What Happens When a Public School English Teacher Uses Only the Bible for Classwork?
I first noticed the Bibles on a Tuesday, in a plain cardboard box beside Ms. Graves’s classroom door. The class had just changed periods, and a few seventh graders were still shuffling around the room. I was heading to the copy room, but I stopped when I saw the cover. It was a standard black Bible, the kind hotel rooms used to have, and there were about twenty of them.
I assumed they were props for a lesson—maybe a poetry unit, or a look at historical texts. English teachers sometimes use religious passages to show how language shapes culture. So I didn’t think much about it.
Then my own daughter, who was in that class, came home with a worksheet titled “Literary Devices in Ecclesiastes.” The sheet asked her to find three metaphors in chapter three. The next week, it was “Psalms as Poetry.” Then “Rhetorical Appeals in Romans.” After a month, I realized the Bible wasn’t an occasional resource. It was the curriculum.
I teach down the hall, so I know Ms. Graves well enough to ask questions without it being weird. One afternoon, while we were both copying papers, I mentioned the assignments my daughter had brought home.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m doing a whole unit on the Bible as literature. It’s the most influential text in Western culture. You can’t understand half of what poets or novelists say without it.”
That’s true, I thought. You can’t fully understand Moby-Dick or Angelou without knowing some biblical references. But there’s a difference between studying biblical allusions and building every assignment around one book.
I asked what else she was using in that unit.
She said she had a few study guides, but the main text was the Bible. The same edition, the same translation, the whole semester.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I’m not a lawyer or an expert in school law. I’m just an English teacher. But I know that public schools aren’t places for teaching religion as truth. We can teach about religion, and we can use sacred texts as literature, but we can’t make one faith’s scripture the backbone of daily classwork. That’s not just a problem for families who aren’t Christian. It’s a problem for the curriculum itself.
When I got home that evening, my daughter was sitting at the kitchen table with the Bible open to Proverbs. The assignment listed on the board was simple: “Choose a verse that speaks to you and explain in a paragraph how it applies to your life.”
She was struggling. Her best friend was Jewish. Half her soccer team was Muslim or Mormon or not anything. And she had the uncomfortable sense that she was being graded on something deeply personal—something that felt less like analyzing literature and more like confessing belief.
“I don’t know what to write,” she said. “What if I don’t think the Bible is true?”
That moment made the problem real in a way a policy manual couldn’t. Ms. Graves was a kind person and a hardworking teacher. She probably meant no harm. But her well-meaning choice was putting kids in a spot that had nothing to do with seventh-grade reading standards. They weren’t learning how to trace a symbol or compare an author’s perspective. They were being asked to do private spiritual reflection in a public classroom.
I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t want to start a war. Ms. Graves and I are colleagues. We share a workroom. My daughter would be in her class for months. If I made accusations, the only thing I’d get was stress and a closed door.
So I started small. I asked Ms. Graves about her pacing guide. Then I asked which state standards she was covering in the unit. She listed a few: analyzing figurative language, citing textual evidence, determining central ideas. That sounded fine on paper.
Then I asked what other texts the students were using.
“Just the Bible,” she said. “I feel like the lessons couldn’t be as deep if we jump around.”
That’s when I calmly suggested pairing the Bible with other things. “What if you set this passage next to a Langston Hughes poem,” I said. “Or a Lincoln speech? Same allusions, but then students can compare how different writers adapt the imagery.”
She nodded, but she didn’t commit.
A couple of nights later, I wrote out an email to the district’s curriculum coordinator. I didn’t demand anything. I just asked a question: “Can you point me to the approved ELA resources for seventh grade? I want to make sure my child’s teacher has what she needs.” That might sound like a paperwork request, but it was deliberate. It got the conversation on record without making it personal.
The coordinator replied with the curriculum guide. The guide listed dozens of poems, essays, short stories, and novels. The Bible wasn’t listed as a core text. It could be used as a supplemental source for historical context, but not as the central text for a whole unit.
Now came the hard part: what to do with that information.
I didn’t want to email the principal and accuse Ms. Graves of violating the First Amendment. I also knew that a vague complaint could make her defensive. So I took the route that works for most school concerns: I asked for a meeting.
At that meeting, I didn’t talk about the teacher’s heart or her intentions. I talked about the assignments. I brought three of my daughter’s worksheets. I read the prompt out loud: “Explain how this verse speaks to your life.”
“This isn’t English,” I said, keeping my voice level. “This is something else. It might have reading in it, but it’s not aligned to our curriculum. And for a kid who isn’t Christian, this feels like being tested on your faith.”
To their credit, the principal and the assistant principal listened carefully. The principal promised to look into it and to review the department’s common assessments. She didn’t promise Ms. Graves would change everything. But she said the district had expectations about using materials that were “vetted and standards-aligned.”
That was the turning point.
If you’re a parent dealing with something like this, I’d tell you to start with the curriculum guide. Every public district has one. Ask to see the grade-level plan for what your child should be reading. If the Bible isn’t on it, you have a concrete place to stand.
Then, ask direct but non-hostile questions. Say, “Can you show me how this assignment connects to the standard?” Not “you’re breaking the law.” Keep it neutral. It’s amazing how far that simple question gets you.
Document what comes home. Save worksheets, emails, and lists of assigned chapters. You don’t need to be dramatic about it. Just keep a folder. If the problem continues, you’ll have evidence.
And if you’re a teacher who sees a colleague doing this, approach them like you’d want to be approached. Don’t lecture in the staff room. Ask about goals. Suggest resources. If that doesn’t work, loop in the department head or curriculum coordinator.
The funny part is that I don’t actually want the Bible banned in my daughter’s school. I want it used correctly. The Bible is part of our cultural heritage. Students should know what the Good Samaritan story means before they grow up and hear it misquoted for a dozen different reasons. Sacred texts can be studied. They can be observed. They just can’t be the only textbook.
A few weeks after the meeting, Ms. Graves added a contemporary poem to her packet. It was by a Black woman poet, and it had clear biblical imagery. She told the class to compare how the poet used the imagery to how the original text used it. That felt closer to what English class is supposed to be.
My daughter still grumbled sometimes. The class still spent a lot of time in the Bible. But at least there was another voice in the room.
I don’t know if Ms. Graves has fully changed her approach. I’ve seen her carting the box of Bibles to other classes, so maybe not. Change in public schools is slow. It tends to come in small, quiet adjustments—one poem added, one lesson reshaped, one teacher suddenly remembering that her classroom belongs to every student, not just the ones who hold the same book.
That’s where we are right now. Still watching. Still checking the worksheets. Still hoping that next year the unit includes more than one story.
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