Separate Church and State ... or not?

There are so many different angles to which the debate of the “Separation of Church and State” can originate. The first article in our readings discusses a required moment of silence. I always thought that it could be required (the moment of silence), but that it could not be required that each student pray during that time. Most of the schools that I’ve taught at didn’t give enough time for a prayer anyway! It usually only lasts about 5 seconds, and it always seems like they are simply fulfilling their obligation to have the moment of silence. Use it for what you want. Bow your head and pray, don’t bow your head and don’t pray, it’s your choice, but what’s the big deal? I wonder how long it will take for this to become an issue in the South somewhere. Every school I know of has a moment of silence every morning. There’s definitely a branch of people that believe that a lot of the problems we have in schools today is the fact that church and school have to be separated. I for one tend to agree, but I also see the impossibility of making this happen in today’s society. There are just too many different religions represented in our schools today, not to mention, it’s unconstitutional. That’s a bit of a problem, too.

As for the evolution issue in Texas, again, I’m not real sure what the big deal is. I guess I should be more zealous one way or the other, but I’m just not. I believe that scientists believe, for the most part, in evolution, so of course they’re going to be sensitive as a group to the idea of teaching anything associated with creationism in the science classroom. What if there was a creationist science teacher out there somewhere? Would they disagree? Would they be offended by the idea of teaching evolution? It would appear that there is a discrepancy in what’s being allowed anyway. Evolution is universally accepted as “acceptable” to teach in science classroom, but creationism isn’t. Isn’t evolution a belief as well? Hmm. I suppose this one stirs a little more in me than the other. Believe what YOU want to believe, just let the families of your students teach their children what they believe is right. It’s really none of my business what anybody else believes, is it?

The article from the Library of Congress is interesting, but, given the time it was written, I can totally see the ruling coming back the way it did. I don’t think that in the 30’s there was much concern for religion. Most schools were probably following the same protocol as they had for years and years, and they just didn’t care what some small religion (at the time) thought. Just think about how far we’ve come with the issue of corporal punishment. I, for one, remember paddling being a regular occurrence in middle and high school, but by the time I returned from college, it had all but gone away. It’s amazing what a couple of court rulings can do for “traditions” in school.

The more interesting story was, not so much that they changed their ruling, but that the Supreme Court changed their ruling during World War II. Japan attacked us in 1941, so I would think that pride in our flag would have been at an all-time high during the ensuing years (like 1943).

Overall, I think they got it right. I don’t think we should require students to say the pledge, salute the flag, have a moment of silence, or bow their heads to pray during school. I think that if a kid wants to pray, they’ll have plenty of quiet time during their school day to get that done on their own time. Leave it up to the parents to encourage that, not us. As for the issue of evolution/creationism being taught in schools, that’s never going away. As long as people have different views, schools will have different views about teaching it in their buildings.