Pagan school clubs? The teacher perspective

TWH –The Satanic Temple (TST) is once again in the news. This time they are working to establish After School Satan Clubs in schools that already have student groups which are organized by Christian ministries. TST’s mission is largely considered a push  to more thoroughly separate the functions of church and state. However, the efforts of this group has implications for members of minority religions, including Pagans, Heathens and associated traditions. To learn more about the religious clubs in the school systems, The Wild Hunt spoke with Pagans who are also teachers to find out about how religion is approached in their schools.

Ryan Denison currently teaches high school students in Georgia and has always taught at large, suburban schools. While there has never been any faith-based clubs in any of the locations in which he has worked, Denison was also once a coach and is quite familiar with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is widespread in the South.

Those of Denison’s students who are aware of his religion — he identifies as “Celtic/Norse Pagan/Heathen,” and is a member of both the Troth and ADF — didn’t find out until after they graduated. “I do wear my Mjolnir and raven pendant, and occasionally I’ll wear my torc,” he said. “But in 17 years I’ve maybe had like two kids ask about it.”

Denison has been public about his faith for the last year, but still considers it inappropriate to bring it into the classroom. “I’m a U.S. history teacher, so I strive to be neutral religiously and politically in class,” he explained.

He is a strong believer in separating church from state, but at the same time, he recognizes that children have the need to learn about alternatives. “I think there should be multiple outlets for our kids to explore, but I’m not an authoritarian parent. Our overculture still has that Puritan-esque authoritarian parent style, although it is fading.”

The notion of someone establishing a Pagan student club would not be well-received in his district, Denison believes. “The mere mention that a mosque may be built here has thrown the community into an Islamophobia frenzy,” he added.

“There would have to be a lot of relationship-building and communication before a club like that could be proposed, especially in the current psychological climate our country is in.”

Rahne, a secondary school teacher in the state of New York, also can’t imagine there ever being a Pagan club at her school. “I absolutely have had Pagan students,” she said, “but a club needs an advisor. I don’t think many teachers would want to put their job at risk that way.”

While tenure does protect the jobs of many teachers, administrators can take steps to make life uncomfortable, such as transferring to a different school or denying a teacher their own classroom.

Cat Chapin-Bishop has seen a Pagan club in her western Massachusetts school. It was called Earth’s Religions Alliance, but it only lasted for a couple of years until the interested students graduated. There was a bible study group at the same time, and that club continues to this day. The difference, she feels, is that the Pagan students “played by the rules,” while the Evangelical Christians had more help than they should have had.

“All religious clubs have to have the same access as any other, but there are also limitations,” Chapin-Bishop explained. “They need to be student-run. Teachers cannot be involved in worship or religious activity.” The adviser to the Earth’s Religions Alliance “provided space and supervision, but could not participate.” On the other hand, “The Bible study has had active participation from staff at the school, and brought in outside preachers: it is not student-led. It’s associated with one denomination, and really run by that church.”

While Denison has “heard horror stories” about school administrators using their authority to bring in religious influences, he finds that tolerance is the watch word in his own district.

Such a story of religious inclusion was witnessed firsthand by Rahne in her district. A fellow teacher at her urban school had suggested that bringing in members of the local clergy might be helpful in changing student behavior for the better. “All of a sudden, dozens of clergy were in the school,” she recalled. They were dressed in vestments or robes, walked the halls, dropped in unannounced to classes, and sat in the cafeteria.

“I had kids who expressed that they didn’t feel comforted, that they were more intimidated by these clergy than they were by police,” explained Rahne. While local papers heralded the idea, representatives of the New York Civil Liberties Union sent a letter expressing how problematic that practice could be.

Chapin-Bishop said she felt “irked” when she realized that Bible study group advisers weren’t playing by the rules. However, at the same, she recognized that the members were largely already attending the Evangelical church that supported the club.

Still, she thinks that active involvement by adults would result in a vibrant Pagan club of some kind. Her district is where the Pagan supply company AzureGreen is located, and she’s aware she has Pagan students who obtain books from that company or whose parents work there. “I hear them talk, I see them wearing pentacles, and I know it from their writing,” she said, although she also won’t intrude her own religion into the classroom.

As in Chapin-Bishop’s experience, the schools in which Rahne has taught have had a Christian group associated with a local church, in this case a Baptist one. “There are fliers all over the place with crosses on them, and I sometimes wonder what the reaction would be if I did some with pentagrams?” As with the other teachers interviewed, Rahne does not mention her beliefs in class, and if asked she “tells them it’s not appropriate for me to share my religion or politics with them.”

Denison thinks that fostering a climate in which young people can explore aspects of identity is central to being an educator. “My goal is to create critically thinking self-responsible adults. That would be hard to do if questions were met with an authoritarian ‘no,'” he said.

“If kept within bounds of legality, they’re are not a bad idea,” Chapin-Bishop said of religious clubs. “Even with the outside advisers, kids who are already interested tend to join the Bible club,” she observed, suggesting that it’s not a platform for proselytizing. “Earth’s Religions Alliance ran their own study group. It’s important to have mutual support.”

While Chapin-Bishop supports the idea of equal access to religion in principle, Rahne is cautious that it could become a competition of a sort.  There are some parents who she’s observed try “to out-religion each other” through open expressions of faith, such as bringing the family to lengthy Sunday services. People she’s encountered appear to consider Islam only barely a religion, she added, and anything not Abrahamic is considered mythical at best, or entirely extinct.

That experience is in contrast to what Chapin-Bishop observed when there was a Pagan club in her school. What she described as a “postering war” between members of two religious clubs included fliers that were “mildly disrespectful” of Pagans. The principal eventually responded by requiring all posters receive her approval before being displayed.

All told, Pagan teachers feel that they can only be supportive of Pagan clubs in the most hands-off way, making it difficult to help foster the supportive environment that they believe all students, including Pagans, should have available in their schools.

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