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Thalia Tiburcio E. Dr.

Bill Jenkins Grammar & Composition 17 March 2014 Bible Class and Doulos Incoming Students Due to the Dominican Republics great diversity, the relation between education and religion has long been a complex and hotly contested issue. This is because religion has always been an extremely controversial topic when it comes to its role in education. On one hand, schools prefer to completely avoid religious topics, while on the other hand some schools prefer to provide religious education through discussing one specific religion. This is the situation with Doulos Discovery School in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic. Since the very beginning, Doulos was founded as a Christian expeditionary school that focused in creating servant leaders to serve and impact the world with a Christian mindset. Moreover, in order succeed at its mission; Doulos has been giving Bible classes to every grade in the school. However, many incoming non-Christian students believe that even though Doulos is a Christian institution, they should not be obligated to take Doulos Bible class - but this is not a very valid argument. The truth is that all incoming non-Christian students at Doulos should still take the schools Bible class because it is part of the schools curriculum, students are aware of it before enrollment, and because these classes do not impose a religion. Incoming non-Christian students at Doulos Discovery School should still be required to take Bible class since it is part of the schools curriculum. Just like every private or public school in the Dominican Republic, Doulos submits its educational plan to the Secretaria de Estado de Educacin, and waits for the state to revise and approve or disapprove Doulos annual educational plan. For many years, Doulos, being a

Christian institution, has submitted a curriculum that includes all the future Bible classes for the year. This curriculum has been approved and established as the schools educational plan for each year. As a result, once the schools annual educational plan has been already approved and established, it is Doulos main guideline and standard at the time of teaching. All classes should be taught accordingly with this curriculum. On the other hand, concurrent to this state certified curriculum that Doulos teaches by, is the ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) accreditation that Doulos holds. According to the assistant vice-president of the global association of Christian schools, Michael D. Epp, There are exact requirements that Doulos must work by to maintain the ACSI accreditation. These requirements include having one specific religion or Bible class, and the incorporation of Christian values in every single class. Thus, students responsibility to take this class is irrefutable. For instance, all incoming Christian and non-Christian students must take Doulos Bible class. Since incoming students at Doulos know about the schools Bible classes beforehand, they should all take this class once they are enrolled. Doulos has been a Christian institution since the very beginning, so it is not like religious classes are suddenly introduced. Students are informed of this at the appropriate time. When students come to sign in for a new academic year, Doulos religious aspect is explained to new incoming students. For example, the other day a student that used to attend to one of the other schools in the town of Jarabacoa, asked a Doulos ninth grade student about the schools classes. Due to the students curiosity, the Doulos student proceeded to list out the normal classes all high school students take; Social Studies, Spanish, English, Math, Science, Electives and Bible classes. The existence of this class is openly shared at the time of describing the school, even more when there is a new student seeking to attend Doulos Discovery School. When this happens, specific

members of the staff have the responsibly to inform the student about the classes he/she will be taking at Doulos, which directly points and relates to Doulos Bible class. Indeed, most of the now incoming Doulos students, even participate in an informal tour around campus. Someone from the school takes them class-by-class, showing them around both the campus, and the respective classes. Under these circumstances, at the time of enrolling at Doulos, if the incoming student does not already know about Doulos Bible classes from a friend, specific members of the staff inform them beforehand. For instance, it should be said that every incoming student knows about Doulos Bible classes before enrolling, and they still choose to come. Hence, there is not excuse; they should all take Doulos Bible class. All incoming students at Doulos Discovery School should still take Doulos Bible class since this class does not impose a religion to any student; it just educates them so that they can make their own decision. Incoming students do not have to be religious or spiritually experienced by a specific religion, in order to qualify to take this class. The truth is that Doulos is just a Christian institution that seeks to teach Christianity as the truth while not demanding nor dictating students, to follow Christianity, nor any other specific religion. To illustrate, lets assume someone wants to attend Doulos Bible class, but they want to keep their spiritual identity. In Doulos Bible class, this is totally acceptable. The class teaches about religion, but it does not require students to join one specific religion. Furthermore, Doulos Bible class does not dictate that the student must believe and live out specific religious teaching. The respective professor teaches based on Christianity, but students are not forced to follow his teachings. The responsibility of each student is limited to listening to the teacher explanations, completing assigned tasks, and being academically evaluated, just like in any other academically secular class. It is up to the student if they want to live their life

according to the principles of religion taught at Doulos. For instance, if they do not, they are not penalized in any way. Students are and will always be allowed to live out and put into practice their favored religion. If the student prefers to maintain a highly secular approach outside the classroom, the school would never castigate the students behavior and decision. Thus, in Doulos Bible class students pertaining other religions or no religion at all are never forced to believe or embrace one specific religion. As many would claim, it is true that no one has the right to make someone else believe and see religion from one specific perspective. Just because Doulos is a Christian school, this does not serve as a justification or excuse to force Christianity into students values and ideals. The truth is that religious principles should not be imposed nor forced into any individual no matter what the situation is. People, and specifically students, must always have the right to choose which religion they want to practice. Especially since it is morally and ethically incorrect to brainwash or even manipulate someone to get them to follow one specific religion. However, this is not the situation in the Bible class at Doulos Discovery School. Although Doulos is a Christian institution, the Bible class does not force Christianity into students beliefs. Instead, it takes the time to educate students, and serve as a guide, so that they can learn and decide by themselves. This class does this by teaching students about: ways to evaluate and defend all kinds of religious beliefs -not one specific religion-, and about the origin of different Bible and religious interpretations. This way, students end up acquiring a knowledge that allows them think critically, evaluate, and discern, at the time of making their own decision, since Doulos promotes at all times students right to choose. So after all, Doulos is not imposing nor forcing Christianity into students ideals. On the other hand, it is also true that it is fairly difficult for a Christian professor to be fully impartial at the time of teaching a Bible class. Religious professors tend to

lean and pour more support towards their preferred religion or denomination, because for them, the religion or denomination they belong to, is the real one. However, this is not the case with the Bible professor at Doulos, Patrick Pace. He has done further studies in religion from a general perspective that has developed in him the ability to consider all religions with enough support and coherent reasoning. As long as the student has support to back up their religious perspective, he does not oppose. Moreover, when it comes to teaching, he is not the stubbornly biased Christian professor. Instead, he is the professor who applies his beliefs, in order to challenge students. He does not put his beliefs aside; instead, he uses them to explain themselves with reasoning and arguments to prove their point about their favored religion. He has explained several times that as long as the person seeks to follow Jesus Christ he will not show partiality. Every year, Doulos community continues to expand with students with all different kinds of beliefs and religious affiliation starting to form part of Doulos community. Up to this point, they all take at least one Bible class per semester, regardless of their preferred religion or denomination. Although many continue to argue that this should change and that Bible classes should be an option and not a requirement, these presumptions are completely erroneous. All incoming non-Christian Doulos students, should keep taking Doulos Bible classes since these classes are part of the schools annual curriculum, students know about them before enrollment, and these classes do not impose a religion. Furthermore, all incoming students should not only take the class, but also, they should take it one step further, and take advantage of the opportunity to learn about such a controversial topic, to think critically and decide for a favored religion.

Work Cited

1 - "Accreditation." Doulos Discovery School. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. 2Curriculum." Doulos Discovery School. 12 Mar. 2014.

3- The school curriculum." - Schools. 13 Mar. 2014

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