posted
Give me a break. No student in the history of the world has paid 100% attention for 100% of all class time. The idea that taking a minute or two to pray silently during class is going to disrupt a student's ability to learn is absurd in the extreme.
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posted
No, but it DOES reduce learning time, so the student will learn about 180-360 minutes less of material per year.
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That statistic isn't really meaningful. It would be much worse if a student missed 200 minutes of class by being sick for a week then if they missed 200 minutes of class by praying for a short amount of time each class period for a whole year.
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quote:If the kids have to be reminded to pray then it clearly isn't that important to them anyways.
Replace the word "pray" with "study" and I think you'll see what's wrong with that logic. Kids don't always do things that are important for them to do, on their own, especially if their time is already filled with other planned activities.
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quote:If the kids have to be reminded to pray then it clearly isn't that important to them anyways.
Replace the word "pray" with "study" and I think you'll see what's wrong with that logic. Kids don't always do things that are important for them to do, on their own, especially if their time is already filled with other planned activities.
I was talking about what kids might think is important. You're talking about what you think is important. Regardless, Its not the school's responsibility to force kids to study either. What kids do outside of the classroom is the parent's responsibility.
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posted
In high school and middle school, our pledge/moment of silence always happened in homeroom, that ten minutes a day where we sat there and got our attendance taken. Or got reportcards. Or received schoolwide handouts.
No one lost anything.
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posted
The only times I've had moments of silence in my classroom has been after some kind of catastrophe: Katrina, the tsunami, when a cafeteria worker's husband was killed in a car accident, when a student of mine was in a car accident and her younger sister was killed. In each case, I felt very moved by the feeling that pervaded the school. Also, in each case, the school then mobilized to provide assistance to the victims in each case.
I don't pray, of course, but those moments of silence were very powerful. I think that if the moment of silence were a daily ritual, it would lose that power.
As far as the waste of time issue, I used to sub in a school were the assistant principal would play 15 seconds worth of some song, in order to build school spirit. The song could be anything, but R-E-S-P-E-C-T would be typical of the idea. Typically it was something he knew from his past, not something popular with the kids, and the speaker system was so bad you couldn't hear it well enough to understand the intended message half the time.
I didn't know the assistant principal, and one time I was in the teacher's lounge talking with everyone there, and I told them that I found the 15 second song annoying, because instructional time is too valuable to waste on such a thing. It turned out that the guy sitting at the table that I thought was a janitor was the assistant principal. He never engaged me in conversation again.
The moment of silence might not be as annoying as the song, because it's quiet, and I might be able to get something done at that time. But I wonder if I would get in trouble if I told my students that I expected them to silently write down the homework during the moment of silence.
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quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: In high school and middle school, our pledge/moment of silence always happened in homeroom, that ten minutes a day where we sat there and got our attendance taken. Or got reportcards. Or received schoolwide handouts.
No one lost anything.
I went to a Christian Private school with not only 15-20 minutes of homeroom time daily, we had mandatory chapel for 30 minutes once a week. I'd like to think I got through the standard curriculum for a school just fine.
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*snort* It's statements like that that illustrate that at times your contempt for religion is quite a lot greater than your respect for reason and rationality.
You've no way of knowing whether or not he did get through the standard curriculum or not, but you're willing to assume through insinuation that he did not. Just because the time mentioned was chapel time.
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posted
I don't see how a law forcing students to be quiet for a reasonable amount of time can be harmful at all. Who cares what the motives are. It's the action that counts. It's quite time. How does the action encourage anyone to pray?
It would only encourage someone to pray if they had already associated a moment of silence with prayer in their own mind.
Even if the motivation to allow a moment of silence was to "sneak prayer back into school" I don't see how it actually accomplishes anything towards that goal.
In my opinion it isn't an issue at all.
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quote: Yes, I'm sure you would like to think that.
I'm sure you're sure that I'd like to think that.
I'm not sure you're sure that he's sure that you'd like to think that. I think you're bluffing.
Oh do you?
--------
KOM: Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but it's ironic to me that while you are so determined to destroy the hold organized religion has on people's hearts, you yourself drive me away from atheism as no sermon ever could.
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posted
Sigh. I can only assume that KoM does not HONESTLY believe that having 30 minutes of chapel a day made you less informed about the curriculum. It is possible that your complete school day was 30 minutes longer than a normal school day, or that on average you spent 30 minutes more doing homework than a student at a normal school.
Though I think it is important to remember that this thread is not about our opinions of one another's religious beliefs. So let's stop flaming. k?
My stance on the law is that, without a justification better than "we felt like it might be good" that a moment of silence would in fact be beneficial in some way to the educational process, such a law seems unhelpful, except to carry out such a study to get that information.
In the spirit of civil disobedience, it seems that teachers could disobey this law as long as they are willing to endure the penalty. Principals too could disobey or enforce the law as they see fit, as I have my doubts that police patrol Illinois school hallways. Of course this then brings up the question: why should they disobey a law, hopefully those higher-ups would be making beneficial laws, but I know that I would probably not enforce such a law without some better reasoning other than "we told you so" and if I DID have to, I would encourage people to do something better than sitting there with the time spent "in silence"
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I have no problem with the 'moment of silence; dealieo, but only because I'm willfully blind to the obvious intent of those promoting it. Ignoring this allows you to take the practice at face value and ignore potential issues of wedge strategies or excessive entanglement!
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My stance on the law is that, without a justification better than "we felt like it might be good" that a moment of silence would in fact be beneficial in some way to the educational process, such a law seems unhelpful, except to carry out such a study to get that information.
The law was passed with the reasoning that they believed (with only anectdoctal evidence) that a moment of silence would improve discipline problems. I think this would actually be an interesting study, assuming you could set up appropriate controls and such.
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String, while I also share your doubts that this law will accomplish much in regards to prayer, I must respectfully disagree with you that the motive is meaningless. I live in Illinois, and to me the reasoning and motives behind what my state decides to put into law are just as important as the actual effects. If people were trying to sneak prayer or one favored religion into public schools, I'd like to know about it.
I'm not saying things like this are directly harmful to our public schools; I don't have enough information to make a judgment yet. However I am saying that this raises some healthy suspicion and that it would benefit me in the future to understand more about the people currently drafting legislature.
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quote:KOM: Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but it's ironic to me that while you are so determined to destroy the hold organized religion has on people's hearts, you yourself drive me away from atheism as no sermon ever could.
I've expressed (aproximately) the same sentiment to KoM, but he willfully ingnores it. The sad part is that our belief systems are essentially identical.
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posted
I don't think he's got the emotional maturity to care. All I see from him on the issue is "na na na boo boo, you can't stop me, stick your head in poo poo." His behavior is probably the most effective argument against pure atheism I've seen on this site. This opinion is coming from me, and I am less than a big fan of most organized religions.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: I don't think he's got the emotional maturity to care. All I see from him on the issue is "na na na boo boo, you can't stop me, stick your head in poo poo." His behavior is probably the most effective argument against pure atheism I've seen on this site. This opinion is coming from me, and I am less than a big fan of most organized religions.
Atheism doesn't make someone mature or polite. It's not supposed to. It's merely the position on a single question.
What's pure atheism? (As opposed, I suppose, to diluted atheism.)
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Roughly, I would define pure atheism as the denial of the existence of both souls and God or gods. Roughly.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: Roughly, I would define pure atheism as the denial of the existence of both souls and God or gods. Roughly.
Well then, I will gladly help you refine it.
It isn't a denial. Denial implies that you believe it, but just don't want to accept it. It's a disbelief or lack of a belief. Some will go as far as saying they actively believe there is no god, but all you have to do to be an atheist is not have a belief in a god. (I know, the differences are subtle.)
Now, the reason I would object to including the disbelief in souls is only because theism is the belief in a god, and atheism is the lack of that. Technically many Buddhists are atheist, as they don't believe in a god, but they do have spiritual beliefs.
That being said, I would say that the majority of atheists also have no belief in the supernatural. But not always.
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quote:Originally posted by Saephon: String, while I also share your doubts that this law will accomplish much in regards to prayer, I must respectfully disagree with you that the motive is meaningless. I live in Illinois, and to me the reasoning and motives behind what my state decides to put into law are just as important as the actual effects. If people were trying to sneak prayer or one favored religion into public schools, I'd like to know about it.
I'm not saying things like this are directly harmful to our public schools; I don't have enough information to make a judgment yet. However I am saying that this raises some healthy suspicion and that it would benefit me in the future to understand more about the people currently drafting legislature.
Actually I think it's pretty safe to assume that the "moment of silence law" is religiously motivated. If someone wanted to be sure they could check and see who was behind pushing for it. I just don't think it does anything to accomplish putting prayer back into school. A moment of silence could be used to pray, but I don't think teachers would be allowed to suggest it, as imo they shouldn't be able too. If a non-praying student were to observe another student praying, this might encourage him/her to pray, but, again imo, I don't think that amounts to the same thing as direct suggestion which some people believe could be used to subtly pressure students into praying. I think a moment of silence law is tolerable, and does more good than harm by itself. handling an action by it's motivation seems a little reactionary.
I don't think prayer has a cupcakes chance on my plate of making a return to schools, so it's best to take this one at face value. Like I said, I think it stands to do more harm than good. Just what I think though.
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posted
Another question we should address, which we've taken for granted up to this point, is whether or not prayer is a good thing.
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Why is that a question we should address? It cannot possibly be answered effectively for this conversation, and each person's answer is entirely dependant on their views on other questions.
I too think it's safe to assume that the moment of silence law is religiously motivated. However, I think that equally so, a "moment of silence" law is an offering for all religious students to take advantage of, not merely Christians. Furthermore, it does not say, "Students must use this time to reflect and interact with their deity of choice."
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posted
It's a question we should address because if it doesn't do anything positive then we shouldn't promote it.
quote:I too think it's safe to assume that the moment of silence law is religiously motivated. However, I think that equally so, a "moment of silence" law is an offering for all religious students to take advantage of, not merely Christians. Furthermore, it does not say, "Students must use this time to reflect and interact with their deity of choice."
Which would be a wonderful sentiment, if everyone believed in a deity.
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posted
We shouldn't promote it whether it does anything good or not, if by "we" you're refering to the public schools.
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: We shouldn't promote it whether it does anything good or not, if by "we" you're refering to the public schools.
True. However, if there was good evidence that praying was able to effect the real world...I might get behind that.
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posted
I think praying is a good thing, but I think believing that those prayers actually hold some sway on the world apart from changing your own mental attitude and the attitudes of those around you, about you, is not a good thing. Note, I think praying is good not because of its religious affiliation, but because of its content of reflection, empathy, and responsibility.
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quote:Which would be a wonderful sentiment, if everyone believed in a deity.
So those who don't are harmed...how, exactly? I'm not going to take seriously, "They lose 15 seconds of learning," as a reasonable objection, because frankly it's crap. Or are they harmed even by things that benefit the religious?
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quote:Which would be a wonderful sentiment, if everyone believed in a deity.
So those who don't are harmed...how, exactly? I'm not going to take seriously, "They lose 15 seconds of learning," as a reasonable objection, because frankly it's crap. Or are they harmed even by things that benefit the religious?
It's very simple. Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion.
Except for having their first amendment rights violated, however slightly, they aren't harmed at all.
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quote:If so, 15 seconds is still harmful, just on a different scale. It is a camel's nose precendent.
Well, actually some things that are harmful for longer periods aren't for brief intervals. Recess and lunch being two obvious examples. But aside from the strange idea that every slope must by necessity be a slippery one...how are the non-religious harmed by a moment of silence?
Are they forced to talk during the moment of silence?
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quote:If so, 15 seconds is still harmful, just on a different scale. It is a camel's nose precendent.
Well, actually some things that are harmful for longer periods aren't for brief intervals. Recess and lunch being two obvious examples. But aside from the strange idea that every slope must by necessity be a slippery one...how are the non-religious harmed by a moment of silence?
Are they forced to talk during the moment of silence?
The moment of silence itself? It's just stupid, irrelevant and a waste of time. (Yes, even 15 seconds is a waste of time.)
It's implication is especially harmful...if the government can mandate a moment of silence, it's potentially easier for them to mandate a moment of prayer.
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posted
I think that the reasons it is important for some people to have this mandated by law are the same reasons that it is important for some of us not to have this mandated by law.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I think that the reasons it is important for some people to have this mandated by law are the same reasons that it is important for some of us not to have this mandated by law.
posted
To be clear, prayer is public school is definitely not a problem. Kids are free and even welcome to pray throughout the school day. Establishing an official, mandated time for prayer seems to only make sense as an attempt to pressure kids who wouldn't otherwise be praying to pray or at least feel like they should be (or that the social expectation is that they should), to plant a flag for Christians, or as part of a wedge strategy.
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quote:It's just stupid, irrelevant and a waste of time.
Thank you for speaking what you're really thinking. I don't mind people thinking that prayer is stupid, irrelevant, and a waste of time. Let's just not pretend that the 'stupid and irrelevant' objections aren't just as much there as the whopping less than a minute's worth of time 'wasted'.
quote:It's implication is especially harmful...if the government can mandate a moment of silence, it's potentially easier for them to mandate a moment of prayer.
This is only persuasive if you already disapprove of the government mandating a moment of prayer. Which, by the way, I do, too. But 'moment of silence' is not equivalent to 'moment of prayer'.
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quote:I think that the reasons it is important for some people to have this mandated by law are the same reasons that it is important for some of us not to have this mandated by law.
I agree. There's certainly a lot of history behind this, and a lot of resentment (and satisfaction, depending on where you're sitting) at the momentum of history behind this sort of thing.
quote:Establishing an official, mandated time for prayer seems to only make sense as an attempt to pressure kids who wouldn't otherwise be praying to pray or at least feel like they should be (or that the social expectation is that they should), to plant a flag for Christians, or as part of a wedge strategy.
I don't remember the specific language of the issue in question, but I do not agree that establishing a brief moment of silence is equivalent to establishing a moment of prayer. Nor do I agree that establishing such a moment would create any meaningful social pressure: my experience, at least, is that religious practices played almost zero role in the daily routines of students. For example, kids who didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance (sometimes I was one of them) didn't get any crap about it...quite the other way around, in fact.
I also think it's being assumed that this is some sort of Christian expansion scheme, when that is far from obvious either. Unless it's impossible for a Christian lawmaker to legislate for a moment of silence without that being true, that is.
quote:By having their teachers imply that they should be praying?
Ultimately I am not convinced that the mere presence of a moment of silence does so. The specific teachers, on the other hand, may very well do so...and if and when that happens, they should be disciplined accordingly.
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posted
Rakeesh, why do you think that this 15 seconds was so important that people pushed to make it law?
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quote:It's just stupid, irrelevant and a waste of time.
Thank you for speaking what you're really thinking. I don't mind people thinking that prayer is stupid, irrelevant, and a waste of time. Let's just not pretend that the 'stupid and irrelevant' objections aren't just as much there as the whopping less than a minute's worth of time 'wasted'.
I was referring to the moment of silence being stupid, irrelevant and a waste of time.
But prayer is also a waste of time, in my humble opinion. Though I do appreciate the sentiment that usually accompanies it.
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quote:Rakeesh, why do you think that this 15 seconds was so important that people pushed to make it law?
Lots of people feel it's quite important to get some time for religion in the single biggest chunk of students spend on any one set of activities. But unless we're going to start scrutinizing the motivations of everyone who pushes for certain laws, and rejecting religious motivations, that doesn't make much difference. Someone might, for example, push for more treatment options as opposed to prison time for drug offenses and do so for religious reasons. We don't discount their support and motivations then.
---------- Javert,
quote:I was referring to the moment of silence being stupid, irrelevant and a waste of time.
But prayer is also a waste of time, in my humble opinion. Though I do appreciate the sentiment that usually accompanies it.
Appreciating sentiment is nice. I appreciate the sentiment behind the belief ancient Greeks had for thinking a pack of gods lounged atop Olympus...but I still think it was pretty stupid. Or foolish, or ignorant, let's choose our (for these purposes) synonym.
Or do you not feel prayer is stupid? I won't be upset if you say 'yes'-I don't actually care what you think about prayer, so long as you admit it. I'm trying to imagine a circumstance where prayer would be a 'waste of time' without being stupid.
Let's see...there could be no supernatural being at all, in which case prayer is a waste of time-and talking to something which isn't there is pretty dumb. Or it could be that whatever supernatural being is there, either isn't listening or simply doesn't care. Same thing. Or it could be wrong to try and communicate with whichever supernatural being is there...
*sigh* This is a disagreement I've had with atheists before. I'll just drop it. It never really goes anywhere.
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