>>>While individual students may not have been forced to actually recite the >Anybody here go to a public school that started the day with a prayer? Anybody remember how it worked?

All we said was the Pledge. No Lord's Prayer, no sign of the 10 Commandments, no prayer of any kind. I went to school in Chicago from '67-'76, and in North Carolina from '76-'80. Still no Lord's Prayer or 10 Commandments in the classrooms at Duke University (a Methodist university, though the Chapel has non-denominational services, and about 20% of the student body was non-Christian).

I do remember one of the kids at my elementary school, Sam, who was always missing the "fun stuff" (from a kid's perspective) because he was a Jehovah's Witness. But we had many different religions represented in the school, and, with the exception of Christmas events that always included Hanukah songs, and crafts for Easter, nowhere was there overt religion. The crafts were always things like Christmas trees, menorahs, dreidels, stockings, ornaments, reindeer, bunnies, chicks, and designs on eggs -- never any crosses or symbols with purely theological symbolism -- except menorahs. The only time songs were labelled was when they celebrated Jewish holidays, otherwise, they were just songs. And the holiday songs were usually, "Up on the Housetop," "Rudolph," "Jingle Bells," "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel," "March of the Tin Soldiers," and similar songs. I thought it odd that the schools didn't sing a lot of the songs that my Lutheran grandmother sang while she played the organ when we visited her house ("Silent Night," "What Child is This?" and similar).

Now, All District Chorus was different. Most of those songs were from hymnals. I enjoyed singing them, but never equated them with being in church and praying. We sang 'em to have fun and sound good (which could be debated...I wasn't from a large or talented district, I think!). Apparently, nobody complained...(about the seletion of music or our "talent").

- della