Earlier this year, staff at the Kentucky Education Department approved curriculum changes for pre-K through grade 12, which added the use of C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) to traditionally used time designations B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, for the year of our Lord). For example, a date would have read 500 A.D./C.E.
The common B.C./A.D. system is based on the supposed year of Jesus Christ’s birth — a date posited by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525. Years after Christ’s birth go up; those before it are counted backwards. Supporters of common era notation promote it as a religiously neutral notation suited for cross-cultural use, although some Christians were the first to use the term.
The proposal quickly came under attack from a conservative group, the Family Foundation of Kentucky, which accused state officials of trying to strip religious references from the state’s public schools.
As reported by forward.com, at a public hearing in early June, “Christian groups turned out dozens of supporters who demanded that the board remove the secular references from a draft set of curriculum recommendations.
The executive director of the Central Kentucky Jewish Federation, Daniel Chejfec, was reportedly greeted with laughs and heckles when he said that stripping the secular abbreviations from the board’s documents would send the message that “anybody who is not a Christian is not welcome in this state.”
“Go home!” one woman shouted, according to Louisville’s Courier-Journal.
Some of the politicians and pundits lining up behind the conservative groups have accused the board of education of attempting to dictate which notations are used. But board officials say the document in question uses both options. Meanwhile, many of the religious activists driving the controversy say that only the Christian terms should be used.”
Today’s Lexington Herald-Leader reports that the Board has reversed its decision and won’t recommend use B.C.E., C.E. time designation along with the traditional Christian dating
The Herald-Leader also reported that the Kentucky Education Department received more than 900 comments by phone, letter and e-mail from concerned citizens who were overwhelmingly against the change. Some of the comments came from opponents in other states, including Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
My experience with the public schools in Louisville, as a parent of an elementary-school age student, bore out the basic assumption that Christianity is at the center of the public school curriculum in Kentucky (unfortunately not an anomaly in The States).
For example, when my son was in the third grade at a public school on Louisville’s west side, a lesson on “the calendar” required him to cut out and past a yellow star in the center of a piece of construction paper to “represent the birth of Christ” and then to paste hash marks to the left and right representing years BC and AD.
When I discussed this lesson with his teacher and brought up the topic of BCE/CE, the response was initially a polite version of the “go home” comment mentioned in the Courier-Journal article. But ultimately it became clear that the teacher was ignorant of religiously neutral alternatives to BC/AD as well as the historical/political contexts that have shaped construction of calendars.
Clearly religious intolerance has become a serious threat to the core principles and goals of social studies education.
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