The Debate Heats Up/Library of Congress Artifact

I just read two different articles with the same theme. The themes were prayer in schools and the pledge of allegiance. In the first article, prayer in school is the focus. The discussion was based around, should there be prayer in school. There should be prayer in school because this will help to instill some type of stability back into the classroom and the school environment. Now, let me make one thing clear, if a child does not want to pray, they should not be forced to do so but prayer in school should not be an option. There should always be prayer in school. As an adult, I start and end my days with prayer because it makes me feel closer to God and it also helps to give me great perspective on my day. When I was in elementary school, there was prayer and we did not have violence in school as far as shootings, cursing out teachers, and threatening to blow up the school if we did not get what we wanted. There was also paddling when I was in school. None of these things no longer exist and in my personal opinion, it has made the school system lose something. When I taught briefly, I was appauled at the fact that children were allowed to say what they wanted to say without any repreccussions at all. Prayer is essential and should be in schools. The second article was in reference to a little boy by the name of Billy Gobetis in 1935 who refused to say the pledge of allegiance based upon his religion of being a Jehovah's Witness. He was 10 years old at the time. I'm not really sure how to address this because you do not want to force anyone to go against their religious beliefs. The prayer in school should be there but if a student does not pray the same prayers based upon their own personal religious beliefs, then they should not be forced to do so. The pledge of allegiance is important because you are ultimately pledging your allegiance to this country but it does say, "Under one nation, under one God." The decisions that were brought down by the courts were contradictory because in the first ruling with this case, they upheld that the child had to say the pledge of allegiance while in a case in 1943, they reversed the decision and stated that the child did not have to say the pledge of allegiance. Prayer in school and stating the pledge of allegiance are two totally different things that happen to have religious compliments. Prayer in school would hold much more of a liability than stating the pledge of allegiance because forcing a child to say a prayer would ultimately violate their first amendment right whereas most kids do not usually say the pledge of allegiance anyway, they mostly just stand there and look at the flag. These were two great articles both with strong, debatable content that cannot be summed up in a blog.