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ON COMMON GROUND Guide for Teachers and Students
What are some of the ways in which negative stereotypes can be combated? Can you find examples of combating negative stereotypes in ON COMMON GROUND?
Use the web sites listed for such groups as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the National Conference to find out what the situation is now and how these groups deal with problems of prejudice, stereotypes, and violence.
Stereotypes and prejudices are not new, as you will see when you go through the Historical Perspectives section. Use the Index and explore Connections. What other evidence of group stereotyping and prejudice do you find?
7. New Encounters: Where Do We Meet? How Is It Going?
Investigate some of the ways in which people of different faiths meet one another today. Using ON COMMON GROUND draw a hypothetical town map. Where do people of different faiths meet? At zoning boards? Neighborhoods? Law courts? Religious institutions? Interfaith councils? Schools? Colleges? Hospitals? Write down both the kinds of places and the kinds of encounters that might take place.
Using a map of your own town, explore and report on where and in what ways interreligious encounters are taking place.
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Does your town have an interfaith council? Who belongs to it? What sorts of things does it do? How many faiths are represented in your town's schools or colleges? What are the schools' policies regarding religion? What new problems and opportunities have arisen? Are any new holidays, festivals, fairs, or parades celebrated publicly in your town? Do any of the cases in the courts or zoning boards involve legal questions about the encounter of different cultures or religions? Did you find instances of neighborhood cooperation? Did you find instances of tensions, hostility, or vandalism? What is reported in the religion section of your local newspaper?
Please send the Pluralism Project a copy of your town map and report. Send a brief report to our web page (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/-pluralsm).
8. A Forum on Religion in the Public Schools: What Are the Issues?
Three sections of ON COMMON GROUND concern religion and the public schools. What guidelines have been established regarding religion and the public schools? How should the school curriculum treat religion? How should the schools observe religious holidays and deal with the issue of prayer?
Form three groups to read the different sections and documents. Then hold a forum or a series of forums in which one member represents and explains the position of each of the following groups:
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The secretary of education, U.S. Department of Education
