Defiant Heretic

I don't have a major problem with the moment of silence itself, but I'm worried about the precedent it sets. If you give 'em an inch...

gilly54

I'm sorry, but I'm sending my child to school to be taught, not to meditate. There's enough time to meditate or pray or nose-mine during the rest of the week. Isn't that what Sunday or bedtime prayers are for? Moments of silence that occur at special times, say for 9-11, or when a national hero/icon dies, followed by a discussion as to why we should show our respect are okay, but as a daily routine? NO!

Gilly

4th Generation Atheist

Therein lies the issue exactly for me. Atheists can use a "moment" to plan their day, think about the upcoming lessons, check their notes, remember their intended questions for later, and so on...no need for either prayer or the "mind silence" type of meditation (which while useful to relax and prepare for intellectual effort of any type, is unfortunately usually associated with some kind of spiritual belief). A "moment" like this means nothing in and of itself; indeed, a good school day should include many such "moments". The problem is that this one is intended as a gateway for prayer: if they can't turn this legal inch into a mile, Xns will at least try to spark discussion about what individual students do with their "moments" and then release their little fundiebot kids to do the dirty work of pressuring your little atheist to be a Xn. That's the same technique used in the "undergod" instance in the PoA.

lisarea

My objections to MOS aren't limited to religion issues. I'm also sick of these weird psychological movements in the public classrooms. I don't think that any sort of therapeutic or moral instruction should be happening by default or by compulsion in the public schools.

I don't have a gripe with specific, warranted availability of psychological counseling, necessary intervention for abuse cases, or even optional courses in squishy crap, but there's just too much self-esteem, character building, and stuff like that going on in the schools, and I don't want them wasting my kid's education time on it, and I don't want my tax dollars paying for this on such a grand scale. Technically, any kind of psychological instruction or counseling is required to be opt-IN, meaning that the childrens' parents must explicitly agree before their kids are subjected to it, but this rule is rarely applied, and when I waged war on the DARE program a few years back, even the regional director of the program had never heard of it. (Although I'll grant he was an idiot, and probably hadn't heard of such erudite topics as, say, "math" and "popsicles," either.)

But to me, a moment of silence is outside the purview of the public schools, particularly if it's mandatory. And if it's not mandatory, that means that my child can choose to sing "Turkey in the Straw" during said silence, thereby rendering it non-silent.

Of course, I would expect that moments of silence be enforced for academic purposes, but not for the simple purpose of assembling a bunch of slackjawed schoolchildren to gape silently at the backs of each others' heads.

Jamie_L

Good point. The MOS adds no value to the services the school provides to my child and the community at large.

Jamie

DarkDruid

A very conservative guy once told me his reason for hating the concept of a moment of silence. It was simple and beautiful.

"When I order a contracter over to remove a stump from my front yard, he doesn't stop and say, 'and now for a moment of silence before I go to work...'"

4th Generation Atheist

And if that contractor charges your friend for that time, the objection becomes a bit more serious---and of course, this is what is being done by the public school system via your taxes.

Sushi X

Ok, we all know what the MOS was intended to do, but it doesn't do that. That's my point! If the fundies got this far, I say let them keep the ground they've got and keep em back from now on. If we attack the MOS, it'll leave the door open for prayer, so let them revel in their own glory of making me (and all the other public schoolers out there) stay at least semi-silent for 30 seconds. Like I said, extra homework time

Alonzo Fyfe

I would agree that the "moment of silence" does not rank high on my priority list -- even though I recognize that it is merely code for "moment of prayer."

Except, I recall reading a story once (I do not remember the details) of two gradeschool boys in Mississippi who were beaten when the other students noticed that they did not pray during the "moment of silence."

It is quite possible to manipulate the "moment of silence" into a ritual whereby those who do not believe in God must still engage in some sort of deception -- pretending to pray -- in order to buy acceptance by their classmates and by their teacher.

Plus, the moment of silence presents an opportunity for the teacher to take mental notes on which students use the type praying and which do not. Prejudice is not always obvious, and there is a very real risk that the prejudiced teacher might view an essay by the student who prays as being of somewhat higher quality than the essay of the student who, she notices, does not pray.

I do not think that the practice is entirely innocent. And even if it has minimal effect in some classrooms, it will not have this same minimal effect in all. Somewhere out there the atheist child, or the child of an atheist parent, will be made to suffer as the consequence of the subtle but real signs that can easily be made a part of a perfectly legal "moment of silence."

Sushi X

Hold on, are you saying that the damn fundies are using this to get all of us Atheist kids bad grades?


There's gonna be a lot of F's this year.