It has come to my attention that the little public school my daughter attends has a “school prayer” which is recited at the weekly assembly.
It only fell onto my radar when a friend mentioned it, as usually I am too busy talking, yelling (or loudly hissing) at my boys to behave during assembly, or just avoiding the event altogether. Being a public school, it begs the question; does prayer or religion have any place in public schools?
Contrary to popular belief, Australia has no official state-endorsed religion, although the conservative right wing types like to cite us as being a Christian country for the purpose of justifying their anti-Islam stance. It strikes me as odd that this weekly prayer ritual has gone on for so long uncontested; after all, I would imagine that if a public school introduced a prayer thanking Allah before assembly, the loudest in the nation would be outraged. With no official state religion, a seemingly benign Christian prayer is just as misplaced as an Islamic one.
It appears the prayer has been continued out of tradition. Let’s face it; tradition is really the only reason for any religion to still exist in our modern society. My daughter’s last school was a private Anglican school, and although I respected their weekly chapel visit knowing it was my choice to send her there, it made me cringe a little when she would come home and tell me that God created the world. But as I said, it was a choice to send her to an Anglican school, and therefore we had to accept the religious aspect. However, I expected an inner-city public school to be a lot more progressive than that.
When my daughter asks me if I believe in God, or if God created the world, I simply tell her “well, no, but that’s what some people believe”. I can imagine however that it would make a lot of people who are either atheist or from a different cultural or religious background uncomfortable to have their children coming home from a supposedly secular school asking these questions.
School Prayer
We pray for your blessing God
On the work we are doing today,
That we may do it well both in school and out,
May we be good to each other
And try to do well in all things,
And be honest, truthful, kind, and
Respectful to all.
While it’s a lovely sentiment, I do think that it could easily be changed to some kind of affirmation (not prayer!) that reflects the same qualities and promises without needing to mention God.
In the interest of multiculturalism, I believe that we should keep our public schools a neutral ground, where everyone’s religion and culture is respected, but not taught or any one religion favoured.
This post originally appeared on Kelly James' wonderful blog Kellysthenics. You can find the blog here. You can follow her on Facebook here.
What do you think? Is there a place for religion in Australian public schools?
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Top Comments
"In the interest of multiculturalism, I believe that we should keep our public schools a neutral ground, where everyone’s religion and culture is respected, but not taught or any one religion favoured."
How exactly is religion and culture respected when you plan to ban prayer, theism and religion in the public schools. And since you mentioned multiculturalism, you only give the impression that multiculturalism is opposed to religion and theism, which make it seem like a hateful enemy, which in turn may only motivate some people to oppose multiculturalism more.
My son goes to a smallish suburban public school in Sydney.
Every assembly they have to recite:
"Oh God our Heavenly Father
Thank you for the gifts of health and strength
For a good school and a happy home
Help us to do our best at all times
To speak honestly, to play fairly
And to be kind and thoughtful in all our actions.
Amen"
I find it frankly outrageous that this goes on. There are children from different faiths that attend and children from atheist families, although small majority are christian and catholic. But most of all, forcing the concepts of God and praying onto young children in a secular school is wrong. It is indoctrination.
You find that outrageous, others may find you outrageous for opposing prayer and religion in school when other people find it ok or not an issue.
Not really outrageous, the 'God' isn't specified and could be any. A prayer is a prayer, the order of words or what language they're in, is irrelevant when they all say the same thing. An atheist child is obviously smart enough to appreciate any learning experience like this and anyone who doesn't want to prey, doesn't have to. There's no indoctrination, they are capable of thinking for themselves, open them up to the world and let them choose rather than restricting them to whatever brainwashing you've got going on that is so threatened by other ideas.
Look up the word secular, and try again.