OABITAR, founded in 1990 by John B. Massen, was formed in response to events growing out of the 1987 California State Board of Education adoption of a History—Social Science Framework. This curriculum mandate ordered "comprehensive improvements in teaching of history and social science" and a new requirement of "teaching about religion" in the sixth and seventh grades. As part of curriculum teaching world history, there would be instruction about Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism in grade 6 and Islam in grade 7. Apparently, California was the first state to establish such a requirement.

That Framework, and the textbooks submitted by publishers for Board adoption in accord with its guidelines, showed that both had a manifest bias for religion and against "nonreligion" because of their failure to show that the nonreligious worldview has also been present throughout recorded history and has made very substantial contributions to human progress and the development of our civilization. In attempting to bring a greater degree of balance to the California curriculum, a sixteen-page report to the California State Board of Education was submitted by OABITAR (Objectivity, Accuracy and Balance In Teaching About Religion), which later became a California non-profit corporation with IRS 501(c)(3) status. OABITAR continues to lobby and to pursue educational means by which to remedy the inequity and garner acknowledgement of the nonreligious worldview in curriculum together with the religious worldview.

OABITAR engaged Dr. Gerald A. Larue, emeritus professor of Biblical History and Archaeology at the University of Southern California, to produce a scholarly work on freethought in history. Professor Larue completed Freethought Across the Centuries Toward a New Age of Enlightenment late in 1995. Professor Larue’s 516-page textbook, demonstrates that freethought has contributed immensely to intellectual and material progress throughout human history. The text, apropos to instruction about religions at collegiate levels, is also available for purchase by libraries, educators and the general public.

By the time OABITAR’s first project was completed, California’s mandate and resulting textbook changes had led to more widespread "teaching about religion" across the country. The second thrust by OABITAR was to pursue the design, production, and field-testing of a set of supplemental instructional materials suitable for use by teachers at the grade levels where the new studies were being included. Toward this end, OABITAR in 1996 engaged the services of Instructional Systems, which designed, developed, field tested, and produced the Different Drummers: Nonconforming Thinkers In History instructional module. The Different Drummers curriculum supplement was completed in 1999. Its varied teaching and learning materials complement approaches to "teaching about belief systems and their impact on history" that focus only on religion.

Different Drummers centers on the topic of free and independent thought in historical context (in politics, religion, and science), and not on freethought per se. (Pilot teachers, also members of the California Council for Social Studies, rejected the latter notion as too controversial, hence the broader subject matter domain). The collection of instructional materials acquaints teachers and students with aspects of unconventional and unorthodox thinking and with some of the important "different drummers" of prior times. It includes numerous freethinkers as exemplars of unconventional thinking that has propelled development in human civilization.

A more recent OABITAR thrust toward balancing the curriculum has involved the design and implementation of web sites. One site www.teachingaboutreligion.com is a site that supports teaching about freethought and makes available on-line a significant portion of the Different Drummers materials, described above. At that site, a teacher may review lessons and activities, print from .PDF files those portions that are of interest, or link to the print-on-demand publisher to purchase direct a professionally printed set of materials (materials available at cost-of-printing only). A teacher may also locate information and resources supportive of teaching about freethought. What is generally missing for interested educators is a solid philosophical basis for augmenting their teaching about religion with teaching about freethought and freethinkers. This brings us to the second resource site, which introduces and develops the worldview theme.

The second OABITAR-supported website is extensive. The www.teachingaboutreligion.org site (you are on it !) is a religiously neutral web resource designed to specifically to serve educators. This objective and professional site provides a wide variety of materials on the concept—Teaching about Religion with a View to Diversity: Worldview Education. This theme focuses teacher attention on the concepts of civic inclusiveness and pluralism as fundamental rationale for acknowledging nonreligion within the civic spectrum of worldviews.  Additionally, the site incorporates on-line lessons for teachers that promote religious neutrality in handling of the many variants of religious and nonreligious worldviews. A fuller explication of the site mission is located under the "About This Site" section.