07-17-24 Interview - Ryan Walters Oklahoma State Superintendent on teaching the Bible in schools

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And we're going to talk to himright now. As a matter of fact,
Ryan Walters is joining me this moment. He's Oklahoma's superintendent, former Oklahoma
Education Secretary, and former teacher.Ryan. Welcome to the show. First
of all, thank you for havingme. I just said, this is
like such a fluid situation here.It's getting from point A to point B
as you guys are doing this.Tell me about the decision to put the

(00:24):
Ten Commandments into classrooms to teach theBible. What is going on in Oklahoma?
Yeah, you know, what we'veseen is over the last few decades,
the Teachers' Union, the radical lefthave had an assault on the Bible
and Christianity in schools. We startedto seeing it in the nineteen sixties with
the Supreme Court rulings, and youlook at a history class and we started
doing this, We're rewriting our historystandards and we start looking and go,

(00:45):
Okay, why in the world arewe not referencing the Bible when we're talking
about why the Pilgrims came to America. If you take religion out of that,
it doesn't make sense. If youlook at what Thomas Jefferson said about
our rights coming from our creator?Where do you get that from the people
in America? How what would thereaction been to that? What were their
beliefs? They're around phrases like that. So historically we have really missed the

(01:06):
mark by allowing extremists, radical leftwing extremists to push the Bible in its
historical context out of our school.So we're bringing it back. So are
you teaching the now? When Iwas in high school, I wanted to
high school back in the late eightiesand the eighteen hundreds or nineteen hundreds.
I'm just kidding, but we actuallyhad a class in my public school called
the Old Testament as a historical document, and because it is, it's the

(01:32):
tradition of the Jewish people, it'sthe history of the Jewish people. But
it was I hate to use thisword, but it's only what I can
think of. They did not teachthe mystical aspect of that Old Testament.
It was really Abraham David, youknow, here's what the movement of the
Israeli people or the Jewish people,And it was very structured that way.
Are you actually teaching the mystical orare you teaching about the foundational nature of

(01:55):
the Bible to our republic. Agreat question, and I appreciate the question.
We are teaching it in its historicalcontext, So we are not telling
kids they've got to be of acertain faith. We're not coming in too
evangelize to kids by any means.What we're saying is, listen, in
American history, when individuals reference theBible, We're going to make sure that
that's included in our history when youlook at certain events. I'm gonave.
Let me give you one really specificexample. We require kids to read and

(02:19):
understand a letter from a Birmingham jailby Martin Luther King Junior. And you
know, his argument in there isvery clear. You know, I'm arrested
right now and I'm in prison,and people are asking why would I do
this? Why would I break thelaw? And I remember the Reverend Martin
Luther King Junior says, look,I look to the Bible for inspiration.
I look at the apostle Paul whowas imprisoned and said, look, I'm
doing this because I believe that thisis the right thing to do in the
eyes of God. Well, we'vegot to teach that. We have kids

(02:43):
are not going to understand the motivationsfor Martin Luther King Junior and the civil
rights movement, the founders without itshistorical context. So we are not pushing
faith on kids. We are nottelling them that one faith is over another.
What we're saying is, in itshistorical context, we're going to make
sure that the Bible is back includedin the classroom so that kids understand American
history. Did you have pushback frompeople of other faiths in Oklahoma who said,

(03:07):
wait a minute, if you're goingto teach Christianity, then you need
to teach Islam and you need toteach sith and or Yeah, I mean
did you get that kind of pushbackand how do you respond to that?
Yeah, we did a little bit, you know, But we also had
folks from the Jewish community who wereon some of our panels that were like,
look, it's historical, and justto be clear, we're not saying
it exclusively. Look, we havea world history class where other religions are

(03:29):
talked about and cited and covered,you know, in American history. You
know, the left can be offended, they can not agree, but they
can't rewrite our history. It wasthe Bible was the most referenced text in
the seventeenth and eighteenth century. TheBible is the most purchased and read book
in American history. Okay, that'sjust historical facts, and so we are
going to go where history Texas,We're going to study facts, and so

(03:50):
in American history, obviously there's goingto be a lot more references to the
Bible than other faith. But ina world history class, absolutely we have
that in the curriculum that says listento understand groups of people. Obviously,
religion and a lot of places inthe world played a major role in our
kids need to have that understanding froma historical context. Not pushing one of
those face. Isn't that a fineline though? Isn't that? I mean,
isn't that Are you putting teachers ina precarious situation where a person who

(04:15):
may have a strong face maybe comeson a little too strong or across as
a line. I mean, Iwould worry about that. Look, I
appreciate that question because I think it'spart of what we have to be able
to discuss. We can't not includeparts of our history because some people might
be offended, and teachers are goingto have to teach the academic Look,

(04:35):
there's things. I was a historyteacher. By the way, it's not
history for ten years. If there'sthings in history that are hard to teach.
I mean, you know, wewent in depth into the Holocaust.
I mean we will walk through it. We walk through with the explanation of
why the soldiers did what they didand why they I mean it's hard.
I mean you're sitting there going,boys, this is going to be a
gloomy day in class. Guys.You know we're we're but we're going to
read it because you need to understandit. So look, you've got to

(04:58):
be able to cover in an academsetting our history, regardless of whether you
agree with certain moments, no matterif you're of a different faith or not.
And you know, the way Ilook at it is our kids are
being robbed of an understanding of theircountry because the Left has played this.
You know, we're offended. Solet's cancel culture everything out. You read
quotes from even folks like John Adamssays, look, the Constitution was made

(05:19):
by for a moral, faithful people. Now again, I'm not saying that
everybody has to believe that to bethe case, but you need to believe
that John Adams believed that to bethe case. And when you look at
the founder, so many of theirquotes, you look at almost every presidential
speech we've ever had in our history, they cite the Bible. They cite
Bible versus. We can't remove thatbecause in removing that, you're actually indoctrinating

(05:40):
kids to believe that people are justsecular actors in our history that didn't have
faith or faith didn't play a rolein it. And I think, look,
we've got to be professional and academicin the sense of go to primary
sources, read what they said,and let kids draw their own conclusions.
Look, this guy says, thisis why he did the things he did.
You can draw your own conclusion onthat. But you know, you
need to understand that these are whatpeople throughout history, what they said impacted

(06:03):
them and impacted their decision making.So that makes sense to me. I
know that there's some who are goingto disagree with, but what about posting
the Ten Commandments? Because what wasthe thinking behind that? So you know,
you have Moses there, and thenthe Congressional You know, if you
go to DC and you have allthe lawmakers there, they have Moses right

(06:24):
in the front. You see thisin our history of This is where the
basics of law came in in society. Again, until the nineteen sixties,
you would have seen this very prevalentlyplaced in school buildings. So in its
historical context, there's no reason whylegally we shouldn't do it Number one,
Number two, why would we doit. We would do it to make
sure that the kids understand this isthe basics from when we're telling you to

(06:45):
do certain things in class, modelcertain behaviors. It comes from the traditions
of the Ten Commandments. This iswhere it all stems from. We have
to have order in schools, wehave to have an understanding of that.
It's in that historical context, Ithink it's very appropriate. But why I
don't disagree with it being the foundationof modern law because it is. But
do you have to post it?Can you not just teach that the Ten

(07:09):
Commandments is kind of the og legalframework? Hey, look, you know
there's a reason why we wanted tomake sure that we were teaching the Bible
in our academic setting because to yourpoint, I want them to understand the
relevance, right, not just postsomething, but understand it. And so
I do think that that's part ofit. If you're going to do something
with the Ten Commandments, and we'vetold all the states this, we're the
first state or put the Bible backinto the curriculum the way that we have.

(07:30):
And look, if you're going topost the Ten Commandments, well,
if you don't give kids the contextor what that means, I don't know
that the point is going to getthrough to them that listen, there's got
to be order here. You knowwhy there's going to be order here because
this is basically the way societies haveset themselves up, and you know how
it is. I mean, frankly, it's a big issue we have in
schools across the country. As we'relosing control of the classrooms. There's a
lot of discipline problems. There's alot of disorder in our schools and getting

(07:53):
back to a sense and an understandingthat no, no, no, we
all have rules that we have toabide by. Societies have always functioned this
way. I think it's a goodconversation to have with kids. So let
me ask you one last thing,and that is how does the teachers Union
feel all about this? Look theyhate it, I mean, look,
they hate it, but I meanI'll be honest with you. In our
state, the teachers union has foughtus on every good reform we've ever done.
I've seen this nationwide. The teachersunions have attacked parents' rights, they've

(08:16):
attacked school choice, They've attacked ourcommitment to getting back to the basics and
education. They push things like radicalgender ideology on our kids, critical race
theory. We want to get backto the basics. We want to focus
on history, focused on academic learning. And they're against all these things.
They're against our merit pay measures.We pay some teachers up to one hundred
thousand dollars in Oklahoma that do agreat job. The union hates it.
So listen, Frankly, their trackrecord has been so bad that them being

(08:39):
against it, frankly, just goesback to me affirming that it is probably
the right thing to do because they'vebeen so off base. Ryan Walters,
thank you so much for your timetoday. He is the superintendent of education
in Oklahoma. I appreciate you makingtime to explain all this to it.
Appreciate you very much. Think we'llbe right back