Reflections on a week that shall remain numberless

When I first sat down to write this week's reflection all that I could manage was a blank page. With the hustle and bustle of parents weekend and the excitement of Halloween it was a little difficult to shift back into class mode. Luckily James suggested I read his blog "about Halloween", it served as a great bridge for my brain to come back to class and brought up some interesting information. Even though the article discussed was dealing with the banning of Halloween costumes in schools what immediately came to mind was the banning of religion in schools and the effect that this could potentially have on the minds of our nations youth.
When something is banned one would think of it as bad: explicit music, racy books, revealing clothing... these are all things that used to find their place at the top of a schools "no-no" list. Now look at what places at the top: weapons ( which of course have always been banned but did we see armed guards and metal detectors in schools in the 1950s?), Halloween costumes, and religion. Why does it frighten parents so much that another child dress up as a pirate for a 4th grade Halloween party? Why are people so offended if the words "under God" remain in the pledge of allegiance? Why are people so offended that they have to say the pledge of allegiance, should we not be loyal to our country and respect all those who died for us to have the freedoms we enjoy? I may not agree with our government, or with our wars, but I still respect the men and women who live and die defending us.
The ban on religion that is happening in our country's schools seems to go against the very ideal of religious freedom that this country was founded on. A child isn't allowed to pray in school....isn't allowed to pray, you work out the logic on that one. The refusal to say the pledge of allegiance just seems to further this abandonment of basic American beliefs. Then there is the spread of fear, hate, and bigotry. Before the desegregation of schools the separation of blacks from whites did nothing to stop the troubles between them, if anything it added steam to the idea. Why then do we find it so interesting that our children think every person they see of middle eastern decent is a terrorist. Any intelligent person knows that not all, or even most Muslims are terrorists out to destroy the US, but if children aren't allowed to learn about religion and are only fed the media's propaganda how will they ever come to learn this? In an attempt to make everyone "comfortable" more and more seemingly innocent things have become taboo. Yet at the same time the topics that were once off limits such as sex and drugs seem to be on the rise. A school is considered to be "ahead of its time" and "innovative" if they ban any form or mention of religion within its bubble of infuence, while they simultaneously tell their students to Go Ask Alice or read any other number of modern books with heavy themes of drug use, alcoholism, suicide and sexual promiscuity. This new trend of being so accepting that no one is allowed to express their views seems to be a breeding ground for widespread bigotry. Sure we will have a large population well versed in the terms of drug culture, but show a 3rd grader an image of Jesus and see how many even recognize him as any form of religious leader (not even a valid one , depending on their faith) and see how many can actually answer.