Pennsylvania, 60’s and 70’s. Individual teachers in the public school system tried stealth maneuvers to get prayer into their classrooms, like having us memorize psalms as poetry or requiring us to have a Bible and read from it for reading practice. Generally, though, the day started simply with a moment of silence.
I spent a few years in Catholic school, and there was less prayer there than you would think.
60s and early 70s public school. A few classrooms had the Lord’s Prayer posted but we were never encouraged to pray or given an “organized chance” to pray. Not too many years before me, my brother attended basically the same schools and there was organized prayer but it was not required as far as he remembers.
Public school in Maine from '72 to '83 (did my K-1 time in NY).
I’m not sure if I ever was told to pray, but it’s possible.
I can ell you that in 4th or 5th we had Catechism. And I’m not talking, “there’s a bus arriving for all the good little Catholic girls and boys to take you to the church for Catechism.” I’m talking, “and that’s how Columbus discovered Ohio. Now, please take out your Catechism books and turn to the chapter on self-flagellation.”
Now I was only 9 or 10, so I didn’t really give two shits what it was all about, it was just another boring class to me. I really didn’t even put two and two together that it was a Catholic thing. It didn’t dawn on me until much later how incredibly inappropriate the whole thing was.
When I came home from school one day and mentioned Catechism class, my parents went … well not ballistic, but they were concerned at any rate. So from that day forward, I … and one other nominally Protestant student … got to go sit in the hallway outside of class while the teacher – again, public school teacher; reading, writing, 'rithmetic – taught Catechism. In tax-payer funded, separation of church and state, public school.
Rural Ohio, 70’s and 80’s, no prayer… remember some times when we had benedictions at graduation or other events. Never had a real prayer time, or were encouraged to pray, except I suppose when we had five minutes of silence for the doomed Shuttle astronauts back in sixth grade. We did the POA and that was it. Very secular. although many were religious… it was never an issue and remained seperate and outside school.
Public schools in a medium-sized city for my entire education, from mid-70’s to late 80’s.
I only remember two occasions: Once was in 5th or 6th grade-ish, and it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Our class was having a pre-Thanksgiving potluck of sorts, and the teacher (a devout Christian) made us stand in a circle holding hands while she prayed. She allowed anyone who wasn’t into it to excuse their self-- the one Jewish girl in the class excused herself.
The other occasion was high school graduation, where the entire crowd stood and bowed their heads while Bishop Suchnsuch (the father of one of the graduates) said the benediction.
“Lift Every Voice & Sing” is still known as the Black National Anthem, at least hereabouts.
Tiny town in Iowa, 80s and 90s. There was never any school-sponsored prayer. We had a Baccalaureate ceremony that was completely optional the night before graduation. There was some religious music sung in choir, but not just Christian. We also sang some music from other religions. In elementary school we had Christmas parties where we exchanged gifts, but it was pretty secular, and the Jehovah’s Witness kids were never pressured to participate (nor in any other celebrations).
The weirdest religious thing we ever had happen was this speaker we had in history in high school one year. I don’t even remember what he was SUPPOSED to be speaking about, but it definitely wasn’t what we got, which was an hour devoted to the apocalypse, Revelations, the Beast, and all that fascinating stuff. It was completely surreal, and afterwards our teacher apologized profusely and told us that that was NOT the subject matter he was expecting.
Back in the 70’s, when I was in 6th grade, my English/homeroom teacher would have the daily devotional from The Upper Room read to our class. Being from the Bible Belt, and in a small mill town in N.C. to boot, nobody ever complained about it.
Huh. Last year one of my kids’ class was doing a program for black history month at the high school. I mentioned this song and he’d never heard of it.
I went to school in Northern California (the Bay Area) in the 80s and 90s. (Graduated high school in 1996.) Never once. Didn’t have a moment of silence, there wasn’t an optional benediction at graduation, nothing. We didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance past junior high, either.
The closest thing I ever got to active religion in school was when one of the speakers at my college graduation (one of my graduating classmates; I went to a state university) broke the rules and praised god. Since she wasn’t a representative of the university and she didn’t go on about it for her whole speech, I didn’t mind.
Yes, we were required to recite the lords prayer at the beginning of class, at least in elementary school. I don’t remember at what point that requirement was dropped, but I think we stopped doing so in junior high.
I also remember when “under God” was added to the pledge of allegience. I remember being miffed about that, though I’m not exactly sure what my reasoning was back then.
This was in the early 50s in Pensacola Florida, BTW
Heh, my HS graduating class had a similar experience. Like I said, there was no prayer, and plenty of Non-Christians, but our valedictorian’s speech had a lot of Jesus in it. She wasn’t preachy about it, but it was a really bad speech, with a lot of thanking Jesus.
Oh, no, the girl I referred to didn’t do that. She was going on her speech like normal, getting all worked up, and then she said something to the effect of “I’m not supposed to do this, but I THANK GOD THAT I AM HERE TODAY! PRAISE JESUS!” and said maybe one more sentence along this line and that was it. It was a pretty exuberant speech, all in all. I didn’t care, it was her speech, and since she didn’t drone on about it, it was okay with me.
Not sure what you mean by “pray”. When I was in school, PA state law required the reading every morning of 10 verses from the bible. And it was always done. I didn’t object to that nearly as much as to the addition of “under god” to the pledge which was also required. Turned the pledge into a lie, it did.
Transplanted Mainer dying of curiosity over here - what city/town was this? (If there were only token protestants, was it one of those francophone towns?)
Way up north. The County.
Never mind, then. Was trying to imagine this happening in someplace like Bangor and couldn’t.
Grade school in the late 50’s/early 60’s. I had a 3rd grade teacher that preached rather than taught.