Prayer is the school rooms. the ultimate comprimise. Would you agree with this?

Question

SO many christians want there to be prayer in the schools. Why not give it to them with simple rules. Each morning there will be 15 minutes for all students to pray in the way they wish. There will be no lead prayer allowed. If a teacher tries to lead prayer they can be disciplined and fired for it for repeated violations. No student can lead prayer, if a student tries to lead a prayer they can be disciplined and expelled after repeated violations. No student or faculty can interfer with another students prayer as long as it is peaceful. Again repeated violations could lead to termination or expellsion from school.

Answer 1

Yes, I like it as long as there was an established way for the violaters to be reported. Too many might wish to sweep things under the rug so to speak.

BS

Answer 2

Ok, what happens if a student does not want to pray? Make the student site there and be quiet? If the prayers are allowed to be vocal, can the student talk to other non-praying students?

What about students who believe that their prayer needs to be vocal for it to be considered a prayer? There are some who believe that. Telling them to be silent would be discrimination.

What about students with different beliefs? This will just serve as another way that the other students can single them out.

What subject do you suggest the fifteen minutes be taken from? Math, science, history, english, social studies? In all actuality, this fifteen minutes will probably end up taking a half hour. Fifteen minutes of praying with about seven and a half minutes before and after to change subjects.

Who will monitor all of these prayer sessions to make sure that a teacher is not trying to lead the prayers?

Today, a student can pray in school. That is perfectly legal. A student can pray as long as it is in a non-disruptive manner that does not interfere with classes. I know, some schools have completely misinterpreted the meaning of no prayer in school. However, a student can pray in school. What the religions want is led prayer. They are not interested in a system where already religious kids are allowed to pray. They want to be able to force kids who are of a different religion or of a non-religious view to pray.

Our schools need to be a place of education. Not worship. The students in the US are already falling behind students in other parts of the world. Putting prayer back in schools will just make this worse. It will take time away from other subjects and will ultimately become a source of discrimination within the school district. The students of the non-popular religions will feel the brunt of that. Thanks to a policy like this, they would be easier to single out.

Answer 3

I wouldn't have a problem with that. But I think 5 minutes should be long enough. Prayers that open public meetings, congressional sessions, etc., are never more than a minute long.

It should be clear to the kids that they may pray, on their own, or not. They may do anything so long as they don't distract the other kids--read, think, look at pictures, whatever. Nobody is going to be singled out or punished for not praying, or not praying 'properly'.

And the prayer should be silent. I mean, what if some kid says his religion requires him to pray real loud? That would e a distraction.

I am anti prayer in school, but only because I don't want teachers teaching kids religion, and leading them in prayer is just that. Even allowing kids to opt out is really sort of unfair because it makes them targets for bullying by other kids (and I know this from personal experience).

But actual prayer in school is not illegal. Kids can pray every morning, quietly at their desk, or before a test. Even if a kid is asked by the teacher to answer a question he can even give off a quick one before answering. Nobody has a problem with that. What we're arguing about here is -organized- prayer.

People who do want prayer in school, I think what they really seem to want is for the school to teach kids -their- religion, so they wouldn't go along with a moment of silent, elective prayer.

Answer 4

We already have a Moment of Silence.

15 minutes is way too long. We are required to devote a certain number of minutes to each subject. This would take away from that and would cause the school day to be longer.

As is is now, no teacher leads prayer. The system is working fine as it is.

I am a Christian. This is not going to work.
During this 15 minutes, students would get into trouble. No one is going to pray for that long in school, especially little ones.

During the Moment of Silence (1 minute), students stand quietly and reflect on the day, pray, or whatever.
It works well.
I vote to leave it at that.

Answer 5

I think the teacher's (and sports team coaches, etc.) leading the prayer is part of the sticking point for people, religious students can already form prayer groups in public schools and often meet at school before classes start for prayer. It's an interesting topic and I wonder if it will be raised in the upcoming election, although with Iraq, Health Care, etc, I doubt there'll be much room to discuss this.

Answer 6

You've basically stated what already does exist. Schools don't need to set aside 15 minutes at the beginning of the school day. If students want to pray, they can do so before school even begins for the day. Nothing is stopping them. And schools for the most part do already follow those rules as you've written them.
The people who do want these 15 minutes made part of the school day tend to want them ONLY for their own religion, they would be glad to complain if some other religious group tried to make use of the time as well.

Answer 7

There shouldn't be a point to single out time in everyone's day for people to pray.
True christians tell me that they pray whenever they want, so why not before school, after school, during lunch? Why does it have to be a big scene? That's not what praying was meant for.
Also, for the people do not pray or feel the need, it is 15 minutes out of their day to be learning something useful

Answer 8

Yes and No.

Sure it would be nice to have prayer at schools without having
someone leading you, that way you wouldn't feel like you are
being forced to pray.

But the actions taken are a little too severe. If a teacher is
FORCING the students to pray, then sure fire him, but if
his students want to pray and he leads them then i think it's
okay.

Same thing for students leading prayer, if other people don't
want to pray or listen to them praying, then they can just
walk away.

I think that if students & teachers forced others to pray
(specially if they don't have the same beliefs) then it would
be okay to take certain actions.

Answer 9

I don't know why the subject of prayer in schools even has to be discussed. If people want to pray there are places for that, if people want to learn there are places for that. Why do they need to be mixed? If someone finds it so necessary to pray everyday then do it a home before school or go to church - that is what churches are for. Schools are for learning. If you find you can not learn without praying then go to a church school I am sure they will let you pray all you need.

Answer 10

How is this a compromise?

School is for learning. There's enough time taken out of the school day for announcements, class changes, useless busywork, lunch, and every other nibbling bit of time away from actual instruction, and you want to take another 15 minutes for day-dreaming/mental masturbation?

Why can't these Christian kids pray on the bus on the way to school? Why take up class time with it?

Answer 11

So many "Christians". No other religions. Why would the public school system pander to the demands of Christians alone.

Actually I am not from the USA, but I have heard a lot about this issue(being non-religious myself). In my (private) school, the administration had the loony idea of alloting 15 minutes in the morning as Silent Reading Period (SRP). This was to encourage students to read books other than textbooks. Most students in my school love to read, but not when a time and place is dictated to them. So, many took this opportunity to do "homework" that they did not complete, study for a test etc. These were officially illegal actions, so invigilators would go around checking whether everyone has a book (non-textbook) to read. Most students fell into serious trouble if they forgot to bring a book to read. It also meant that all were compelled to borrow books from the school library, even if one's reading taste was not matched by the books in the library. Lastly, there was no rule on how long one may read the same book, students who did not take the rule seriously "read" the same book all year long. Very often, I would have finished reading a book but not having a second book to read, I would have to read the same book over again for a while. Finally the admin saw the pointlessness of the scheme and decided to do away with it.

School prayer seems to me to be along the same lines. Even if voluntary, wouldn't schools have to ensure that students who did not pray was not up to trouble at that time. This would require staff to be vigilant, especially with the spate of violent incidents at schools and colleges in the US in recent years. This would mean that staff who want to pray might not be allowed to do so in order to monitor non-praying students. That would certainly not serve the aims of the prayer program- you can't be saying only students are entitled to prayer.

"Each morning there will be 15 minutes for all students to pray in the way they wish." - For Muslim and maybe Jewish students, this would involve being in a prayer room set aside for the purpose, for Muslims the room must face west and no one should be standing in front of the devotees when they bow and prostrate themselves. Should a public school, or any school have to go to such great lengths to provide students with the facilities to pray as they like. Students of other religions may need to bring objects or idols to worship at school. Will this be allowed despite the security risks.

I am actually not against prayer in school per se, but prayer as dictated by the students' religious views may be hard to accomodate, and therefore restrictions would have to be placed on this. Would any student agree to have restrictions on the way they want to pray? Can a school system modify religious instruction to fit their circumstances.

Banning prayer in schools is not the answer, for example, if someone decides to worship chairs, the school couldn't be rid of chairs and nor could the chair-worshipper be told to change his/her ways.

It is however obvious that schools cannot officially sanction prayer time because of the snags involved. But if a student wants to pray without getting in anybody's way, and without making special demands on the school for prayer facilities, he/she should be allowed to do as he/she wishes.