“Luc Duval” is a student teacher in music and he’s learning what it’s like to be an atheist in the classroom:
… a class discussion led from languages into questions about where I’m from, and a student decided to ask me, “Are you Christian or Catholic?” I managed to resist addressing the glaring semantic issues of the question and answer, “I’m not comfortable answering questions about religion.” Many in the class were shocked but I moved on quickly. How many other teachers would have answered without hesitation? In this school, I think many would. Should they feel comfortable answering such questions? I think we all should be, but there’s absolutely no way that a person with a response outside of the mainstream wouldn’t be at great risk of backlash.
As much as I advocate people being out about their atheism, I think Duval handled this perfectly. I probably wouldn’t have done it any differently if I were in the same position.
Would what you have done?