Prayer in Public Schools?

I think giving 5 minutes of silent time to spend as kids choose would be good for the kids. It'd be a great way for kids to meditate on whatever is on their mind.

Well, fancy meeting you here!

I went through twelve years of prayer in school and was glad to see it go. It was as much a go-through-the-motions exercise as the Pledge of Allegiance and the morning PA system bulletin (which, at least, usually contained something of interest) and both was and is to my mind sheer Phariseeism. That a New Testament prayer was forced on the one-third or so of the student body who were Jewish, and that the form used was never that used by Roman Catholics, (perhaps another one-fourth), and that, in Upper Northwest DC, some of the students were Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or Sikh never seemed to occur to a single administrator.

I do believe that in subsequent years the courts went overboard in defining "government sponsored." At one point, it is entirely likely that your mere observation
of one student witnessing to another would, since you are an employee or agent of a governmental entity, would have been found to be "sponsorship." At least one teacher has had to go to court to have her right to read a Bible - silently, while alone - during her free period. More than one valedictorian who simply wanted to express thanks to God in her speech has had a court uphold the school administrators' censorship. Though progress has been made I still worry that, though the initial Court decision intended to prevent a government entity from establishing religion, the result has been to allow or even require its disestablishment.

I am a mature Christian woman who has been teaching in the public schools for over 20 years. I also earned a Masters in Social Work, and work part time in a psychiatric hospital. In the school in which I teach, I have students from all over the world, and of every major religion in the world, including Islam, Hindu, and Buddhist, along with Christians and Jews.

In my school are many Christian teachers, and several of us gather each morning for prayer for our school, the students, teachers as well as our country. I teach middle school Social Studies and work hard to educate my students on the Bill of Rights, as many have come from countries where such rights are nonexistant.

I raised my children in public schools, and they led many of their friends to the Lord, some right in school.

Am I dishonoring the Lord by believing that it is inappropriate to push for Christian prayers to be returned to the public schools? Nobody is stopped from praying during non-instructional times in the schools. I have had students witness to each other in front of me, ON THEIR OWN TIME.

I often wonder why it all of the country's problems are blamed on prayer being taken out of the public schools. I don't believe it has. What has been taken is IMPOSED Christian prayers. Christians are free to pray, on their time not the school's.

Sorry to be so long winded. I am new to this forum, but not new to CF.

Trish

Prayer is allowed at my childrens' school. But that's because we homeschool. I'm glad that prayer is not allowed to be a part of public schools. If you wanted it to be, then it would be open to all faiths. I wouldn't want my children having muhamed promoted to them at school or buddha or any of the other false prophets. Sure I wouldn't mind if Jesus was promoted, but who's version of Jesus? What if it was some Jahova's Witness teacher or some Mormon teacher. I don't feel like having to reprogram my children when the get home from school. If public schools are open to all children and teachers from all religions, I definitely don't want religion taught there. I prefer it taught at home and church where we can teach them the truth.