Put the Christian Bible back in our public schools

At the University of South Carolina in the Education Department in 1958, we were taught that one was to teach the whole child – spiritual, mentally, physically, and socially.

This ended in the 60s when churches agreed with the Supreme Court to take the Christian Bible out of the schools. Churches said they would handle the instruction of the Bible themselves in their own congregations. Of course, the churches blamed it all on Madelyn O’Hare. But we have done a very poor job.

It has been my thesis that if parents were given Bible story books for their children on the child’s reading level, as well as the Bible, that they would use them.

The parents have to be told that the school cannot educate their whole child, that the parents’ help is needed. This is what I did.

In 1984, I came home to Loris to the Daisy community and asked to teach third grade in my grandmother’s school district, where she had taught years before. This was a remnant of the Bible Belt, and I thought my research would be tolerated here.

In 1986, I started delivering Bibles and Bible story books to all my students, with their parents’ permission. In the 14 years of my experiment, I never had a parent refuse to receive a Bible for his child.

I could see the difference in my classes after they had had their Bibles about a month. Finally, in 1998, we had computers with which to test our students the first week of school and the last month of school. That year, I had been given 24 fifth graders who were to be tested and were unmotivated students. God blessed me with them. It was my thesis that if I taught lots of hands-on science to get them to understand God’s creations and his laws that they would take interest and improve.

They had their Bible story books at home, which they were able to read. I do not know how much the parents worked with them. Thus, they were taught the creation by using science at school along with their learning about God and his love for them at home. This worked!

At the end of the year, not only did their scores go up, but their comprehension went up as well. That year nine of them received Christ as their savior at their churches, as well as one the following year. After that, I do not know the results of their spiritual growth.

My research shows that the children do better when their spiritual needs are met. Thus, we need a non-profit in South Carolina to supply Bibles and Bible story books to all of our children.

Children do come with an instruction book – the Bible. Parents just do not realize it or use it. Deuteronomy 6 instructs us on how to instruct children. We need to educate the whole child by asking the parents to help by reading the Bible to their children at home and by giving children Bible story books that they are able to read at home themselves. A non-profit could legally do this job for us.

We need to do it. And, constitutionally, we can do it with a non-profit.

The writer lives in Conway.

This story was originally published November 4, 2016 at 6:20 PM with the headline "Put the Christian Bible back in our public schools."