We now pause for a moment of noisy silence

Bowed heads, folded hands…our morning news anchors sure look like they are praying when we pause for our silent reflective moment. In my homeroom most are silent, some mouth silent messages, some bow their heads, some start their warm-up, while others work to finish their homework for 2nd period. I used to stop and bow my head. Then I decided that looked too much like I was modeling prayer and I didn’t want to do that. I used to force students to say the pledge and our Code of Conduct. I don’t do that anymore either for several reasons. I do encourage them all to stand up.

I don’t think anything religious, however subtle, should be foisted on anyone else in the educational setting. Personally, it really irritates me when people pepper professional emails with references to God or paste scripture passages as part of their signature. I think most of them would be really bothered if someone with alternative views made the same assumption and treated the school as a forum for sharing religious beliefs. It assumes so much.

Is a moment of silence a sneaky way to incorporate religion? Yes, I think it is, just like school was a sneaky way to try to make educated, civic-minded citizens. It attempts to interject a reminder of morality into the school. If we are going to stop allowing the moment to be set aside, however, then we need to stop allowing other students to actually leave class to go elsewhere and pray on another schedule. Maybe someone else construes that as incorporating religion into public school.

As far as Darwin goes, if something is scientific theory, by definition, it is proven. We don’t discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the theory of gravity. It is a theory, therefore, it is proven. Any religious explanations potentially have another viewpoint. Religious beliefs are centered on faith, not proven theory. They are a personal matter and are not legislated in this country. As far as the Gobitas boy in Pennsylvania goes, we are talking about forcing a religious belief on someone. I prefer we keep all religious leanings out of school, unless we are teaching factual religious history. That is something about which we should not be silent. We need to understand each other. We need to talk and talk and talk.