We had prayer in school when I was a child in a very rural part of the state. No one was “forced” to, one person in particular didn’t, but me knowing that once person didn’t is really the point, I think. I don’t remember a single other person from my second grade class, but I remember him.
It isn’t getting kids to pray, or promoting religion, it is a way to single out the people who aren’t like-minded. It’s about obedience to a culture and identifying the other. Same with going to church and being part of the “respectable” community. You can do what you want and get away with it as long as you conform to the overall appearances.
If you are willing to bow your head, even if you don’t believe it, you pass for normal.
thought this was settled in the 80s. I thought it a perfectly cromulent compromise, though the danger was that there were always individual teachers who were always trying to get away with pressuring kids.
To be honest, the real question is what will happen if some pupils do not use it for christian prayer?
Other religions prayers, meditation (religious or not), silent contemplation, working out an interesting math problem, planning your next guid raid, carving little wooden statues of Brutha-on-the-turtle… Because giving children some silent time for themselves is fine, just don’t use it to enforce your religion.
So the silence will be “mandatory.” For the purpose of “prayer.” So what’s going to happen when kids who identify as atheists, or otherwise think the concept of prayer is bullshit, start taking to each other instead? Or what if someone does want to pray, but they don’t do so silently?
This is an insidious backdoor way to promote Christian hegemony in a place that forbids that, US public schools. All with the ultimate purpose of shoring up Republican political power. Saying that a moment of silence is some sort of good compromise ignores that fact.
If silence is mandatory, and some kid starts talking, they will be treated differently. They’ll be punished. And if they’re talking because they think prayer is bs or because they pray differently, the punishment is discriminatory treatment, no?
The problems I see are that not only is a religious practice being wedged into a public space where it shouldn’t be. It’s also that a certain one (silent prayer) is being placed over others.
It’s analogous to forbidding all women from having abortions because Christians think anything new going on in their wombs happened because Sky Daddy did it. Their beliefs are being forced onto others, who get punished when they don’t obey those beliefs.
If? Depending on age, the boys will spend it thinking about batman and/or sex, and the girls, I have no idea, but probably wondering why the boys are such dicks.
This isn’t new, we had school prayer introduced when I was in 6th grade, then when the non-Christian parents rightfully sued a day later it became a moment of silence. Said moment of “silence” became a time to pass notes, whisper in the back of the classroom, and, when it became clear the teacher thought it was bullshit and wasn’t going to enforce it, just a general reading/gossiping/don’t rock the boat time until the principal started up with the rest of the morning announcements. Late-70s Suburban Connecticut, fwiw.
I 100% agree with you, as my long history of railing at the pledge will attest to. I tried to teach my kids never to say that blathering piece of fascist bullshit in class. And I explained to them why every time they asked. You do not pledge allegiance to ANY flag, under ANY God, for ANY reason. You are a citizen with rights, and the country should be pledging its allegiance TO YOU.
and i think what would happen is the students would be punished even though they weren’t being disruptive, because they weren’t doing “silent” right
i think the bigger deal though is that not all teachers will treat this as a moment of silence.
maybe they’ll couch it in a way that’s defensible but some good number of teachers will call it a moment of prayer, and will tell their kids to pray to the christian god or jesus.
it’s giving them the license to do so. “a moment of silence” is already “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” territory for christians
I had a classmate who once asked for a moment of silence before a test. The teacher humored him. I forget whether or not he was furiously studying. Honestly, this seems useful for calming down and getting into a good test-taking state of mind.
the focus here is not on mindfulness, it’s on pushing the christian religion into schools.
Section 1. Section 1003.45, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:
1003.45 Permitting study of the Bible and religion; requiring a moment of silence permitting brief meditation
within an existing law explicitly permitting the study of religion - which elevates the bible in front of any other religious study, and potentially by exclusion disallows the study of other religious texts - an optional “reflection” time has been made mandatory.
Sorry. So much for a funny anecdote. I meant that in that particular situation, right before the test, it may have been useful. And it was being requested, not imposed, though it would be hard to say whether all the students wanted that little bit of extra time.
Oh look, I can still edit this comment even after the 5 day limit.
