” ‘or children being burned alive as sacrifices to God. These are troubling stories that actually appear within the Hebrew Bible, which even some adults may feel uncomfortable discussing. Academic scholarship of the Bible, however, should not be influenced by such discomfort.