Prayer Time or Meditation Time in Schools

[Ron Burgundy]

skool sux i dont need no ejukashuns

[bobman0330]

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Teach me something or let me talk to my friends.

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Taking a moment of silence to clear your thoughts or reflect or visualize or whatever WAS teaching you something. You just had a poor teacher or weren't taking note.

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What I learned was that a moment of silence was the closest they could constitutionally come to an in-school prayer and they were willing to waste preciously needed teaching time to get that.

I don't know if you're serious about saying they had something to teach, but come on. How could you expect to teach people something meaningful about reflection by sitting them all down and requiring them to spend a specific, arbitrary period of time everyday reflecting. "Now you sit there and reflect, by God! Gain insight and perspective or it's off to the principal's office with you!" Do you realize that someone who goes through 13 years of public school education will lose almost an entire week of school to the moment of silence?

[Copernicus]

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for the non-religious among us, this seems kind of like a school enforced timeout.

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the non-religious cant benefit from a minute or two of thought and introspection?

[clowntable]

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Your idea seems like a good one. The point of my comment was really just that a free market of education would be much better at mirroring the preference of it's consumers then a centrally planned one. This probably would be a norm in schools today if schools were not centrally planned by the government, but today you would have to go through thousands of pages of bureaucratic paperwork to make sure it doesn't violate any laws or the constitution.

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Since this is the standard "the free market will solve it" phrase I'd like to hear exacly how.

How do you define the product to be had or not (two minutes of silence). Does the silence only exist if all people on the given area of land are silent (A) or is it sufficient to be silent yourself and introspect ignoring the rest (B)?

If B:
I will not argue but this is somewhat besides the point since the original situation discussed was of type A.

If A:
All is fine and the market will in deed regulate the problem. People who are not silent can be expelled by the owner of the property due to his right to discriminate on his property. This will likely lead to schools where all people prefer the "2 minutes of silence" and other, competing schools where people prefer for example to read aloud parts from "The Ethics of Liberty" for the first two minutes of school.

What now if two schools with those opposing ideologies are located next to each other and the "anti two minute school" decides to play recordings of given book loud enough so that the silence of the other school is disturbed in the two minutes?

Is the owner of the "anti two minute school" required to limit sound from flowing over to the other man's property or does he have the right to do whatever he pleases on his own property?

[samsonite2100]

I'm with BobMan on this. It is the educational system's responsibility to teach kids things, not to provide them with moments of spiritual contemplation. And it's not like students don't have plenty of chances to quietly reflect, should they so choose.

The other thing is that however non-denominational they try to make it, you know that the motivation behind it a desire to institute Christian school prayer. Not making a slippery-slope argument, just that knowing that turns me off to the idea even more.

[clowntable]

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And it's not like students don't have plenty of chances to quietly reflect, should they so choose.

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They can also learn at home if they so choose. Oh wait they cannot because then they will not be in school and this is an offense (given that they are of a certain age which is in itself absurd).

[samsonite2100]

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And it's not like students don't have plenty of chances to quietly reflect, should they so choose.

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They can also learn at home if they so choose. Oh wait they cannot because then they will not be in school and this is an offense (given that they are of a certain age which is in itself absurd).

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I don't get your point. Home-schooling is legal and furthermore, what does that have to do with whether "moments of silence" are a good idea?

[Kaj]

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Do you realize that someone who goes through 13 years of public school education will lose almost an entire week of school to the moment of silence?

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LOL. Silly outrageaments.

[LooseCaller]

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for the non-religious among us, this seems kind of like a school enforced timeout.

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the non-religious cant benefit from a minute or two of thought and introspection?

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as hm said earlier, there are plenty of opportunities for thought and introspection during the course of the school day. this just seems like a clear attempt to step around the no-school-prayer rule and i would argue that students would benefit a lot more from social interaction or guided instruction than enforced silence.

[ShakeZula06]

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Since this is the standard "the free market will solve it" phrase I'd like to hear exacly how.


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The propietors make calculations over what option makes the most money both long term and short term.
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How do you define the product to be had or not (two minutes of silence). Does the silence only exist if all people on the given area of land are silent (A) or is it sufficient to be silent yourself and introspect ignoring the rest (B)?

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I have no idea what you're asking here.
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If A:
All is fine and the market will in deed regulate the problem. People who are not silent can be expelled by the owner of the property due to his right to discriminate on his property. This will likely lead to schools where all people prefer the "2 minutes of silence" and other, competing schools where people prefer for example to read aloud parts from "The Ethics of Liberty" for the first two minutes of school.

What now if two schools with those opposing ideologies are located next to each other and the "anti two minute school" decides to play recordings of given book loud enough so that the silence of the other school is disturbed in the two minutes?

Is the owner of the "anti two minute school" required to limit sound from flowing over to the other man's property or does he have the right to do whatever he pleases on his own property?

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You're describing an externalities problem, which can be dealt with by social norms, coase theorum, and arbitration.