Yes, I’ve seen that. I really meant…at home - away from school grounds. Organized prayer at school is archaic. But then again, we are the most religious western country.
Yes, I’ve seen that. I really meant…at home - away from school grounds.
Sort of like eating breakfast at home? Or maybe learning how to put on a condom at home? Maybe even getting birth control devices at home or the local convenience store?
It seems we may agree.
Sexually transmitted diseases are a public health issue. Pretty sure religion isn’t.
WHOA - teach kids how to use condoms or where to get birth control…now now now…I’m not that progressive. No, let’s keep up that abstinence education they’re doing in some schools ; ).
Let me clarify. Pray at school all you want. Whenever you want. Most won’t know what you’re doing anyway. Organized moment of silence = archaic.
Your point?
Every single vaccine required by every single public school must be obtained outside of the school environment. Those vaccines are a much more significant public health issue yet the school does nothing to assist in obtaining them.
Your point?
Every single vaccine required by every single public school must be obtained outside of the school environment. Those vaccines are a much more significant public health issue yet the school does nothing to assist in obtaining them.
But, the school mandates that you have them done in order to attend, right?
Let me clarify. Pray at school all you want. Whenever you want. Most won’t know what you’re doing anyway. Organized moment of silence = archaic.
How about allowing breaks for whatever students want to pray. Time of day changes some for Muslims, so the break times would need to float.
Perhaps these students can pray BEFORE school. Anyone thought of that? Or does God only listen during school hours?
God listens anytime and since he is a super being, you can actually pray to him telepathically in your head.
What Christians really want is the legal right to force you to participate in their prayers whether you want to or not.
What Christians really want is the legal right to force you to participate in their prayers whether you want to or not.
Is that what the moment of silence is? C’mon even sister Mary Elephant struggled to get her class a moment of silence.
**Exactly why do students need a moment of silence? And why would the state attempts to force them into one? Seems like communism or fascism to me, certainly not freedom. **
An examle of well-meaning adults that simply don;t understand the behavior of children.
The stated idea was one of giving students the chance to settle down, focus, meditate, think about something they need to work out (self-control, not shouting out, staying in their seat, not interrupting, etc), prayer, etc.
The reality is that it provides a great opportunity for kids to get into trouble because kids don;t meditate, settle down, or focus like adults do.
A muchbetter option is what many schools/classrooms have started to do and that is exercises like “brain gyms”, where students do coordination exercises, stretching, light yoga, perhaps even some tai chi type movements, that do get the vblood flowing and the brain working (focused). It also gives hyper kids a chance to burn just enough energy to “take the edge off”.
Simply put kids don;t meditate, focus, or pray like adults do … or adults think kids do. A little exericse, brain gyms, light yoga, etc is a great way for kids to start the day and to refocus after lunch. This is actually a very interesting and good practice.
It was a well-ment idea,perhaps with some influence from Eastern cultures, but just doesn’t/didn;t translate well in practice. A little exericse and/or sustained silent reading (or even read a-louds with a parnter) is a much better alternative.
The leap/assumption that it is solely for prayer is willful. Any teacher that suggested or worse (by legal standards) led students in prayer would be committing career-suicide. Prayer is definately a possibility, but a quick observation of a classoom during a “moment of silence” would not support the assumptions being expressed in this thread. FWIW, when I was teaching HS we had the MOS, and it’s not as effective or purposeful as adults might think. At the elementary level it can be downright disastrous (i.e., lots of kids starting off the day in trouble and/or on the wrong foot, so to speak).
Sometimes those adults that are not in classrooms daily, should ask teachers for some input before requiring such things.
Yes, you must have your vaccines before you attend. When kids start spreading sexually transmitted diseases in class, in the lunch room and during recess such that it becomes a public health concern, then I will consider whether sexual education prior to attendance or during attendance at a compulsory institution is appropriate.
Unfortunately kids don’t always have to have their vaccines before they attend. For example, in our district a kid can attend if the have a scheduled appointment for vaccines … and sometimes those appointments are weeks away … and often the parent misses those appointments, and reschedules one further away “to stay in compliance”, and the real result is that the kid attends school for a month or more w/o vaccines … only to be suspended until they do their vaccines … which can take a month to get (it could take a day or so if parents were willing to get their kids to the doc). Then the kid returns a couple of weeks (or more) from being excluded and loses much of the learned information from before the exclusion. Kids that are excluded for more than 10 days are often required to “re-register”, which just adds to the delay as parents often are not expidient in coming into the school to re-register.
If districts were serious about the health concerns, and weren’t so enabling to procrastinating parents, they’d require vaccinations before attending. This get complicated when dealing with non-English speaking parents who normally require a translator as a go between, and it occupies a lot of office time.
The head lice issue is another one, but is generally not a “health issue” but more of a “social stigma”.
I was also shocked at the number of parents that register their kids a week late (or more) because they “didn’t know school was starting yet”, despite all of the signs around town, radio messages, info on TV, etc.
Take the money spent on sex education classes and other bogus social initiatives and spend it on a vaccine clinic the first day of school.
I don’t think it is, at all, unreasonable to have the responsibility of vaccination lie squarely on the parents’ shoulders.
I do think it is unreasonable to expect schools to contact, schedule, and monitor a vaccination clinic in the school, as well as, ensure that schools have the insurance/liability measures to host/operate such an event.
Schools, IMO, are far more enabling, and less and less “education focused” as it is. It is way past time for schools to be less concerned with “child care” and more concerned with education.
School offices spend far too much time calling, reminding, notifying parents about vaccines, absences, truancy, etc. We are required by law to contact each home of an absent student to discover why the child is not in attendance. Not only is waking up and getting your kid to school a hassle, but now is calling in to school to say that the child won’t be attending that day. Given the reality that no one is awake at home when school starts, the office routinely has to make multiple calls to the same residence.
Granted, this occurs is a small % of the households, but as the saying goes “10% of the people, 90% of the attention” (replace attention with discipline, office time, etc and it still seems to hold true).
I agree. We got off on this tangent because someone suggested that prayer is something that should be done at home (I agree) and not formally provided for at school. I then attempted to use that point to establish why sex education should also be something conducted at home. To which someone replied that STDs were a public health concern, implying that sex education was the proper province of the public school system. To which I replied that if the public school system were the proper province to ensure the public health, their time and money would be better spent on vaccination programs. And so we find ourselves entirely off topic and not surprisingly in agreement that parents and not schools should be responsible for their kids.
Teaching sex education to pre-teens and teens is, to me, as borderline as teaching them how to consume alcohol responsibly. What happened to parents having “the talk” with their kids? (or even having some knowledge as to what their kids are doing).
Furthermore, I would suggest that kids that are having unprotected sex are not doing so due to a lack of knowledge, but a lack of preparation/forward-thinking and/or due to having sex without their parent’s knowledge (sneaking around), or they just don’t want to wear one, or the opportunity to “get laid” presents itself, and choosing “not to” is simply not an option (in their minds). I think all teens understand what causes pregnancy, and despite my joke … the cause of pregnancy is not “Homecoming”. grin
I doubt there are many teens that do not know about condoms, and they certainly don’t require a diploma to “administer”. I would propose that putting a sock on your foot is trickier than putting on a condom.
I do, however, think that learning about STDs as part of a general health course is acceptable, but IMO it puts schools into an unwanted position of making commentary on teen sex that it likely has no business making.