SALEM, Mass. , June 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Satanic Temple (TST) has announced its second annual "Devil's Advocate Scholarship Award". The scholarship is open to elementary, middle, high school, and secondary education students.
To apply for TST's scholarship, students must answer a prompt that corresponds to their education level. Elementary school students (K-5) are asked: "What do you hate most about school?" Middle and high school students (6-12) are asked: "What creative or constructive things would you have accomplished if you had not been forced to go to school?" 2021 high school graduates and/or individuals pursuing higher education are asked: "How did compulsory schooling inhibit you from achieving your potential?" Applicants may respond in whatever way best expresses their message, whether that be an essay, poem, film, art project, or another creative medium. TST will be awarding a scholarship of $666 to the best entry for each prompt.
TST supports education but believes the existing public school model is authoritarian, ineffective, and inflicts grave harm on students. TST insists that there are better approaches. TST co-founder Malcolm Jarry explains, "The pursuit of knowledge and the protection of bodily autonomy constitute essential components of TST's mission. The compulsory school system violates students' fundamental civil rights, ingrains obedience to unearned authority, and tramples on childrens' freedom and bodily autonomy. Compulsory schooling's complicity in the high suicide rate among teens, as well as the high incidence of anxiety, depression, and neurosis, are well documented but commonly dismissed. School's inability to effectively impart literacy is well known but is perversely used as a call for more funding instead of serving as evidence that the institution's design is flawed. TST's opposition to tyrannical constructs is foundational to our organization, and our scholarship asks students to explain how the institution of compulsory schooling has hindered their potential."
Last year students were asked to answer either of the following prompts: "What initiatives have you undertaken that are consistent with TST's tenets and mission?" or "Please discuss and describe in detail any one of the teachers who crushed your spirit, undermined your self-confidence, and made you hate every minute you were forced to be in school." Jarry says, "The submissions from last year's scholarship were gut-wrenchingly horrific. Nearly every student expressed a severe degree of physical, psychological, and emotional trauma inflicted upon them by authority figures at their school. It is shameful what compulsory schooling does to crush a child's spirit." To view the winning submissions from the 2020 scholarship, visit this webpage .
One does not need to be a member of TST to apply for this scholarship. Applicants will only be judged on how their submission best exemplifies TST's mission. TST is offering its scholarship to students in school districts across the world alongside other religious scholarships. Applications will be accepted from July 14, 2021 , to July 30, 2021 . The winners will be announced in mid-August, and their works will be displayed on TST's website as expressions of freedom and integrity. To apply, visit www.thesatanictemple.com/scholarship .
About The Satanic Temple
The Satanic Temple, subject of the critically-acclaimed documentary, Hail Satan?, and the academic analysis, Speak of the Devil , confronts religious discrimination to secure the separation of church and state and defend the Constitutional rights of its members. In response to Oklahoma and Arkansas placing a Ten Commandments statue on Capitol grounds, TST offered its bronze Baphomet statue to stand alongside the Christian monuments. TST hosts the "After School Satan" club to counter the Evangelical "Good News Clubs" in public schools across the country to promote a plurality of religious viewpoints. The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits for the individual will. For more information about The Satanic Temple, visit https://thesatanictemple.com/ .
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SOURCE The Satanic Temple