By MONROE ROARK
mroark@TheCitizenNews.com

So Virginia's law mandating a minute of silence in public schools has apparently passed U.S. Supreme Court muster. More accurately, the high court greeted efforts to repeal the statute with silence of its own, by refusing to hear the case.

The issue has been surrounded with the usual mumbo-jumbo about how civil liberties are threatened and students who may not believe in God could be permanently damaged by having to sit still next to someone who does for 60 seconds.

By now, anyone with a brain realizes that prayer in public schools is not illegal and never has been. To paraphrase one of the most cliched bumper stickers on American highways, look around next time a teacher passes a math test around the room and see if prayer is not still in vogue.

In today's society, which has done nothing if not strive to be as neutral and watered down as possible with regard to religious matters, a moment of silence seems like a perfect fit. Take 60 seconds and pray, or not, whatever you like. No one's going to hear you that's why they call it "silence."

How that puts any student in danger of undue pressure from other students or anyone else is beyond me. One thing school kids learn an a very early age is to disguise their behavior in class and get away with it. If students can pass notes and communicate in other ways without detection, you'd think they would be smart enough to bow their heads and pretend to pray, or take a nap, if they didn't want others knowing their nonbeliefs. (This tactic includes lying, which is something children have an innate ability for and need absolutely no training in school or anywhere else.)

Another thought about the concept of a moment of silence seems contradictory, from my point of view, to most of what is being turned out by public schools in this country today. Forget about religious connotations for a minute; try and get a group of students to sit still and be quiet for any reason.

You can't do it. You might get them quiet if they're holding the controls to a video game, but that's about it. Getting them to sit still and think on their own is another thing entirely.

Now, before you fire off that angry e-mail, there are obvious exceptions to this. I'm not talking about every single young person at every single school. I'm talking about our bored, drug-addicted (for every child who truly needs Ritalin, there are ten who don't but take it anyway), undisciplined masses with 20 years of MTV behind them.

When you hear people going on the offensive against MTV, they usually talk about it from a moral standpoint. Sure, it has its share of filth, but so do 50 other cable outlets. What MTV has done to its credit or its detriment, depending upon your point of view is influence every form of media, from a style perspective, since it was unveiled in 1981.

Here's an example. Search the TV Land listings and those of other cable channels and find a rerun of "Hill Street Blues," a ground-breaking series that has influenced a great deal of television drama right up until now. Tape it, then watch it right after seeing an episode of "ER." You'll have a hard time staying awake.

That has nothing to do with the quality of either show. It's all about the style. Nearly every scene of every present-day drama, on television or in movie theaters, is done in such a rapid-fire format that you rarely see a single scene last more than 45 seconds. And it's no secret that many of today's hottest directors got their start with music videos or commercials, all of which are geared to get the message across in a couple of minutes or less.

So we now have a generation with no attention span. You could spend several pages addressing other ways in which public schools are not renowned for turning out models of discipline these days, but there's not enough space here.

With all of the problems plaguing government-operated schools in the United States, from kindergarten through college, it's laughable that there is even a debate over whether it is detrimental to require students to sit quietly to contemplate their spiritual lives or just think about that upcoming term paper for 60 seconds.

Let's worry a little more about whether these young people are going to survive in a position that doesn't include a paper hat, a name tag or the phrase "Do you want fries with that?"

[Monroe Roark can be reached at mroark@TheCitizenNews.com.]

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