Let's pray. This goes okay with a very unrebellious student Infidel, telling us
all about prayer in the UK in a world where prayer seems to be answered
with a firm no. Mikaela's Community School stands TAUS a beacon of discipline and
order, much to the chagrin of one student who, despite her fervent prayers
for divine intervention, the High Court is upheld the school's ban on rituals,
citing its commitment to maintaining discipline and order. While she may see it as
a divine injustice, it does underscore the ongoing debate about the role of religion
and UK education and the ectonomy of schools set to their own policies. Who
needs prayer when you have the guiding principles steering the way? And this story
is brought by The Guardian by Sally Wheel April sixteenth, twenty twenty four.
But in all serious I have to say that the student knew what they were
getting into. The parents were precursively warned of what was going to happen and
what to expect. They have very strict guidelines for not just prayer. It's
not like they're being singled out. But I will have to say that.
I'm glad to hear that the student is not going to leave the school over
this, because I do think this does present a good educational opportunity for them.
Whether I agree with the school's methods or not, that would be something
a little different I'm not going to go into. But that's basically what's going
on here. The student said hey, I want to pray, students started
doing so, and the ultimate the school said no, and now courts,
the courts themselves as sided with the school itself saying no. This is divisive
and will not breed the type of environment you want to say. I hear
you say that, but Emma and I were both British. Here we will.
Emma will understand what I'm about to say. Here To hear religion band
in a school in the UK is absurd when you have religious and faith based
schools up and down the UK thanks to the good old Judge of England,
the Roman Catholic Church, et cetera. Everywhere you turn, and you have
parents up and down the UK doing what's the word I'm looking for. It's
not church, but they do church by Oh look, I'm going to church
just so I can get my kid into school. I can't think of the
correct term for that, but to hear that a judge's gone. Now religion
is not allowed in school for Britain quite happily up and down goes yeah right.
We could do religion anywhere you like, in any school you like.
It just seems a bit hang on a minute, which is all a bit
odd. You know what I'm want about, don't you? Ever? When
you've got like the c OFV School around the corner, the Roman Catholic school
around the corner, and you've got a presentation Catholicism and presentation Anglicanism where people
do rock up on a Sunday and go, yeah, the guy got I
go to church? Yeah, Yeah, I'm good. I'm a good Christian.
Yeah, my kid going to this lovely school. Yeah. And it
does seem to be all a bit around the whacker do here because case the
strictest headmaster, the strictest head mistress in the UK. I mean, good
grief, what is eineteen fifties we'll be going back to the TV show that
will teach you with Srvore. I mean, did they have the sixteenth rule
as well? They've got the rule of four where you can't have more than
four together. And I mean seriously, I mean, was it like that
when you were a school because it weren't like that when I was at school
and I did go to a religious school. Was it like that for you?
And did you go to a school that was, you know, the
strictest school in England? Well, I went to a Church of England school,
which girl school as well. I went to a school as well,
I think most of us did. And I would say the Church of England
schools is a pretty much performative religion because we had a statue of Jesus on
the front of the school and that was sort of as far as it was
in the school grounds. Oh we didn't. We didn't have anything like that.
Now I did. It does feel a bit. I just kind of
feel like and I think part of my bias is that I am a skeptical
and atheist and I find the concept of asking your faith adherence to pray five
times a day because it was originally supposed to be fifty. I find that
all to be a little bit absurd anyway, And I do kind of just
think that because there are alternatives, like either go to a school that's got
a million insane rules, or you go to a different school where you don't
have to have those rules. Choice to prayer at the right Hobson's choice though.
You're doing Hobson's choice there though, because the child doesn't have a choice
as to which school they go to. The parent chooses for the child.
So that's a Hobson's choice, And I found that to be quite galling in
the I'm a judge guy, so which belies the fact that the child didn't
choose to go to this school. Oh yeah, And I'm that's part of
what makes me more a lot more sympathetic to the story, because you know,
this is a kid who your school is your life, and you've got
your friends there and blah blah blah, And ultimately it is, in my
opinion, a parent being picky. But I still all, don't I still
kind of think that this is fine. That if it's going to be a
stuffy school in a million other ways, then I guess it can be stuffy
in this way, and the parents chose to send them to a stuffy school,
and then politicians, of course it's going to be a stuffy school.
I mean exactly did she sella bravaman was on the first board of governors.
I mean, you've got Kenny bad and not going and sticking her fingers in
the pie, and you've got Rishis sooner go oh, it's just like,
why are you sticking your fingers in this pie? Oh? Wait, you're
good friends with the headmistress here. It was just sing it's a bit a
bit weird, but heaven. What was it like when you were going to
school? And what's it like in America where they have no religion in school
and they keep fighting over it in court? Well, fun fact, I
went to Calva School when I was going, Oh you're a post girl,
you're one of those Did you go to a religious school? Did you go
to a religious school? You see? But so so the difference is though
that like even still like we would have services, but they were completely like
if like it was Easter, we would have We always had good Friday off,
but we would have a service Thursday towards the end of the day.
You had to go to regular classes all day and then if there was a
service, it would either be first thing in the morning or the last thing
in the day. It wasn't not to interrupt the flow of the school days
too much. And also like this, one of the benefits of going to
Catholic school is that a lot of the religious stuff is kept separate. So
like we would have religion class and science class because they were considered two separate
subjects, you know classes in Boma, Well we did not, Yeah,
we don't know. I have creationism classes. That's why I find the whole
ye see thing like fucking weird. So because I didn't grow up with that,
you know. So, But what I found really interesting about this when
I was reading through this story, I was like, oh, I'm curious,
and so like in American schools, like you can you can pray in
school. You can like if you like, if you're having lunch and you
say grace over a meal, you can't. You are allowed to read whatever
religious texts you want to. You can carry a Koran, a Bible,
you know, the Toro, you know, the Vedas, whatever, like,
whatever religion you follow and there's religious texts that is important to you,
you can carry it with you and practice your faith as long as it doesn't
disrupt other students. And there's no proclamation from the staff of any so like
staff can't you know, actively pray, you know, with the students,
you know, but they're they're not even prevented like they can. If they
themselves can want to pray over their meals and take time for meditation and prayer
throughout the day, they can, but again, it cannot interrupt the flow
of the school day. So when I was reading this, I was like,
this sounds like the same thing we do in the United States, Like
you can practice your religion, but it can't be to an extreme where it's
interrupting the whole school day. And if you have to pray to Mecca five
times a day at certain times during the day, but you're supposed to be
like an English class, you can't play in Mecca in the middle of English
class because that's because Yeah, so, Intel, you're the only one out
of the three of us here who didn't go to a religious school. You
just said, so, how do you see this case as somebody who did
not go to a religious school. I think first that I probably see it
colored from the perspective of someone who's fighting the influx of Christianity here in our
own schools, even in the public sector, So that probably colors my perspective
quite strongly bias against religion in general. I would school in a public school.
I did my best to absolutely hide any connection I had with religion because
being raised in a very small minority faith in a very Catholic city, I
wanted to have nothing to do with the way I was raised as far as
in public because I wasn't living that, so why take on that responsibility.
So for me, the idea of wanting to bring your religion to school and
wrap yourself into it like a cocoon seems odd in the first place, but
I get it because that's what these people are learning day in and day out
on how to be a good person, whether that's for Islam or Christianity or
whatever. And I do think that in the UK there tends to be a
more sanitized view of Christianity than hearsay in Texas. King Charles is the head
of the Church of England. You've got the Archbishop of Canterbury, You've got
faith schools up and down the country. You've got the establishment of religious schools
from Hamy the eighth when he stole the kasako off the pipemint. I'll be
wearing that, not you, mate, and the school had a cool statue,
so you know, unfortunately in our world, that's not what being a
Christian or a non circular organization is. So for me, I look at
it and the one thing that I will say is the school is probably not
exactly the type of place for free thought, but I am glad to see
that they are having the right to say, let's not bring in bad ideas
and let's not share our bad ideas among each other, because that's really all
religion does bring to the team. So just a bit of background on here.
So the judge said that there was indirect discrimination here against the Muslim students,
but that was not overridden in the application of the Equality Act to promote
legitimate aim, which as it regular views you will know as a legally trained
person in the English legal system. I'm going to go on a bit of
a legal ranked here. So the Equality Act has nine protected characteristic to one
of those is your religion or belief, which was what was being used here
to try to allow them as in students to pray at school. The school
said no, and they said that this is not allowed because we are furthering
a legitimate aim here which allows us not to be required to allow you to
do that. They said, hang on a minute, I want to pray,
I'm required to pray five times a day, and the judge went,
yeah, there was discrimination, but the legitimate aim came first, and the
legitimate aim that the school successfully argued was the maintenance of an inclusive and productive
educational environment, which for a free school is quite a big thing. And
in the UK of free school is a school which is autonomous from government but
still funded by the government, so it has an independent board of governors,
is independent from the local educational authority, reports to erectary Department of Education,
and is ultimately able to set its own rules, catchment areas, et cetera,
which is why a conservative politician was on the board of governors and is
very pally with other conservative politicians, whereas any other school you'd go, hang
on a minute, what's going on here. So that's a bit of the
background here. But I am, as a legal person, a bit confused
by the judgment here, and I think that an appeal could potentially be successful
here because it is a matter of degrees here. What is this educational environment
that we're trying to promote here, and could it be argued that the spiritual
health of the person is part of the educational environment as well, and as
where a skeptical organization here and the four of us are very skeptical people,
do we believe that spiritual health, as was put forwards, as one of
the things forward here, is something that we should be looking at. Emma,
Well, again, I'm sort of I'm inherently biased, as you've just
pointed out, and I have long been an advocate for raising children secular.
I think that's the better way to you know, it's not my way or
the highway, but I personally think that's the better way to raise a child.
And it just kind of comes down to what Helen was saying about what
the US law is, which is does it interrupt the flow of education potentially?
And you know, if it's disrupting classes for one student, does that
one student's potential spiritual health? Which is an incredibly difficult thing to try and
gauge or measure does that how much do you weigh that against potential disruption?
And I don't think I know enough about to be honest, I don't think
I know enough about the Muslim faith and Muslim prayer because as I understand it.
You don't because she's staying at the school as well, this student,
and as I understand it, you don't. There are ways to make up
prayer if you don't have those prayer time. And again, it does seem
like that because there are alternatives. To me, just you know, I
think Infidel was explaining to me that there is something what it was called?
What was the word that you used to describe make up prayers or some thing?
Is you used a very specual world? What was that word you used?
Or you know. The problem is is I use it and typing and
I didn't bother seeing how tone you know? So yeah, they but there
is an official term for and designated for people in exactly these situations. So
the fact that you want to build it as a situation of oh my god,
it's the end of the world, No, it's it's not. They
can do it without having a scene of thirty people laying their blazers out to
kneel on in public when you're not even supposed to have I think that that's
just a fact clothing as well, because blazers are actually quite a nice bit
of kit. I mean, if you're if you're gonna start kneel in a
place. You're gonna get grass things on it, You're gonna wear away the
back. I mean, just think about it. Please, don't sure your
nice clothing has got better, because if I was to say, em,
knee high socks and a gingham dress, she had probably cringe at me.
The straw boaters are going with that. My school uniform was purple, bright
purple. To think about it, mine was black with purple trim. That's
nice. I went to account the school that did not have a school uniform.
Why I got to wear pants? What kind of what kind of progressive
Catholicism were you? Braizy? But I don't want to ask this one question
of the panel. Do we think that it was right on the judge to
say, no, you may not pray at school? I'm sorry, what
was that? Do you think it was right in this case for the judge
to turn around to the students go nope, you may not pray. Oh
this is this is where my fickleness about freedom comes in because but at the
same time, like if you're given time throughout the day, like caught up
prayer, I think you were trying to stay infid that if you're allowed to
make those up throughout the day. Then I'm kind of like, well,
you're you still have it out. You still have the right to practice your
faith. So if the judge said, like, hey, you can do
it, but you can do it under these circumstances, then I don't understand
why people can't adapt to that standard. You know, because he was a
he like the parent chose to put him into the school system, you know,
And it was pointed out like, you have the freedom of choice,
you have the freedom of religion, which means that like if you wanted them
to go to a stricter, more religious school, you could have put them
into a stricter, more religious school. So I don't know, you can
throw it Ramadan fasting. Would you have required the student to eat something in
the daytime if they went to this school, or would you have said,
look, you have to eat something or you can't come to school. No.
I went on said that no, because I understand because that doesn't enter
up the school day, but it could do, because it could have a
physical education. Because because then because there's also really like Christian rituals where people
fast. So are we going to say that this is part of my religious
practice, but it's not disrupting anybody else. Then I'm not going to say
like, no, you have to eat something, you know. I think
that does raise the question here where do the standards lie? And I think
I think it's time to decide with you, the viewer, as to where
your standards lie or this story