Blog Phase 7

"School Prayer." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 14 May 2009. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.2facts.com/article/i0100410>. 

This source is called, "Prayer In Schools" and it's what I feel could be my narrowed topic of separation of church and state.  This article was written in 2009 and was posted onto the "Facts On File: Issues & Controversies" Since then this information has not been updated.  The topic does require updated sources because of the on-going problem that this issue is.  But because of our very slow changing government, this article is still up to date with the current status of the issue.  this information does relate to my topic because it is targeting to the topic of prayer in schools and the different measures people have taken to try and solve this issue.  The intended audience is people who have an issue with this topic, and are looking for answers to help solve and compromise this issue.  I looked at other sources before finding this source, but the other sources were very outdated and did not relate too well with this issue.  I would be comfortable citing this source in my research paper.  I could not find a specific author's name when overviewing this article.  The website I found it on was "Facts On File News Service" in the "Issues and Controversies" section.  There is an email on the website.  The URL is a .com, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is an unreliable source.  This information is accurate to what I have already researched and from my previous knowledge about the topic.  There are no spelling, grammar, or typographical errors that I noticed.  The purpose of this information is to inform the readers of the steps that have been taken to solve the issue of prayer in schools.  

I found it to be very interesting that when asked, most Americans support prayer in schools.  We are forced to believe that there has to be a separation of church and state when in reality, this nation was founded on God.  Therefore, it is correct to say that the schools were also founded on God as well.  This is a nation “under God” however, we took the God part out of the equation so what are we left with?  I thought it was also very interesting that Americans believed that since the 1960’s this country has been going downhill with divorce and many other things, so maybe prayer in school would help stabilize and help build back the tradition values of responsibility and respect their children need to be reminded of again. 

An overview of this article is basically that there were many steps taken to try to solve the issue of prayer in schools.  Many people tried coming up with different ways and reasons why prayer should be allowed in schools; unfortunately, none of them worked to the exact degree they were hoping for.  The tried passing the “Silence” issue which would allow a moment of silence each day so the students could have an opportunity to pray if they would like to.  Although they do this today in public school, it is not taken seriously and is not the same because it is not a united togetherness within the classroom.  Some extremes even went to having their class vote on if they wanted to pray in school or not.  This is still obviously an issue today.