Yea, I asked some friends of mine back home in SC who have elementary-school children, and they said their kids’ schools don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about Hannukah, either. It’s pretty Christian- and Christmas-centric.
I think CitizenPained means “All schools that I know about from personal experience,” rather than “all schools in America,” since the latter is clearly untrue.
Well that’s even worse.
Since there’s no national curriculum, that’s more of what I was thinking. But I am actually very surprised if it’s not widespread - but maybe it’s just an urban thing. It seems to be everywhere - Scholastic, bookstores, teaching websites. I don’t know about TV because I don’t use mine. The Denver/Metro districts are perhaps more likely to teach this. When I asked my ex in Texas, he said the school district was having a “Christmas/Kwanzaa” music show, but DFW district next door was the one that banned Santa - though I never meant those two had to occur at the same time.
It is definitely the trend at the teaching college I went to - the one you teach at, I believe. University, not the School of Ed.
Don’t you think Christmas songs that talk about the miracle of Jesus’s birth fall into a different category than “Jingle Bells” and “Winter Wonderland”? I do.
When I was a kid, my chorus sang a song with the following lyrics: “Hanukkah! Holiday! Festival of lights! Candles burning, brightly burning, on a winter night!” Nothing in this song focuses on the religious, mythic aspect behind the holiday, but just the event itself. So I wouldn’t say we were celebrating the holiday, no. We were singing about it. (Yes, I know I sound like a pedant. But that’s just how I roll.)
FWIW, I wouldn’t want my imaginary kids singing a religious Christmas song in school either. I was raised a Christian and celebrate Christmas, but I wouldn’t like it (my agnosticism doesn’t have anything to do with this). However, if my kid was serious about the singing thing, I would expect them to have to belt out Handel’s “Messiah”. We performed this in my high school (orchestra + chorus), and IMHO, it’s like reading classic literature in English class. You may not agree with the content, but you just gotta do it.
Not in Seattle.
I think the generalization of Kwanzaa being taught “everywhere” is definitely overblown. Just to check I asked around my family and friends. My nieces in Atlanta (mostly black school) do not learn about Kwanzaa in class, my niece in central New Jersey does (mostly white private school) but the corresponding public school district (where my friend teaches music) does not teach Kwanzaa district wide. Personally, I attended first grade at a predominantly black school in the early 90s that did not teach Kwanzaa at all. I had my first school experience with Kwanzaa in 5th grade in a mostly white district. Same state as the first but the suburban district was the only one that brought up Kwanzaa. My experience has shown that whether or not Kwanzaa is taught seems to depend mostly on the teachers.
In 5th grade, I think the only person who was disappointed by the lesson was our teacher. After going through the lesson, which was very informative, she turned to me and asked if I celebrated Kwanzaa. I told her that my family did not but I knew a few black people who did. If I lived in another part of the country (i.e. not the New York metro area) I might have said “none at all”. As it was I really only knew three people and I still do not think they celebrate all 7 days.
CitizenPained, I understand parts of your OP but over the course of the thread you have lost me a bit. Primarily, my issues are with your feeling that the teacher taught the holiday incorrectly. I understand your issues with the timing and the unit but if the holiday is in December, why teach it with civil rights in February? Before anyone gets upset, remember that before you move from Social Studies to History, teachers often use time of year to teach various subjects. If this was middle school and your son came home thinking that we all celebrated Kwanzaa I would be right there with you.
When I learned about Chanukah in first grade, it seemed like a pretty big deal to me. Imagine my surprise when I moved to a district with a significant Jewish population (40-45%) and we had Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah off and our spring break lined up with Passover instead of Easter Monday. I was trying to figure out where my extra eight days off were because of the importance that appeared to be given to Chanukah. My first grade teacher taught us Chanukah in relation to Christmas because that is what most of us were familiar with. Aside from exaggerating the importance, no harm no foul really. I learned a lot about the holiday but I never had the misconception that it was “Christmas for Jewish people”. As soon as my exposure changed, I learned that there were more important holidays on the calendar. If you were wondering, Kwanzaa, as I learned it in school, was introduced as “the black people” festival of lights.
I understand that Kwanzaa has next to zero celebrants where you live, but there are other parts of the country where it seems to have a stronger foothold in the black community. If that means it’s not worth teaching in your eyes, so be it. I had no idea that people actually celebrated Juneteenth officially until I moved to Texas. I had never met anyone who celebrated it and did not think it was a big deal outside of history text footnotes. Apparently, some people actually get the day off. My black friends in New Jersey may not have any idea what Juneteenth is or that people actually celebrate it, but that does not mean it is not a big deal for some people.