Persuasive Essay On Prayer In Public Schools

970 Words4 Pages

Sydnee Mangette
Miss Beverly
Honors English 9
25 February 2015
Prayer in Public Schools The debate of allowing the practice of religious prayer in the public schools has been around since schools started allowing students of many religions to enroll in their school. Prayer in schools was deemed unconstitutional due to the separation of Church and State, because the State funds public schools. Prayer in schools that is conducted by a teacher, principal, or other school staff is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of Church and State, threatens the religious opinions of the students that were brought on by their parents, and because it offends most of the student’s religious ideas and shouldn’t be allowed in public schools. …show more content…

Of course, if the child wants to change their faith later in life, that’s up to them, but in elementary school, children are very impressionable. If their teacher makes them participate in a religious activity that isn’t part of their religion, the child is going to start believing the teacher and stop believing in whatever religion that they are a part of. When the child starts to reject their faith at home, the parents will question what the school is teaching their …show more content…

If a teacher organizes a religious activity, and a student’s personal religion isn’t involved, they are going to believe that their religion isn’t a priority, and that they aren’t a priority in the school. This could also make their parent’s angry, and when their parents are angry, they will try and challenge the school by either protests or a lawsuit, which are both distracting to the students and cost money to the school. The most important function of a school is to educate students and to help make them feel accepted, and both functions of a school can be disrupted if religious activities are allowed in public schools. It could disrupt the students’ studies, and not including a student’s religion can make them feel unaccepted.
Religious activities, such as prayer, that promote the beliefs of one religion shouldn’t be sponsored, organized, or encouraged by school personnel because it is unconstitutional and violates the religious beliefs of students from different religions. The debate of prayer in public schools has been around for a long time, but when people understand that the students have all the rights they need, then the debate will be