Is Public Prayer okay in School?

A prayer is a form of expression of one's beliefs. Prayer is the rights of the human. It is our right as
the follower of a religion. We can practice it at certain places like home, place of worship, and even
at schools. Basically, in a home, for religious family, parents always allow prayer in every situation.
Whether it is Christian, Islam, Buddhism, or others. This also happens in some schools. Some schools
allow prayer in school whether it is public prayer or individual. Besides, talk about school, there are
many arguments about prayer in school. One of the arguments say that school is not a place of
worship, it is not a right place to show religion practice. As stated by Nielsen (n.d) in Wood (2015),
“school is not a place for worship but for learning”. Although some people believe that prayer is the
responsibility of home and place of worship, but allowing prayer in school could give positive impact
in students' lives to express their beliefs and build their character, and also important in school
events.

Religion practice in this case prayer is the right of human being. Like as stated in Griffith (1987), that
to have and express religion, especially through prayer is the right of every human. Everywhere we
go, in church, home, or even in school, we can express our beliefs, as long as it is not an interference
to others, and as long as we do not insist them to do what we do. Besides, if public prayer is not
allowed in school, it might have a bad impact to students, because when students go from religious
environment at home to a school environment that is sanitized from all religious expression, they
may suffer the psychological (Griffith, 1987). Because they have to act differently at home and
school. For example, in a home, the student's parent may always teach them to always say a prayer
before and after eating or when they want to do something, but because prayer is not allowed in
school, as the result, he/she may face a dilemma or their mind and attitude could change over time.
After that, public prayer is applied in school because it has been part of school curriculum. According
to Wood (2015), religious studied belong to the curriculum as an object of academic. In Indonesia,
before class started, some of the schools’ apply public prayer. Besides that, there is also religion
class as a subject in schools',. The students will failed to be educated if the school cannot teach
about religion well, so the religious students' did not know the significance of their beliefs and
students who are not religious did not have any knowledge about the religious practice around them
(Ream, 2009). So, being taught about religion is really important where it also has a big role in
building students' character.

Allowing religion in school helps the student to build their characters. They can learn to be tolerant
of others. As stated in Novita (2015) and Raihani (2014), through prayer students can learn to
tolerate. In every school, there is more than one religion, which is Christian, Islam, Buddhism,
Catholic, and others. Because of that, since every student has a different religious background, in
activities through prayer, it will allow students to be tolerant in the diversity among them (Novita,
2015). For example, based on the result of research by Raihani (2014) in a high school in Kalimantan,
said that the student learns a lot about the religion through inter-religion friendship, and it helps in
building tolerance, and engagement among student and teacher. So, “if they success in appreciate
the diversity, they may able to accept race, class, gender and sexual orientation difference ” (Novita,
2015). Indonesia has multiculturalism. There are so many tribes in this country. But, not only in
Indonesia, another country also has multiculturalism, and everybody has different perspectives in
seeing differences. Some things that are good, or polite for us, might stand in a different perspective
in others. They might take it as a negative thing. So, allowing religion practice in school could help
them learn to accept differences and to get used in diversity. This could also help them if the
students went abroad.

The existence of prayer in school is also necessary, especially in ceremonies or school’s events. Like
as stated in Essex (1991), prayer is needed on the ceremonies events that are conducted by schools’.
One example of school ceremonies that need prayer is graduation. Graduation is one of those
important events in school. It is when students celebrate because they have passed the school year.
Usually, when graduation, the schools always allow prayer. Because prayer in graduation represents
a glory of student’s graduation.

To sum up, the writer believe that although some people believe that prayer is the respinsibility of
home and place of worship, but allowing prayer in school could give the pisitive impact, and the
existence of prayer in school is important in some ways. It allows the students to express their
religion. Besides prayer exist to full fill the curriculum or the rules that have been set by the
government. Prayer is the rights of human that cannot be deniable. Next, it helps in building
students character, it is important for the development of the students in appreciating and
respecting the diversity of religion in schools. Allowing public prayer in school is a form of helping
students in facing multiculturalism. From school, students learn to appreciate and tolerate the
diversity of religion in schools’ and prepare to face the diversity in society. And the last, it is
important as the important part of schools events as the form of gratitude.

Word Count: 946

Reference:

Essex, N. L. (1991). Is prayer at public school graduation ceremonies legal? Dwight schar college of
education, 20(1), 17-19.
Griffith, S. (1987). Prayer in public school. Public Affairs Quartely, 1(2), 97-109.

Novita, A. (2015). Addressing religious diversity in education in Indonesia. Journal of interdisciplinary

research in Education, 5, 109-119

Raihani, R. (2014). Creating a culture of religious tolerance in an Indonesian School. South east asia
research, 22(4), 541-560 http://doi.org/10.5367/sear.2014.0234

Ream, T. C. (2009). Teaching about religion in public school. Schools in a pluralist culture. Retrieved
from http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/86528.pdf

W ood, J. E. (2015). Legislating prayer in public school. Journal of Church and state, 2015-2013.