ARE PRAYERS APPROPRIATE IN SCHOOLS?

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When  I was a child in schools in the 1940s, our teachers had us stand up and recite the Christian’s protestant’s  Lord’s Prayer before the classes began irrespective whether or not the students were Catholic, Muslim or of any other faith.

None of the prayer that follows this sentence is an offence to anyone of any race or religion. Here is an example of an appropriate prayer.

“Almighty God. We ask you to bless our school, the teachers and staff who work in our school and all the children who study in our school. We pray to you that our school be a place of great discovery, adventure and creativity. We ask of you make it to be a place where we love to learn and where we learn to love. We also ask you to make it a place where everyone is respected and all us all are deeply valued.  Amen”

I don’t think that the children should have to recite those words as they can be recited by their teachers while the children are standing with bowed heads.

Now I ask you to be honest and ask yourselves;  is there anything in a prayer like that one that would offend anyone of any  faith?

Many years ago, many schools dropped all forms of religious prayers.

School prayer, in the context of religious liberty is state-sanctioned or mandatory prayer by students in public schools in the United States depending on the county and the type of school.    State-sponsored prayer may be required, permitted, or prohibited. Counties which prohibit or limit school prayer often differ in their reasons for doing so. 

In the United States, school prayer cannot be required of students in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In Canada, school-sponsored prayer is disallowed under the concept of freedom of conscience as outlined in the Canadian Charter on Rights & Fundamental Freedoms. School-sponsored prayer is disallowed in France as a byproduct of its status as a  (religiously neutral) nation. Countries that allow or require school and other state-sponsored prayer include Greece, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Prior to 1944, in British Columbia, the Public Schools Act (1872) permitted the use of the Lord’s Prayer in opening or closing school. In 1944, the government of British Columbia amended the Public Schools Act to provide for compulsory Bible reading at the opening of the school day, to be followed by a compulsory recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. This amendment appeared as section 167 of the Public Schools Act, and read as follows;

All public schools shall be opened by the reading, without explanation or comment, of a passage of Scripture to be selected from readings prescribed or approved by the Council of Public Instruction. The reading of the passage of Scripture shall be followed by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, but otherwise the schools shall be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles. The highest morality shall be inculcated, but no religious dogma or creed shall be taught.(according to) 1948, c.42, s.167. In other words, the prayer should be neutral.

The compulsory nature of the Bible reading and prayer recitation was slightly modified by regulations drawn up by the Council of Public Instruction. These regulations provided that either a teacher or student who has conscientious ground for objecting to the religious observances may be excused from them. The procedure to be followed in such cases was outlined in the regulations was as follows;

Where a teacher sends a written notice to the Board of School Trustees or official trustee by whom he or she is employed that he or she has conscientious objections to conducting the. ceremony of reading prescribed selections from the Bible and reciting the Lord’s Prayer (as provided by Section 167 of the Public Schools Act), he or she shall be excused from such duty, and in such case it shall be the duty of the Board of School Trustees or official trustee concerned to arrange with the Principal to have the ceremony conducted by some other teacher in the school, or by a school trustee, or, where neither of these alternatives is possible, by one of the senior pupils of the school or by some other suitable person other than an ordained member of a religious sect or denomination.

Where the parent or guardian of any pupil attending a public school sends a written notice to the teacher of the pupil stating that for conscientious reasons he does not wish the pupil to attend the ceremony of reading prescribed selections from the Bible and reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of school, the teacher shall excuse the pupil from attendance at such ceremony and at his  or her  discretion may assign the pupil some other useful employment at school during that period, but the pupil so excused shall not be deprived of any other benefits of the school by reason of his or her non-attendance at the ceremony.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms received royal assent that includes section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing freedom of conscience and freedom of religion as per Section 167 of the Public Schools Act (1872). Sixteen years later in 1996, based on precedent that would be established in Ontario (1989), required recitation of the Lord’s Prayer as outlined in the Public Schools Act would be held to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In Zylberberg v. Sudbury Board of Education (Director) The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the use of the Lord’s Prayer in opening exercises in public schools offended the Charter s. 2(a). Education regulations did not require the use of the Lord's Prayer and there was an exemption provision. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the regulation infringed religious freedom because schools could use only the Lord's Prayer rather than a more inclusive approach. It was argued that the exemption provision effectively stigmatized children and coerced them into a religious observance which was offensive to them. It certainly would offend other non-Christian believers. 

As a secular state (laïcité), France has no school prayers. Instead, public servants are advised to keep their religious faith private, and may be censured if they display it too openly. The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools goes beyond restricting prayer in schools and bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by pupils in public ,primary and

  secondary schools.

The predominantly Muslim country of Turkey is is noted in the public sphere as  a strongly secular nation. In this regard, (that nation that is is much like France)  whose system also a secularize by its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who modelled the rules on religion when he reformed his country in the early 20th century. School prayer in Turkey is therefore unknown, and suspected religious motivations can cause serious difficulties for public servants. Despite its primarily secular stance, however, courses of religion and morals (which are dominantly Islamic) are compulsory to all students during the last years of elementary and throughout high school. In these instances, various Islamic prayers and verses are both taught and students are tested for their knowledge of what they have been taught.

In my opinion, morality should be included in a prayer but no religious dogma or creed should be included in a prayer or taught in a public school. Obviously, that wouldn’t apply to religious schools.

Religious schools are expected to provide worship appropriate to the school's religion although most religious schools in the UK and Canada are Christian.

The school prayer remains contentious even where courts as diverse as those in Canada, the United States, Russia and  Poland attempt to strike a balance between religious and secular activity in state-sponsored arenas. Some arguments have held that religion in schools is both an effective sociomoral tool as well as a valuable means to psychological stability.

 On the opposing side, others have argued that prayer has no place in a classroom where impressionable students are continually subject to influence by the majority. The latter view holds that to the extent that if a public school itself promotes the majority religion, the state is guilty of coercive interference in the lives of the individual.

In my respectful opinion, the prayer I submitted in the beginning of this article wouldn’t offend anyone and can inspire the students to show goodwill to everyone.