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My neighbor and I are really close. She has a 15 year old sophmore in highschool. She sends him to a Catholic school.
This school doesn't contain just Catholic students. There are kids from other relgious backgrounds such as baptist, muslim, etc,etc.
Anyhow, she was telling me how the health teacher there is trying to force the kids to pray.
At the beginning of each class, she starts off with a prayer, which I find great. Yet, she wants them all to pray outloud, some pray to themselves and follow along, others outloud.
Anyhow,she says, you need to pray along and he replies saying "Prayer should be something you want to do, not forced upon" the Teacher replies saying "this is a catholic school"
Despite the fact of it being a catholic school, I think children should be given the option to pray quietly to themselves.
Your opinions?
Last edited by toobusytoday; 10-27-2012 at 06:16 PM..
It's impossible to force anyone to pray or to prevent anyone from praying. The teacher is trying to get the kids to do certain outward things, because she either thinks that saying certain words really is prayer, or because she thinks it will make her look good, or because she hopes that if the kids go through the motions something will catch and become more real.
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." -Mathew 6:6
I would imagine that if they all pray outloud, it's a mess unless they all pray the same prayer.
It's a Catholic school. I would think that parents would understand that there is a difference between there being a prayer time, and FORCING a child to pray. Are the children punished in some way if they don't pray?
You can require somebody to at least go through the motions of almost any action. That, of course, doesn't mean someone is praying.
Private schools have their own rules, and if they wanna fight the battle of compliance for things like participation in prayer time, that's up to them. But I don't that there's any real way to check for compliance on something like praying. So it's kind of an empty requirement.
Students are there by choice. It is a PRIVATE school, if it isn't working for your friend, she might try a nice INTERNATIONAL school?
This. Hey, my kids went to a Catholic school for about six years, even though we're not Catholic. There was all kinds of stuff that I didn't agree with, but I held my tongue. Why? Because we de facto agreed to the rules of the school by enrolling.
Only if the school has a written policy requiring people to pray out loud can she force them to pray aloud.
I doubt the school has one, though, and she is out of line.
If the parent really wanted to pursue it, she could talk to the teacher, then the head of school.
I agree with this poster.
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