[Sheefeadalfuh]

i was going to say a prayer at the beginning of my math class the other day here in ghana, because it's not illegal and the students requested it. but here's why i decided not to (and wrote an inspirational, spiritual, but non-religious statement on the board instead). as soon as the word god is uttered, there is an unfortunate rift opened up between people. the most obvious division is between the moslem and christian concepts of god. it doesn't matter that they're both the one infinite creator because their paradigms don't see it that way. the potential for this rift to fill my classroom, or to have to explain that i'm not really a christian.. or any other dogmatic system for that matter... outweighed the potential good of uniting the class in prayer.

in my humble opinion, as long as it is mandatory for someone to be in school (public school system), it is incorrect for religion to be sermonized therein. it is an abridgement of free will of monumental proportions in my opinion. then again, the whole school system has that flavor to it already (aka: "preaching" science is not much better).

at the end of the day, the problem is not taking prayer out of schools. the problem is taking thinking and learning out of schools.

-charles