Freedom of Religion

The issue of freedom of religion can and does extend to schools of all kinds, unlike some cases of freedom of speech. I recently read an article about the issue of freedom of religion and how it should be portrayed in schools. Some schools believe in the "moment of silence," which in fact was done for a couple of weeks at my high school. The problem with this is that a "moment of silence" on a daily basis can imply an integration of religious "slient prayer," even if that message was not originally intended. The way I see it, this "moment of silence" can essentially "disrupt the learning process" in schools if it is done every day, and forces students and teachers to pray, whether they believe in the same things or not. The problem that I immediately see with "moment of silence" is the objection by the minority of students and teachers in a single school who are athiest, and don't believe in any sort of prayer whatsoever. The question that should be asked by them, is why there would be a need for such silence every day. If someone doesn't believe in praying to a figure that a single person does not see fit to looking up to, how would they react to such slience? And what about people who don't want to share their religion with others? Do they hide it by pretending to pray? Perhaps prayer in a school setting is only a neusence,and just gets in the way of education. If that were to be
Another aspect with freedom of religion, is how it is expressed in schools.The article I read from http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/rel_liberty/publicschools/topic.aspx?topic=school_prayer said that the U.S. Deparment of Education made a statment in 2000 which said,

"Students may express their beliefs about religion in the form of homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free of discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. Such home and classroom work should be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school.”

This statement means that students can express their own religious beliefs through certain forms of academic activities, but it cannot be in a discriminatory way. This is a very reasonable statement, because it does not restrict students from expressing their religious beliefs, and it prevents students from being judged based on their beliefs. The implication of how teachers should grade these adademic activites is vaguely stated, however, when it says, "Such home and classroom work should be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school," it specifies how it should be viewed by the viewers, but does not restirct whom should view it besides (the implied) educator. This can be good or bad, depending on how one may feel about expressing their relgious beliefs in a non-religious setting.