Christian Teachers Have More Rights Than They Know – Eric Buehrer

[00:00:00] welcome to educate for life i’m your host kevin conover and we are broadcasting down here in southern california

[00:00:06] um my uh flagship station down here is k praise 12 10 am uh in southern

[00:00:11] california and we’re also on fm 106.1 and then of course we’re all over uh youtube facebook all the social media

[00:00:19] platforms so a lot of fun and uh the subject we’re talking about today is incredibly relevant um in our nation

[00:00:27] and uh very very important and i have a my guest today is eric burer one of my guests

[00:00:32] and he’s been on the program before i’ll just tell you real briefly about him he was a public school teacher

[00:00:38] before founding gateways to better education he’s the founder and president and he’s a published author nationally

[00:00:44] recognized authority on the subject of religion and public education and uh he’s been advocating for

[00:00:51] religious freedom in public schools for a very long time uh he’s got all kinds of accolades from

[00:00:57] different leadership in the christian community including chuck colson the former chuck we’re not former but uh chuck colson who

[00:01:03] who passed away the head of prison ministry uh he said eric is a unique and much needed voice in our country

[00:01:09] what he is doing to equip parents and teachers is vital i appreciate how he has kept me informed on education issues

[00:01:14] which we’ve used frequently and so um that’s just one of many many uh leaders

[00:01:20] they work with alliance defending freedom the american family association family policy allowance family research

[00:01:25] council focus on the family all these fantastic organizations eric thanks a lot for being on the program today

[00:01:30] thank you great to be with you absolutely and then i also have a good friend of mine who’s on uh here with us today and uh he’s a

[00:01:38] public school teacher right now teaching class right now his name is john neal he’s been teaching for 18 plus

[00:01:44] years he teaches world history us history and government and uh just a fantastic guy uh who loves

[00:01:51] the lord and just has been a consistent witness and testimony in the public schools all through and i just thought it’d be

[00:01:57] great to have his perspective too as a sounding board john thanks a lot for being with us today hey blessed to be here and

[00:02:03] nice to see you all awesome so eric um you know the big news here is is that

[00:02:08] you uh not too long ago actually met with uh the administration

[00:02:14] president trump and betsy devos discussing religious freedom in the public schools can you give us a

[00:02:21] kind of an update on what happened there and how you ended up in the in the white house well when uh when the

[00:02:27] trump administration got into office we began uh lobbying the department of education

[00:02:32] asking for them to update their uh guidance on religious freedom it hadn’t been done in

[00:02:37] in quite a long time and uh so and actually what we were asking for was

[00:02:43] a lot of things when it first came into place that in 1995 the u.s department of education under

[00:02:49] the clinton administration uh published guidelines on explaining students and teachers religious freedoms

[00:02:56] and then it was updated periodically and in in the bush administration unfortunately they actually took some of

[00:03:02] those things out not because they were against them it’s kind of a technical thing it had to do with

[00:03:07] a law regarding prayer and they wanted it just to be focused on prayer and not other issues of religious expression but

[00:03:14] we just appealed to the trump administration to put back in a lot of the clinton uh

[00:03:20] material that was much more expansive on the idea of religious expression and they did uh was a tremendous uh experience uh

[00:03:28] almost but just over a year ago uh january 16th of uh 2020 20 yeah 2020. wow

[00:03:35] time flies um got invited to go back i just had no idea it was going to be a

[00:03:41] white house announcement i just thought well they’re going to release the guidance and that’s it i get this call and they come back to the white house we’d like to do

[00:03:48] an oval office uh announcement about it and so i was delighted to go back and and honored to

[00:03:54] be a part of that uh and uh thank president trump thank secretary devos for being so open to uh continuing to

[00:04:02] defend religious freedom in in the school arena and uh so now we’ve we’ve launched the

[00:04:08] national free to speak campaign to to really get that out there and and get wide distribution of the guidance so

[00:04:15] everybody understands what is and isn’t allowed in a public school setting yeah and that was my question for you is

[00:04:21] you know all the way back in 1995 um here clinton is you know emphasizing

[00:04:27] uh the freedom of religion that people have in schools and i i guess uh my question for you uh

[00:04:33] eric is historically um why did they feel the need to do that was this an issue where

[00:04:38] people were feeling oppressed in schools well it’s just it’s long been an issue yeah and uh

[00:04:44] teachers don’t know they’ve bought into the lie that well because of separation of church and state that

[00:04:49] means we have to basically keep our schools hermetically sealed off from anything religious

[00:04:56] and and that’s just not the case and even after i mean they’ve been around

[00:05:01] since 1995 and it’s not like they created new laws they simply curated what was out there and said here’s an

[00:05:07] explanation very simple way to explain what can and can’t be done in your classroom

[00:05:12] but uh i travel all over the country and speak to educators in every state and i’d always ask them how many of you

[00:05:18] have heard of this guidance and no hands would go up i mean it was it was just it hadn’t been distributed

[00:05:25] it had been it’s on the website but nobody knew about it yeah so

[00:05:30] that’s why our goal is to really get this into as many hands as possible through churches through student clubs through

[00:05:36] organizations and not only the guidance but then also we’re we’re just finishing up some

[00:05:42] videos uh that teachers can show to their students a little two-minute video that explains here’s what your religious

[00:05:48] freedoms are in class and it’s it’s a civics lesson you know the first amendment uh protects

[00:05:55] religious freedom and here’s what those freedoms are right here in our school then we have a

[00:06:00] faculty of video for faculty that they can then show to the administrator

[00:06:06] the faculty and and teachers understand because they don’t want to have problems so

[00:06:12] we have that we have powerpoint presentations that teachers can download and use in class we have printed

[00:06:17] materials now with covid and all we’ve had to do a lot more virtual so um we have it in a in a format like

[00:06:24] this it’s just a simple and it’s not our opinion these are quotations from the department of education’s guidance

[00:06:31] and we just put it down in very simple format so it’s easy they can print it out they can send it to their

[00:06:36] their students virtually and uh we just want students to understand they have the

[00:06:41] freedom to express themselves yeah i love it you know and i think i find it uh interesting that

[00:06:46] you know this is your organization you’re not trying to change laws you’re just trying to make people aware of what the laws actually are

[00:06:53] yeah as i often say we just we just pull back the curtain and say look it’s been here all this time yeah

[00:06:59] you didn’t know that it was here or another analogy often used is

[00:07:04] uh we just want you to go the speed limit uh if the freeway speed limit is 65 miles an

[00:07:10] hour we don’t want you to go 80 we just want you to go 65 or even 60. but some of you are going 30 and

[00:07:16] and some of you aren’t even getting on the freeway because you’re so afraid yeah so we just want to help you understand how you can drive

[00:07:21] safely but go the speed limit i love it i love it john um you know you’ve been teaching

[00:07:26] for a long time eight over 18 years and i’m just curious you’re a very outspoken person you’re

[00:07:32] definitely driving the speed limit in the in the school and uh and so uh you just told a really

[00:07:37] uh a great story um just about a former student who who commented on your teaching can you share

[00:07:43] that with uh with our listeners um what happened to you just recently yeah sure one one of the things that a

[00:07:48] lot of teachers don’t understand is the fact that we are not as limited and as eric said there’s this belief of

[00:07:55] separation church and state which i’m a history teacher it does not exist

[00:08:00] the separation of church and state is a misstatement because people don’t understand that jefferson was writing a letter about a

[00:08:07] state church had nothing to do with the federal government whatsoever that all aside we have a lot more

[00:08:13] liberty people realize but they are kind of cowed in some places in some places they’re just

[00:08:19] ignorant it’s not even a anti-view of religion they just are not told because in most

[00:08:26] college situations they teach you the basic format of what you’re going to do in education

[00:08:31] then you get your teaching credential and it’s very very basic because they’re being generic for the entire system the entire world

[00:08:38] of education then you move into a school district and the school district has their policies state policies

[00:08:44] their policies obviously some federal policies i teach history therefore it’s almost impossible

[00:08:51] for me not to teach religion i am actually required to teach religion by state standards

[00:08:56] uh and by a local uh our district standards and what i one of my students said to me

[00:09:02] today we had lunch he had spent two years since he graduated he came back bought me one it’s really nice and uh and we actually don’t

[00:09:09] tell anybody we went to a set down restaurant and no i will not reveal the name of the restaurant except unless you give me a

[00:09:15] special code okay yeah so if you if you live in california then then you know what he’s talking about if

[00:09:20] you’re in other states then you know you’re probably like what do you mean and he commented to me

[00:09:26] he said you know he said now that he is learning himself he’s moving into a deeper relationship with god

[00:09:32] checking out jesus what’s this all about he said to me he said i realize you taught us a lot of

[00:09:39] scripture and a lot of biblical things in your history class and i said well yeah

[00:09:44] because my job is to teach history and those things are historical i’m not being religious about it i’m never

[00:09:51] allowed as a teacher to say okay you need to find jesus to get an a that that’s not allowed

[00:09:57] but to express historically that’s my job yeah yeah eric can you speak to that as

[00:10:03] you know the what he just said that we’re not trying to uh conflict with the school district we’re not trying to

[00:10:10] quote proselytize right um like you said can uh can you speak to that the whole difference between proselytizing and

[00:10:16] teaching the facts sure to teach about religion is not the instruction in religion instruction in

[00:10:23] religion would be what you’d have in church catechism at a christian school that sort of thing

[00:10:29] but to teach about it is of course that’s just part of like you say teaching history teaching culture

[00:10:37] and california believe it or not and one of the things that we do at gateways to better education is we research every

[00:10:43] state’s academic standards where the bible and christianity are expected to be taught and then we put that into documents that

[00:10:50] we can use when we go into different states and equip the educators there and the parents there with all the things that actually can be done

[00:10:56] well in california it really is the gold standard when it comes to teaching about the bible and

[00:11:02] christianity and people are shocked that they think oh no that can’t be california and this is not from 1950

[00:11:08] this is if you went to the california department of education’s website today and look these up you’ll see them

[00:11:15] right there for instance give you an example uh well people for instance are

[00:11:20] have been outraged over common core and i’m not going to get into the politics of common core but what we look for is where is the

[00:11:26] bible referenced and it’s referenced four times students as they study english and literature should understand how the

[00:11:32] bible has influenced literature that means they have to read it and become familiar with it then when you get to sixth grade here’s

[00:11:40] what it actually says that students are expected to learn as they learn about the ear the period of roman history and the birth of christianity

[00:11:47] and i’m quoting now note the origins of christianity in the jewish messianic prophecies

[00:11:53] boy it’d be great if even christian kids learned that at church yeah yeah about the origins of christianity

[00:11:59] and the jewish messianic prophecies the life and teachings of jesus of nazareth as

[00:12:04] described in the new testament and the contribution of saint paul the apostle

[00:12:10] to the definition and spread of christian beliefs and then it says in parentheses for example belief in the trinity

[00:12:16] resurrection and salvation wow that’s unbelievable and and then in

[00:12:21] the seventh grade now in 2016 they were changing the

[00:12:26] framework in california they’ve got two things they’ve got a framework which kind of says here’s what

[00:12:32] students are supposed to be learning at this age law at this grade level and then the the standards are there for

[00:12:38] and they kind of go into bullet points these are all the things so they can they don’t it’s really hard for them to

[00:12:43] change the standards that’s a big process but they every seven years they can change the framework kind of the

[00:12:48] description so in 2016 they were going to change the descriptions of all the different grade levels for

[00:12:54] history and they talked about jesus at that time

[00:12:59] and they said that jesus taught salvation through love and so we appealed to them and we said

[00:13:06] we don’t know of any christian church catholic or protestant that teaches salvation by love how about

[00:13:12] salvation by believing in jesus’s savior and they said okay that’s more accurate and so they put that in

[00:13:18] so here’s now what is expected in seventh grade through selections from biblical

[00:13:24] literature students will learn about those teachings of jesus that advocate compassion

[00:13:29] justice and love for others he taught that god loved all his creatures regardless of status or circumstance and

[00:13:36] that humans should reflect that love and relationship with one another jesus shared the jewish belief in one

[00:13:42] god but he added the promise of eternal salvation for those who believe in him as their savior

[00:13:48] that’s from 2016. yeah people are like wait this must have been the early 1900s

[00:13:53] right yeah but but here it is and um you know we just got a comment looks like brenna there

[00:13:59] said she said she said this is blowing my mind

[00:14:04] i love that because that’s exactly right is that people just are completely unaware of what is actually legal and possible

[00:14:11] in the schools and the schools are are a place where kids are dying to you know hear good news right hear

[00:14:18] hope and and be encouraged and uh and so um i wanted to ask also

[00:14:23] uh she just said where can we get more of this so gateways um gateways to better education you can

[00:14:29] visit their website uh and uh that’s go gateways.org yeah go gateways.org and then just

[00:14:35] contact you know hit the contact button contact us and send us an email and ask for your state’s academic standards our

[00:14:43] summary of your state’s academic standards we’d be happy to send that to you that’s great and that’s also and you’ve got the free to

[00:14:48] speak campaign going on too which i want to talk more about that too but again go gateways.org if you want to get

[00:14:54] more information getting in in contact with eric and um i actually eric i want to ask you and also i want

[00:14:59] to ask john um you know john you’re you you’re pretty well aware of what is

[00:15:04] legal and what you’re able to teach have you ever been in a situation where a teacher or an administrator came out

[00:15:10] and said whoa john you are out of line here um you shouldn’t be able to you shouldn’t be talking like this and

[00:15:17] you know how did you respond in that in that kind of a situation i’ve had it happen only one time and it was from a

[00:15:22] parent complaint and what i do so that we understand my process of world history i

[00:15:29] actually again don’t tell anybody i teach outside of the state standards this way

[00:15:34] what he just eric just shared was about what they’re to learn in sixth grade and seventh grade et cetera

[00:15:39] but the problem is they don’t really learn that and so when they come into my history class 10th graders 15 years old

[00:15:47] they don’t have that background so i tend to take the history class instead of starting the renaissance

[00:15:52] 1500s when state of california stand and say you start i spent about five or six weeks

[00:15:58] pre-history going from the beginning of history all the way up to the renaissance in that i teach about judaism

[00:16:06] the basic foundations of judaism the basic foundations of islam and again we do christianity

[00:16:12] because the roman empire i had one student who was very upset because i made a comment and the comment was actually

[00:16:19] mistranslated the parent was all upset she said well are you teaching religion and i said well of course i’m teaching religion

[00:16:24] that’s part of my requirements and i be a smart boy i had my state standards with me and i

[00:16:29] said be right here that’s what i’m supposed to so please help me to understand what the problem is

[00:16:35] and they expressed some concerns and i said well let’s talk about what i actually said

[00:16:41] what i actually said was you need to understand has history students to understand the

[00:16:48] way christians behave what christians believe and i basically gave the full

[00:16:54] layout has just spoken faith in jesus christ as if through salvation the concept of jesus being born of a

[00:17:01] virgin the basic fundamentals of what every christian would believe is what i had taught in the class and

[00:17:08] ending it with and the apostle paul goes on to preach this throughout not only asia asia minor and also into europe

[00:17:16] well they took that to me that i was espousing that every kid needed to become a christian and i said no i said my studies as a

[00:17:23] history teacher i said i personally because my own personal walk and kevin you and i have talked to us

[00:17:29] before my own personal walk in the lord i was raised catholic i moved into a kind of a protestant mode

[00:17:35] where i was in a uh sorry a southern baptist church a calvary chapel and assemblies of god

[00:17:41] but in that process i also challenged my own faith and so i started reading

[00:17:47] islam and the torah you see and the the quran i started reading about hinduism and

[00:17:53] buddhism i was interested but also i was checking my own faith out what do i really believe so as i told

[00:18:00] this parent and the we now i had the parent we had the principal there and the two or three administrators there with me

[00:18:06] i said my job is to express to each of the students to the best of my ability my knowledge

[00:18:12] of what each of these religions believe now it’s up for the child to make a decision what they want to do

[00:18:18] that’s not my job i teach history i don’t proselytize for any religion any religion i simply

[00:18:25] teach the facts yeah we we call that uh teaching by attribution

[00:18:31] uh we recommend you know you attribute it to the source so you say christians believe or this person was

[00:18:38] motivated martin luther king was motivated by his faith to do this right and so you’re attributing it so

[00:18:43] you’re helping them understand who these people are and how they were impacted by their faith to do what they did that made history

[00:18:51] yeah and and um eric you know do you know because you you speak about this all over the place you speak around

[00:18:57] the country um and do you hear a few quite a few stories about teachers that

[00:19:03] are in a situation in which john neal was in and then um do they typically get the support of the administration or

[00:19:10] you know what if what if the the administration says no uh sorry you you can’t teach this

[00:19:17] well my experience is over the years to see that administrators just don’t want trouble

[00:19:23] and you know so if you can academically show them if you can support just like you

[00:19:29] did john where you say here’s the standard here’s what i’m teaching to and here’s the approach i take then then for the most i really have

[00:19:37] never seen a situation where a school principal said yeah well regardless i don’t want you to teach that right

[00:19:42] as long as you can help them uh just to give you a quick story up here in irvine we had a situation

[00:19:48] years ago where they had a home school public school um relationship so that students who are

[00:19:55] homeschooled could go and use facilities at the school and that sort of thing the school loved it because they were getting state money for having students on their

[00:20:01] rolls and so these homeschoolers wanted to do a presentation

[00:20:06] uh a drama on easter and and and do the whole reenactment of easter

[00:20:12] and all of that and the school principle oh man you know i don’t know if we can allow that that’s that’s like worship

[00:20:18] service here in the so i sat down with him i went through the standards and

[00:20:23] and i said um you know as long as there’s an academic purpose for this then then what they’re doing is a

[00:20:29] dramatic uh expression or illustration of the historical

[00:20:34] thing that christians believe about easter he goes you know that okay that makes

[00:20:40] sense so he said i’ll let him do the drama but then they need to explain

[00:20:45] why they’re doing it and its connection to history it’s like this is wonderful not only the

[00:20:50] drama now they get to explain more about it but he was fine with it as long as he could tie it to academics and

[00:20:56] that’s what i find administrators they just don’t want trouble yeah yeah and do you actually on your way on your

[00:21:02] website gogateways.org do you do you have um tips and you know

[00:21:07] uh basically guidelines for teachers so that they can kind of navigate this

[00:21:12] because i’m sure for a lot of them they’re kind of like whoa i’m not sure if i’m crossing the line here or i’m not you know am i allowed to do this am i

[00:21:18] not allowed to do this yes yeah we have all kinds of articles and research on this tips on how to do it

[00:21:23] we also have an online professional development seminar that they can go through that

[00:21:29] explains in full detail all the things they think it’s a four hour um webinar that they can go through and

[00:21:36] it really gives them everything they need plus all kinds of downloadable resources that they could use in their classroom

[00:21:41] yeah awesome okay and now also uh eric you have the free to speak campaign um can you tell

[00:21:48] us you know uh what what the impetus for this was and what you’re hoping to what you’re hoping to

[00:21:54] accomplish coming out of the white house um we realized as i said earlier in our experience that while

[00:21:59] it’s great that the department of ed had these guidelines if teachers don’t know about it then it

[00:22:04] does no good and so we put together what we’re calling the national free to speak campaign and that is

[00:22:10] to really saturate the schools with this information uh from top to bottom and from bottom to

[00:22:16] top so uh for instance when when and we’re looking for 25 communities this year around the

[00:22:23] country who will say yeah we want to bring this in and it involves really we call it now

[00:22:30] ministering to the body of christ on a campus our operating philosophy is there are

[00:22:35] christians who saturate the public schools school board members administrators superintendents

[00:22:41] uh educators teachers parents youth parents youth pastors

[00:22:46] they’re they’re throughout the public schools but often they’re kind of silos of excellence they kind of do their

[00:22:51] thing and they don’t really connect with others what we want to do is really equip them so that they can do what god’s called

[00:22:58] them to do with excellence in their area but all in working together uh so for instance a youth pastor in in

[00:23:05] one of these communities where we’re having the campaign a youth pastor might teach his students here’s what your religious freedoms are

[00:23:12] in class and then we’re putting together what we call a 30-day challenge now live your faith out in class now

[00:23:18] that you know you can express your faith how about you actually do it and then every sunday he’ll survey the

[00:23:24] students how many of you did it any testimonies you’ll have students share and really inspire them to to get

[00:23:30] out there and either you know include it in your homework mention it in a class discussion

[00:23:35] talk about an oral presentation or share the gospel with a friend at lunch something like that and and so then

[00:23:42] now you’ve got the youth pastor doing this then what if they go to their fca club their fellowship of christian

[00:23:48] athletes club and the same thing’s happening in the club the club youth leader is saying hey i want you

[00:23:54] guys to live your faith out on campus here and he goes through our lessons on how to do that and

[00:23:59] and now they’re even more encouraged to do it then they go to mr neil’s class and he says

[00:24:06] hey let me explain to you as a civics lesson what your religious freedoms are at school and uh by the way i just want you to

[00:24:12] know that your my classroom to use the popular term now my classroom is a safe place

[00:24:18] for you to express your faith and you’ll be affirmed and welcomed we know that’s a important part of your life if you’re a

[00:24:24] person of faith no matter what the faith is we want you to feel that you have that option here i want you to connect your

[00:24:30] life to your learning and so now all of a sudden the student’s going wow i’m getting all this

[00:24:36] affirmation all around me then the school board we have a model policy that aligns with the

[00:24:42] department of education’s guidance so now the school board and there might be christians or at least conservative

[00:24:47] or faith friendly board members will help advise people in that community how to work with the school

[00:24:53] board to get that adopted because again school boards just don’t want trouble yeah if you can show them hey if you

[00:24:58] adopt these policies you’re going to have a whole lot less problems because now everybody understands what the

[00:25:05] federal guidance is on these issues then we’ve got training for administrators on how to help

[00:25:11] make sure that their practices and their policies are in place at their school level so we really want to equip we know that

[00:25:17] there are christians and faith-friendly educators throughout the system we want to equip them so that they’re really

[00:25:24] changing the whole tone of of the campus and then where there are existing campus

[00:25:31] ministries we want them to flourish we’ve had a campus ministry contact us and say you know

[00:25:38] we would like to work with you because while legally a school has to allow us

[00:25:44] it’s not really a very friendly environment we would like to have a much more faith-friendly environment and your

[00:25:50] program can help create a more faith-friendly environment that means our club will flourish

[00:25:56] and then by the way when you’re working in communities where they don’t have campus clubs would you recommend our club that local

[00:26:03] churches could help us start clubs on those campuses so this wonderful body of christ working together and

[00:26:08] that’s what we want to see done with the national free to speak campaign we’d love it we’d love to bring it down into the san

[00:26:15] diego area and and impact schools in that region and we’re looking for people who say yes

[00:26:20] i’d like to become an advocate and we have somebody on our team who that’s all he does is coach

[00:26:26] advocates on how to do this so you’re not just you know okay here’s all the information hope you’re

[00:26:31] successful see you next year yeah we we’re with you we’re doing zoom calls with you we’re

[00:26:36] helping you through every step of how to organize this how to put it together how to build a team what do you do first what do you do

[00:26:42] second and we’ll help you bring this into your community that’s so great you know

[00:26:48] down here in in san diego there’s a lot of christians are upset about some of the policies and

[00:26:54] and things that are being passed in the public schools uh some of the stuff that’s being taught to kids that um you know they think hey this is not

[00:27:01] appropriate for kids to be to be learning this kind of stuff and there seems to be a pretty aggressive agenda um to

[00:27:07] in some sense indoctrinate kids is what it seems like with a lot of values that are very contrary

[00:27:12] to christianity um how do you how do you advise teachers in that regard when it comes to like um

[00:27:20] you know conflict over maybe issues that are that are controversial gender issues and

[00:27:26] these sorts of things um do you have any advice for teachers as they navigate that because it seems like

[00:27:32] a real natural way of conflict uh you know if somebody says hey i’m advancing christianity and then

[00:27:38] there’s this conflict you know what i mean yeah here’s the thing a lot of what is

[00:27:43] now being pushed really violates somebody’s religious beliefs and so

[00:27:51] for instance we’re encouraging if a student is a strong christian and believes that there are only two

[00:27:57] genders one of the nice things about the new guidance from the federal government

[00:28:03] is that it makes it clear that students religious perspectives cannot

[00:28:09] be discriminated against right so if a student says wait a second i believe god created adam and eve there

[00:28:15] are two genders and and they can’t be shut down

[00:28:21] we also have a a guidance here in california that you can’t diminish someone or make

[00:28:29] fun of someone’s religious faith and so students can stand strong on this

[00:28:35] uh and teachers can also teachers who are believers or feel like for a matter

[00:28:40] of conscience they can’t go this way can simply say look i want my class to be much more

[00:28:45] inclusive and you’re asking me now to push a particular agenda

[00:28:51] that is going to alienate any uh protestant catholic the hispanic

[00:28:56] community all the catholic kids christian korean families muslim

[00:29:02] students jewish students traditional jewish students you’re offending this whole group of

[00:29:09] people because you want this one ideology pushed in the school and so

[00:29:15] as a matter of balance um i just i can’t do that on a practical level

[00:29:23] uh teachers you know you have a lot on your plate and sometimes you just forget to address certain things in your

[00:29:30] in your class i had a teacher uh just the other day contact me and said man i’m

[00:29:36] supposed to teach this i’m you know and health teacher and i’ve got to teach this section on sex ed and well i can’t

[00:29:41] agree with the videos they’re trying to get me to show and some of the things they want me to teach and

[00:29:47] i said well you know you’ve got a pretty full plate of all kinds of things and some things you just can’t get to

[00:29:55] and true and it is uh there’s biblical uh precedent for this

[00:30:02] if you look at the hebrew midwives they were told by pharaoh kill all those

[00:30:07] babies as soon as they’re born and then they just ignored it and then

[00:30:12] they turned around and said well you know these hebrew wives are just too strong for us they give birth really quick and we

[00:30:17] can’t do it fast enough and so they just resisted uh and so there are

[00:30:24] going to be situations where as a public school teacher and a person of faith

[00:30:30] you may have to say i’m just not going to do that and um and it may come down to you’re

[00:30:35] willing to face the consequences of that a lot of times when you close your classroom door

[00:30:41] you know people don’t know all you’re saying or not saying in your classroom um but you also have to decide yeah will

[00:30:49] i stand up for this yeah and it might be a court battle that you need to go to and then there are

[00:30:54] all kinds of legal organizations that would be delighted to take it on it and defend that person for free mm-hmm

[00:31:05] yeah john go ahead one of the things that i started teaching 18 years ago when i was hired the lady

[00:31:10] who is actually our new our superintendent now this year was the principal who hired me and she

[00:31:16] asked me because i was a actually a third career teacher i didn’t start teaching ties in my 40s

[00:31:22] and she said well you know this that and the other about all the rules and policies i said great i understand i

[00:31:28] said i’ll always follow rules and policies but understand i work for a different boss

[00:31:33] and i told her that up front before she ever hired me and she laughed and she looked she said well what do you mean i said well my first obligation is to what i

[00:31:40] believe god has told me to be has a man as a human being has his son so i will always do that first

[00:31:46] but i will never intentionally violate the rules that that’s not my that’s not my gig uh but the fun thing which you mentioned

[00:31:52] i think is really important and a lot of people don’t understand the fundamental beliefs we’re talking about

[00:31:57] in terms of the sex education aspect is the fact that this is something i do this quite often i say guys

[00:32:03] understand what you feel is your business no one else’s business and in the gender

[00:32:10] arena if you feel this you feel that well that’s your choices but understand your feelings

[00:32:16] don’t make something true facts make something true so we as we discuss

[00:32:22] god within the classroom quite often the the conversation will come with my kids they’ll say well mr young i don’t believe that and i

[00:32:29] go okay that’s that’s fine what i’m telling you is what to the best of my knowledge is historical evidence

[00:32:35] is true your belief in it has nothing to do with whether it’s reality or not

[00:32:41] and i will use what you said which is important i think and understand that this is the fundamental beliefs of

[00:32:48] jews muslims and christians because all three of them in the arenas

[00:32:54] and many of the things you’re talking about kevin uh sexual orientation et cetera et cetera

[00:33:00] all three of those fundamental religions have the same basic concept in it and so again it’s the place of saying do

[00:33:07] i then you’re asking me and no one’s asked me in my school district never asked this but when we get to that place which i

[00:33:13] believe one day could come it’ll be you’re asking me to violate the first amendment rights

[00:33:19] of my students of faith and their free exercise of religion right for the feelings of some people i

[00:33:26] i can’t do that and if it means a lawsuit it means you know losing my position in my job well that’s that’s

[00:33:32] life in the big city but there is that ability to also say here’s what the system says here’s what

[00:33:39] you’ve already created i’m simply following the rules of what you’ve already told me to do

[00:33:44] yeah so uh and by the way there’s educators are given conflicting guidance

[00:33:51] on the one hand they say your classroom should be inclusive of all students

[00:33:57] it should be a welcoming and affirming place for all ethnicities and all cultures well that would include religious

[00:34:03] cultures too absolutely but then on the other hand and we want you to teach this particular view

[00:34:09] on this gender issue go wait now i’ve got two things in conflict here

[00:34:15] and and so you can thread that needle like you say john but saying look i’m gonna of those two directives i’ve

[00:34:21] got to come down on the side of most of my students believing this and i don’t want to

[00:34:27] i want to be culturally sensitive culturally responsive to them and i’m just not going to go there and

[00:34:33] just quickly kevin if i could be the other aspect that is in my classroom my kids learn

[00:34:38] day one this will be a classroom where we will respect each other where we can speak whatever we choose to

[00:34:44] speak as long as we do it politely we’re not attacking people and whatever you believe

[00:34:49] it’s okay for you to believe that that is not that’s why i think part of the reason has not been a problem with us

[00:34:55] religiously or other topics in my particular classroom because every one of my kids know i had

[00:35:01] a recent situation on facebook where i posted something and a former student challenged me oh

[00:35:08] you’re bigoted you’re racist you’re homophobic that enough i happen to have a young lady who was

[00:35:14] call herself a lesbian okay she came online and defended me and she said

[00:35:21] wait a minute you know mr neil you may not agree with him but you know in his classroom whether

[00:35:27] you are gray or straight or whatever you are you are respected and you’re treated and

[00:35:33] expected to be treated with respect so the ability to lay that out ahead of time so

[00:35:38] if any conflicts do come down the road say well wait a minute day one my students learn we respect

[00:35:43] each other and if a child is different other than whatever you want to call it at that particular

[00:35:49] journey they already know they respect that kid as long as that kid doesn’t become violent and doesn’t try to hurt anybody else and

[00:35:56] in my classroom we have a rule which is no screaming or yelling because we’ll talk about government class we’ll talk about abortion issues

[00:36:02] we’ll talk about all sorts of things and all of a sudden the volume starts going if i go stop

[00:36:07] yeah we don’t do screaming yelling mr neil’s class if you cannot express yourself without screaming and yelling you

[00:36:13] probably don’t have a valid opinion so let’s go back to what i believe and now we can discuss it

[00:36:19] yeah that’s great and that’s our christian witness i mean that’s that’s what we’re doing we’re we are uh representing christ well through

[00:36:25] care and concern and love and uh for those of you just tuning in my guest is eric burer he’s from gateways to better education

[00:36:31] and uh speaks all over the country just uh not too long ago met with president uh trump and secretary devos

[00:36:37] and uh he’s uh gogateways.org is his website if you want to find out more

[00:36:42] about your state’s regulations when it comes to education and religious freedom in education and you can also check out

[00:36:50] the national free to speak campaign which uh is is an effort in order to make people aware and

[00:36:56] eric um you know it sounds like to me the main issues we’re dealing with here are

[00:37:01] like you you’ve been saying it’s making people aware of the laws that already exist it’s not trying to change the laws and

[00:37:08] then it’s also helping people not to be fearful about where that line is because that’s what keeps a lot of people from being

[00:37:14] able to um essentially use their religious freedom

[00:37:19] uh in in the schools uh to be a force for good and an influence for good um what other areas are there that

[00:37:27] that teachers have freedoms um to maybe do something or share something in class

[00:37:33] but um are largely unaware of that um they just shy away from simply

[00:37:39] because they they are uh completely unaware that it’s totally legal well uh for instance teaching about

[00:37:46] holidays a lot of teachers shy away from that or only focus on the secular aspects of a holiday

[00:37:52] that’s just not a good cultural lesson i mean be truthful about here’s what the holiday is about

[00:37:58] and here’s why christians believe it’s important and a couple of things when it comes to

[00:38:04] holidays one is uh you if you’re going to teach about

[00:38:09] christmas and easter and that sort of thing you don’t have to give equal time to all religious holidays

[00:38:15] yeah you hear people say that all the time that hey if you’re going to teach about one you’ve got to teach about all and then they kind of say so let’s teach

[00:38:21] about none yeah and what i talk about is proportionality as it’s proportional to

[00:38:28] the country as it’s proportionally related to your community and even your classroom um if you’ve got a hindu

[00:38:36] student in your class but that’s not a big population in your community but it would still be good for classmates to understand

[00:38:41] what hindus believe and what they celebrate and what’s important to them so it’s proportional to its relationship

[00:38:48] to your community your country and your classroom the uh the other thing is when you’re

[00:38:54] teaching about the holiday uh again as i talk about teach about by attribution here’s what christians

[00:39:01] believe had a teacher once use our material on teaching about easter she taught all about the resurrection and what that was and

[00:39:08] and why that’s significant and and she had kids doing art project kind of

[00:39:13] depicting the resurrection and that sort of thing all perfectly legal and then one of her students said mrs

[00:39:18] so-and-so is is did this really happen and she said yes

[00:39:24] and i said okay that’s the line you crossed they you went the speed limit yes you were going over the speed

[00:39:30] limit it’s not yes it’s that’s why this is so important to christians they believe this so you’re again you’re

[00:39:37] not saying this is a religion that you need to follow you’re saying this is a significant religion in our

[00:39:44] country or in our community and i want you to understand why people celebrate this holiday and

[00:39:50] why it’s so important to them so holidays you can teach all about the religious aspects of them as long as

[00:39:56] you’re not appealing to students that they should they should celebrate it i recommend teachers talk about acknowledging

[00:40:02] the holiday not celebrating the holiday because not everybody will celebrate that holiday but you can certainly acknowledge it and

[00:40:08] teach all about it yeah and another one that um i i overheard a

[00:40:13] teacher talking about one time was um where do i draw the line in in telling about my own beliefs like

[00:40:19] if i’m starting off my kicking off my class and i’m i’m telling them about my life and who i am am i allowed to talk about

[00:40:26] my religious beliefs or is that violate uh is that am i you know stepping over the bounds there

[00:40:32] no what i say is be honest about who you are but

[00:40:40] and so if that’s just part of who you are and you want to explain that or you talk about hey we go to so-and-so church here in the community or something like

[00:40:46] that that’s fine if a student asks you about your beliefs

[00:40:52] uh again i tell them be honest but be brief so if they say you know if

[00:40:58] you’re teaching about easter for instance and they say well do you really believe that jesus rose from the dead you could say well i’m a christian and that’s

[00:41:04] important to me and then move on don’t say therefore let me share with you how you too can have a

[00:41:10] relationship with jesus christ no that just because they ask the question doesn’t open up that you can do

[00:41:15] anything you want so you can be honest but be brief and again you’re not trying to

[00:41:21] proselytize my encouragement to teachers is

[00:41:27] to focus on substance over symbolism there you go a

[00:41:34] lot of times i’ll hear teachers say things like you know well i um i i had one

[00:41:42] i heard one teacher saying how when a student answers a question correctly i say hallelujah

[00:41:48] and because i know that eventually they’re going to ask well what does hallelujah mean and then i can share with them

[00:41:54] it’s like okay but you’re an english teacher how about you talk about how the bible has impacted literature

[00:42:00] and all the metaphor and symbolism and also students actually appreciate biblical metaphor symbolism and stories

[00:42:07] as it relates to your subject matter i find that too many christian teachers unfortunately try to just kind of bring

[00:42:13] the church into their classroom others will say well i play christian music in the background while they’re

[00:42:18] doing their homework okay uh that has nothing to do with i would much rather that you teach them

[00:42:25] about christianity as it relates to your academic topic had a principal school principal

[00:42:30] elementary school i was speaking up at a forest home

[00:42:35] family camp and afterwards he came up to me and he said you know i’m a principal here in california and i’m

[00:42:42] thinking about putting the ten commandment plaque on my wall in my office and i just wonder if i could do that and so forth and i said wait a

[00:42:48] second elementary year sixth grade yeah sixth grade i said okay uh did you know and i quoted

[00:42:55] in the state standards regarding judaism where they’re supposed to learn about the ten commandments and christianity and i said okay how

[00:43:03] about instead of you putting the plaque on your wall you make sure your teachers understand that this is what they’re supposed to be teaching and they spend a

[00:43:09] week teaching about it wow i’ve never thought about that and so i find just a lot of times we

[00:43:15] kind of think christianly rather than intellectually or academic about our topics and that’s where we get

[00:43:21] in trouble when we do those sorts of things and that’s a great point you just made for administrators for those

[00:43:26] who are hearing this and are administrators or in in some role in the office or whatever it

[00:43:31] might be that that’s a big part of what they can do is simply make their teachers aware of hey this is what’s available to you and

[00:43:39] you have all kinds of literature that that can be passed out at school to show people specifically

[00:43:44] what they can teach and uh that’s fantastic um well we are we are running out of

[00:43:49] time here so um gateways uh to better education eric burer

[00:43:55] john neal good friend of mine he’s uh 18 plus years uh john um would you be willing to give

[00:44:01] out your email or anything to people who want to just we don’t want where the connector is uh the ministry thing that i do

[00:44:07] is a thing called sealed team sealed team.com it’s a prayer thing it’s open

[00:44:14] thing but if anybody had any questions any teachers that might be interested in asking questions because one of the

[00:44:19] things that i really love and i’m going to talk to eric about later on it says he’s doing these trainings that they do boy i’d sure love to say

[00:44:26] and if you’ve got that person now who’s done the train in el cajon maybe they’d be willing to be kind of a

[00:44:32] mentor helper to other teachers in that area and i’m more than willing uh you know again as i was saying what

[00:44:39] we were talking about with the whole religion thing one thing i always do is at the end of christianity again teach all the religions but the end i say

[00:44:46] hey guys you know here’s this here’s the fundamental beliefs of christians and inevitably i’ll have one student

[00:44:52] and i believe it’s a god thing obviously i have one student who’ll say to me mr neal so jesus was real i go yes

[00:44:59] they go does that mean he’s god i go oh that’s faith i don’t teach faith i teach history

[00:45:06] that’s awesome just to make sure so if anybody has anything sealed s-e-a-l-e-d

[00:45:13] sealed team.com be happy to talk to anyone that’s awesome well eric um thank you so

[00:45:19] much go gateways.org thank you so much for being on the program today um your ministry is invaluable i just uh

[00:45:26] i can’t emphasize that enough uh and it’s unique uh what you’re doing is so unique there’s not a lot of ministries out

[00:45:32] there doing this and uh so if you’re if you’re listening and this is uh kind of lighting a little fire in your heart uh

[00:45:39] please get involved there’s so many ways to make a difference and be involved and uh the the impact is tremendous um what

[00:45:46] it can do to kids in school who are desperate to hear the hope uh and the real history

[00:45:53] because that’s the amazing thing about christianity is that it’s grounded in real history right the places in the bible you can go

[00:45:58] visit them they’re all there you can go to jericho you can go to the red sea you can go to uh you know nineveh all the different

[00:46:04] places they’re all there that’s what i find so amazing about the bible it’s so easy to um show people hey this is this is the

[00:46:11] real deal or you know this is just not isn’t some just mythical uh idea out there so um

[00:46:17] thank you john also for being on the program and uh you guys are a huge blessing and uh i’ll continue to point people in

[00:46:23] uh your direction so thanks again thank you my pleasure okay thanks for listening and everybody that

[00:46:29] was here with us we’ll be back again next week we’ve got all kinds of fantastic shows on educate4life.org got over 100

[00:46:35] different interviews with people all over the world um doing amazing things just interviewed a nuclear chemist a couple weeks ago

[00:46:43] on how uh chemistry actually validates uh the truth of the bible and um what

[00:46:49] the bible teaches in history too so that’s a pretty that was uh dr j weil checked him out so you can check that

[00:46:55] out too and all kinds of other good information out there for you to check out so thanks again for being here and we will

[00:47:01] see you next week bye

[00:47:18] you