No, never - with one semi-exception: my first two years of high school, some football games started with the announcer asking us to bow our heads while he gave a brief prayer over the loudspeaker. IIRC it varied depending on which school the team was playing at, and usually was just addressed to “God”, though occasionally invoked Jesus’ name. This was in South Carolina in the mid-'90s.
My kindergartener came home from (public) school yesterday and told me they’d watched two movies - Frosty the Snowman and another movie about the birth of Baby Jesus. I have no idea what that’s all about, but I’m definitely going to be doing some investigation.
I taught in a public HS in Charlotte, North Carolina in the early 1990s. Every morning we had announcements read over the intercom, and one morning they decided that they were going to include a prayer. My jaw nearly hit the ground. The next period was my free period, so I visited the principal and explained to him that if there was a prayer read the following morning that I would be contacting the American Civil Liberties Union. There were no further prayers.
You go, girl.
My screen name is not Skald the Poller.
None that I can recall. I went to four years of public school (prior to high school, I went to a Catholic school, so duh, there was prayer!), and the only thing close to prayer I remember was a moment of silence when someone died. (It was either a student or a teacher, I can’t remember). It was more of a “let’s have a moment of silence to remember in which to remember him/her.”
Other than that, you just had the academic side – like when we studied about the Middle East in history class, we learned about the three major religions. Or in English class when we read Inherit the Wind.
I do remember one moment though that made me roll my eyes. In my child development class, we were told to watch children’s shows, and evaluate them. One girl watched a Christmas special, and took points off because “it mentioned God and what if the parents don’t want their kids to believe that?” Um, it’s a Christmas show, deary. That was just kind of a WTF???
(I graduated in 1996)
Did anyone prevent you from saying grace over your own meal?
Exactly. There is a difference between being told you can’t lead an organized prayer, and being told you personally can’t pray.
Not as such. Maybe…
My fifth grade English teacher was both devious and old-school, and managed (I say this with much respect and as an agnostic) to get God into the classroom as often and as legitimately as she could.
She’d do this by insisting we knew all four verses of the national anthem, all eight of “America the Beautiful”, etc… We began the school day with singing or recitation, and it was a matter of pride for the students (including my already agnostic self) that we knew all of the verses of the national anthem when almost everyone else knew only the first verse. In almost every song we sang, God made an appearance in the later and lesser-known verses.
I was never asked or forced to pray. I would’ve kicked up a hell of a fuss were I ever required to. (Having a Constitutional historian for a father helps.) But I respect the hell out of Mrs. Johnson for simultaneously advocating her beliefs and strictly adhering to the law.
I grew up in Florida. I only had one teacher that did morning prayers in elementary school (public), and while we weren’t “forced to pray”, we were scolded if we didn’t bow our heads and close our eyes while she said her morning prayer. She was obviously of some Evangelical denomination, FWIW. This was in the early 70’s, as I recall.
I attended grade school in the 60s, (WA and CA), and in the 70s, 6th through 12th in AK, and no, we were never forced to pray. I remember an occasional recital of the Lord’s Prayer over the intercom in a few of the elementary schools I went to, but no one was forced to follow along.
Texas in the 80’s. One idiot minister’s wife who thought she was a competent social studies teacher wanted everyone to either talk about what their favorite bible story meant to them or their relationship with Jesus. I told about how a Roma stole the 4th nail that going to be used in crucifying Jesus of Nazareth and how because of it Jesus dying on the cross said that Roma could steal forever and it wouldn’t be a sin. She was not amused. Attempts were made to punish me for being a smartass. My dad in a rare moment of competence (actually he was probably smelling dollars in a lawsuit settlement) siced lawyers on the school. Soon thereafter the school got very strict about keeping religious propaganda out of the classroom.
Southern CA, public schools from 1975-1988, nope.
(Not counting the PoA, which was stopped in HS.)
I can’t see how anyone can be prevented from offering up a silent prayer of any kind to any being or deity they choose, at any time. If nobody hears it, why would it be an issue?
Some people think that if they can’t lead a group prayer, or be part of a group prayer, that they are being prevented from praying, or somehow that their freedom of religion is being infringed upon. The concept of silent prayer, without drawing attention to the fact that they are praying, is foreign to them.
(1) Every Monday in elementary school we had “church count.” The teacher would say, “How many attended Sunday School, raise your hands? Okay, how many attended church, raise your hands? Okay now, how many attended Sunday night services, raise your hands? Okay, if you attend on Wednesday, raise your hands.”
The total then had something mathmatical done to it and the classroom with the highest count got some sort of special privilege.
Our class never won because we had one honest atheist and one honest Jew (who would only raise her hand for “Sunday School”) and a bunch of Methodists who were going “Wednesday? WTF?” The classes with lots of Baptists and liars always won.
(2) In the year that the Supreme Court struck down prayer in the schools (All hail the Supremes!), we had a teacher who would come in every morning and point to somebody and say, “You. Say the prayer today.” For me, it was preferable to be late to this class (first one in the morning, so that was easy enough) than to be the one to have to give the prayer, although I had some generic thing written down in my desk in case I was ever called on and I would have said it really fast.
So. The Supremes hand down their landmark decision, no praying in schools. I relax and get to that class on time with no fear. And what does she say?
“Well, we don’t care what the Supreme Court says, we are going to PRAY. You. Say the prayer today.”
I remember sitting there thinking, “She can’t make me. The Supreme Court said so!”
No. Interestingly, we had to swim naked, but weren’t forced to pray. But in high school, the girls had to get down on their knees to show how long their skirts were. Is that prayer?
Nope. I was in public school from 1995 to 2003. And yet, when we prayed silently, we were all afraid something bad was going to happen to us. In a school that still had an (optional) baccalaureate, complete with multiple preachers as speakers.
The funniest thing was what happened in my high school years: they started adding “in your own way” to “Please observe a moment of silence” at football games.
Heh. Did you have Mrs. Bush too? Seriously, that first sentence is about what my grade school teachers said. When I was in grade school, I was a little bewildered, but as I got older, I remember thinking that these teachers were all for authority…until authority made a decision that THEY didn’t like.
No, and no. Educated in Illinois Public Schools, 1972-1985.
ETA: never attempted to pray in school, so I can’t rightly say I’ve been prevented from praying in public school; you can’t be denied something you never had, or tried to do.