New Jersey’s Public Schools — and many of the state’s independent schools — are secular, both inside and outside of the classroom, and yet students themselves are very often religious. They are religious in ways that shape their moral, social, intellectual, and civic lives. Because the world’s religious diversity is represented in New Jersey, the diversity of how religion is lived and understood in any given classroom is vast and complex. Because of the secular nature of most schools and the assumptions about what this implies in terms of public discourse, the religious identity of students goes unspoken and unaccounted for, and therefore might not be seen or understood by teachers and administrators.

This seminar provides an orientation to religious diversity in the classroom. Panel discussions will represent a spectrum of the religious diversity that appears in in New Jersey (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish). We will also attend to the diversity within each major faith tradition in terms of doctrine, ethnicity, and theology. Likewise, we will address lesser-known faiths, as well as perspectives that do not fit neatly into a fixed tradition. The panelists will be undergraduate Princeton students who are ideally suited to share their recent high school experiences. Sessions will be facilitated by scholars of religion and chaplains. There will be ample time for discussion both with panelists, and among the cohort of teachers themselves.