text: can a teacher really make me do this for a midterm? hi i am taking some history in college and our whole midterm is on the mormon faith movement. i for one am not mormon and i don't see why i need to write a paper on the mormon movement. i mean if i refuse to do this. can he give me a bad grade. doesn't this fall into separation of church and state?   oh btw this is a not a religious college at all i am not mormon, but researching and learning about another religion (or even, another culture) will only help you better yourself. you may not see the point in the assignment, but your teacher can fail you and will have cause to do so. the teacher is not asking you agree with mormonism or defend the religious or except jesus as your savior, but is asking you to learn about someone else's belief system and lifestyle.  but then again you are right. i mean, what kind of world would we live in if we started caring about something other than ourselves? what if, god forbid, the isrealites and the muslim community learned about one another? what if, again hypothetical, black people and white people had to learn about each other's past and even go to school together?  i mean, i for one will be damned if i am going to learn about any other religion or culture. i refuse to be asked to learn about jewish people, or germany, or hinduism, or anything else that isn't exactly like me.  (i hope you're picking up on my sarcasm. i'm laying it on pretty thick.)