Nope. Attended public school in semi-rural (now suburban) Texas, graduating in 1966. Every morning we had the Pledge of Allegiance & sang “My Country 'tis of Thee.” Don’t remember for how many years. No prayers or moments of silence.
There were occasional “invocations” at graduation or other ceremonies, but nobody had to pray along–just be quiet. And possibly at football games; the prayer was optional but football is compulsory in Texas!
In elementary school, we had Christmas pageants & sang carols in music class–which I loved. Not that I ever learned to sing well. But all the kids were nominally Christian, so it was OK. We decorated our classrooms with Winter Holiday themes; or Bunnies & Eggs at Easter. The Fundamentalist Majority would probably have considered anything religious somewhat Popish…
Went to public school through 12th grade and it was never an issue either way that I’m aware of. It’s only an issue now because the religious right makes it one.
Pacific Northwest in the 80s and early 90s -
there were a few “moments of silence” during Gulf War I, but that’s as far as it ever got.
Also never prevented from praying.
You know what I find funny about this stories? For the most part, it’s one student or a small amount being forced to pray while the majority don’t mind or want to. So, I guess, when the minority isn’t beinng appeased there’s a problem . So, athiests and nonchristians have a right to practice their religions, but Chrisitans practicing is so offensive it’s now illegal? Welcome to the land of the PC.
This isn’t a religious issue. I wonder how people would react if we replaced it with say any other activity. Oh, one person didn’t want to do X, so let’s not let anyone do it.
I always wondered why they didn’t keep pray and give students the choice of whether or not they wanted to do it.
I spent more than half of my K thru 12 years outside the US, but the years I went to school in the states, no. Not only was I not forced, it just wasn’t done, unless you count the Pledge of Allegiance.
I don’t remember if it was expected of me as a kid, but there were certainly prayers in my high school in east Texas in the mid 80s. I have no idea what would have happened if anyone refused, although I can’t imagine it would’ve been pleasant. And no, no one would have been prevented from praying either.
Not a very inclusive group at all. However, we all were pretty homogenous.
Public high school in the mid-80s…we said “under God” in the pledge and we had a rather generic invocation at our graduation. I know at one point there was a group that had a Bible study once a week, but I don’t remember there being any problem with it.
Born in 1968 and nope. I was occasionally exposed to other midly distasteful things, including a little bit of low-key racist evangelism once, but I don’t recall any forced prayer. Unless you are counting the ubiquitous “…under God…” part of the PofA.
This perhaps can be chalked up to the fact that I attended mostly urban/suburban schools. Somerville and Dorchester ( adjoining/in Boston, Mass ), NYC ( NY ), SF ( CA ), Ferndale ( lily-white lower middle-class suburb of Detroit, at the time racist as hell, but not especially religious ), finally Alameda ( CA, back to the SF Bay Area ). None of them hotbeds of extreme piety.
I find the whole ‘pledge of allegiance’ thing weirder than the prayers, like something from North Korea!
If a Brit can answer, we had prayers and hymns in school assembly every day. The non Christians would sit in another room and troop in at the end to hear the day’s announcements (sporting victories and the like). I never thought to ask them what they did while we were praying and I’ve no idea if anyone if them were declared atheists or just Jewish/Muslim etc. We just never discussed religion.
Oh, we had a religious studies class as well, but that covered all religions. No preaching.
If by “keep pray” you mean Keep Prayer–please let us know when compulsory Christian prayer was actually part of every day at every public school in the USA.
My education started in the 1950’s on the ragged edge of the Bible Belt; no prayer.
Historically, public schools have been secular in this country. Kids can get their spiritual training at home or elsewhere; I had Saturday morning Catechism classes with an actual Sister! Any official prayers at my elementary school would have “fit” the Fundamentalist Majority–not right for me. Or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then there were Jewish kids in Junior High…
(Oh, the Dope is not “the land of the PC.” I’m pretty sure we have some Mac users here.)
Responding to a friendlier comment from the UK:
But we don’t have a Royal Family. Or an Established Religion…
That’s how the Framers set it up:
"f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, *319 U.S. 624 (1943)
That’s exactly what they did. You seem to be, for whatever reason, fundamentally misunderstanding the issue. States were compelling schoolchildren to say prayers that were not of their family’s own religious tradition. But like the guy said, so long as there are pop quizzes, there will be prayer in school. Nothing forbids kids from praying in school. Teachers may no longer force them to pray.
No, but probably only because I went to Catholic schools for grades 1-5. By the time I was in grade 6, it was about 1967 and things had changed (at least where we lived).
In Fort Worth, in the 1960s, there were teacher/principal led prayers in the classroom. We had precisely 1 Jew in my elementary school, and I believe he was allowed to wait in the hallway during the prayers. Some of the kids gave him a hard time about not loving Jesus, which was understandable, they were just kids. However, some of the teachers also gave him a hard time, which was inexcusable IMO. And that’s why there shouldn’t be official public prayer in school…the minorities WILL be ostracized.
Each year, at this same elementary school, some church organizations came along and gave out tiny copies of the New Testament. The only person who was allowed to refuse to take a copy was that one Jew. Everyone else had to accept one, whether we wanted it or not.
I know that the Supreme Court had ruled against officially led public prayer in school by the time I started going to school. Several of my teachers ranted about this in class, on various occasions, and said that they’d keep leading prayers as long as they were teaching. Apparently the principal and school district were OK with this.
Everyone has the right to practice their religion. What can’t be done is have the teachers or administrators lead students in prayer. And that includes any religion’s prayers.
