Brooks 1
Brooks 4
Octavya Brooks
Dr. Beggs
REL 122
April 17, 2018
Position Paper: Prayer in Public Schools
Prayer in public schools has been a topic that has been debated on in the nation for a while now and is still continued to be debated on till this day. Many people have been saying and asking for prayer due to recent events and events that have previously been happening especially in public schools. In this paper, I will be giving you my point of view on how I feel about the topic prayer in public schools and others view point in this paper. “Engel v. Vitale ushered in an era in which school prayer was effectively forbidden; however, with the passage of the Equal Access Act in 1984, some forms of school prayer were again sanctioned. The Department of Education now issues a guide to help school administrators practically apply congressional laws and Supreme Court decisions concerning school prayer.” ( enotes.com)
The recent school shootings have brought people even of different religions to pray for the students and the school. Prayer in public schools should be allowed only in private schools that are religion based and only in public schools for clubs that are religion based clubs. Now prayer on a daily basis in schools wouldn’t be such a great idea. Think about it: what if a Muslim kid had to pray in the middle of class, had to pull out his prayer matt? That would be disturbing the teacher and the students from their learning. But then again prayer in school has some benefits. Such as social benefits like helping with issues that happen in school such as drugs, pregnancy in teens, shootings that happen in schools and other issues that would give people a sense of peace and it allows helps to cope with the trauma from the issues.
“School prayer would allow religious students an opportunity to observe their religious beliefs during the school day. The U.S. Supreme Court has urged school cooperation with religious authorities for “it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the
public service to their spiritual needs.” (https://www.allabouthistory.org/pros-and-cons-of-prayer-in-school-faq.htm) .
I’m more so in the middle of if there should be prayer in public schools. You can look at it as
helpful to a certain group of students and staff or a way that’s disturbing to a section of the school.
For the group that thinks it can be helpful, you’ll see how it can help them threw out their day.
Prayer in school can help certain religious groups because for instance, what if they were stressing
about certain homework or a big project, they have coming up? They could pray to themselves
quietly in their seat or they could ask to be dismissed for a minute or two to gather them self
together. It never said that prayer is mandatory so why not allow it to be used in school. I don’t
think prayer is hurting anyone at all. People are debating that religion shouldn’t be allowed in
schools. Here is another thing to think about, pra...
