Posted on 05/13/2008 4:32:39 PM PDT by teacher12
It depends upon the circumstances. If your goal is to teach children math, science, history, etc. in a finite schoolday, then prayer is a waste of valuable time.
(insert obvious joke about praying before a test)
“I was in public school four decades ago, and while we recited the Pledge we never prayed or read the Bible.”
May depend on where you went to school. My husband went on the East Coast, specifically Virginia and they did.
I went to school in Denver, and we said the Pledge in elementary school. Never prayed or read the Bible in school.
Government schools should be abolished. That would solve the prayer/no-prayer conundrum.
Government schools, freedom of conscience, and the First Amendment can NOT coexist.
the principle of religious neutrality has to take precedence
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Did you learn this in your college of education? Really?
It is **impossible** to have a religiously neutral education. It can not exist. It is axiomatic.
My favorite story problem went like this:
Teacher: Johnny, if you had three apples and your sister asked for two of them, how many would you have?
Johnny: Three.
Any pupil has an inalienable right to pray privately, or in groups of like-minded schoolmates, so long as it does not interfere with the normal and customary work of a school. Although I am a Christian, I do not favor generic prayers to a nameless deity. I am taught, and believe, that I, an unworthy sinner (albeit one redeemed and saved by the grace of God), am not qualified to approach the throne of grace except that I offer my petitions in the name of Jesus. How many teacher-composed school prayers would be so composed?
Very picturesque!
No it is speech. The question is whether you can speak a prayer or not.
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