Description about Religion in schools

Religion is defined in many ways.

Some define religion as a set of beliefs and practices common to a set or group of people. Religion is often codified by a prayer, a ritual and religious laws. Religion is now expressed in any place and thus there are laws that allow the expression of religious beliefs in certain areas of the State. Not so long ago, most of the public schools in the United States of America were purely evangelical.

Today, most of the public schools in the country practices secularity in religion (Education Commission of the States, 2000).Secular organizations are now being prevalent in most of the states and universities in the United States of America. However, there are still some private universities which are still church oriented. These universities are purely Christian-based universities which is the reason why religion is still part of their curriculum and is democratically expressed beyond their school premises. Some of the known universities are the University of Notre Dame and Texas Christian University (The American Heritage Dictionary).

The practices of secularity in religion means that the individual or the group is already separated from any religion.Secularity was put into action because of most of the school educators have been showing regret of the alienation that religion had caused to many of the school children. Redesigning of the public schools for children was made in response to the alienation that had been prevalent in public schools. Elimination and modification of the religious material present in schools were made as an action of redesigning the schools (Education Commission of the States, 2000).

The constitution, as a response to the effects of religions in schools had declared that praying inside a school is considered to be unconstitutional.This was officially authorized by the Supreme Court in 1962. In accordance with the consideration of prayer as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court had officially declared that Bible reading should be excluded as a religious exercise (Education Commission of the States, 2000). Although, the Constitution had banned some religious practices in public schools with its actions to consider praying as unconstitutional and Bible reading exclusion to the religious activities of a religion, the Constitution was amended.The First Amendment had resulted to give guarantees that there will be freedom from the religions that were established by the government. Another guarantee is to the freedom to practice one’s chosen religion.

Although these amendments had given public agencies to be able to accommodate individual beliefs in religion, the public agencies where also prohibited to conduct public promotion of their religion. Freedom to practice one’s religion together with the avoidance of public promotional activities of religion had been viewed to create delicate issues.Despite of the condition of the policy, the United States had the same time posted many alternatives for this amendment. Some of the alternatives of the United States Constitution regarding the First Amendment in the constitution are the Private Unobtrusive Prayer, Student-Initiated Group Prayer, A Moment of Silence, Released Time and the Study of Religious Materials. The private unobtrusive prayer is now legally practiced in most of the public schools in the United States.

The justification beyond this alternative is that, if the public schools allow children to have free time to express their views in life privately to other peers, free time to socialize with other students, free time to converse about school and non-school matters, then why is private praying not allowed? It is proven that disallowing a child or an individual to express his religious activities by privately praying during recess or break time is unconstitutionally hostile. The student-initiated group prayer is another constitution alternative of the First Amendment in the U. S. Constitution.It was in the history when the Supreme Court had sustained and supported the claims of a group to exercise freely their religion in a post secondary setting. This was witnessed in the case Widmar v.

Vincent in 1981. A moment of silence is another alternative given by the constitution. A moment of silence could be done every time before a school day is yet to start. Many of the schools in the different states had adopted the ‘a moment of silence’ and in order to strongly established this, laws had been created.It was in 1952 when the Supreme Court had approved the “released time’ to be implemented in public schools.

The released time is a program developed in New York wherein every child enrolled in a school is entitled to be excused from attending a school class to be able to attend and participate in the parochial school for a particular part of the day. Finally, the secular study of religious material had been permitted by the Supreme Court to be one of the alternatives of the First Amendment in the constitution.The court had been able to make observations that Bible study should be undertaken for the sake of history or social value. Schools nowadays are permitted to teach the different principles of evolution. However, the state will not already do evaluation regarding the student learning of the evolution principles that is why it is not compulsory or required for the schools to teach evolution.

The decision of whether or not to teach evolution lies to the schools (Education Commission of the States, 2000). The issue of the religion expression in public schools had been a hot topic for debates all over the country.Groups involve in different faith traditions had been supporting the opposite sides of the topics or issues regarding the religious expression in many schools. They had been in opposite sides in the topics regarding school prayer, evolution teaching in schools, religious vouchers and the establishment of religious groups in schools. While many of the faith traditional groups had presented arguments of the inclusion of religious expression in schools because of the belief that religion is an essential part of the education for children, others had maintained a strong wall of separation from the topic.

They had been arguing that religion is a sacred thing and it should not be used inappropriately nor it should not be a topic for arguments or debates (The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2007). While the topic of religion in schools had been a hot topic for debates, it had also been a continuous subject of enormous controversy to different public schools. Public school’s decision maker should be able to have a fully understanding to the competing demands of the separation of the state and church.It is also essential for the m to realize the right of every student or every individual to freely express his chosen religion in public schools especially in their schools.

Moreover, the public school’s decision maker must consider the vision of a pluralistic America which is characterized by openness and radical thinking to various groups including religious ones. In addition, the public school officials should be able to make clear policies regarding the expression of religion if they decide to adopt the free expression of religion in their school.The policies should be able to follow the alternatives and laws included in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Parents should also play a role in the process that the school has planed about the laws and policies regarding the freedom to express religion in the schools where their children are currently enrolled. This is very essential so that parents would be able to know the limitations of their children in their expression of religion (Anti-Defamation League, 2004).

In conclusion, freedom to express religion in public schools should not be a divisive topic to all the involved as well as it should be noted that those who are involved in the issue should be able to know the importance of the issue. For the school children who are involved, they should be able to know their stand regarding the issue of freedom to express religion in their school because they had been living in a free world. Moreover, the individual preservation of his own religion is the basic principle that should be inculcated in the minds of those involved in the controversy about the religion in school.