Before I begin, I’ll just say that I am attempting to become a paid member… just haven’t managed to get my mom to whip out the ol’ credit card for me. But she will, she likes the SD too.
I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but in my experiences I have found public school to be peppered with a particular religion - Christianity. I happen to be in a religious minority, so I guess that’s part of why it gets to me. But that’s far from what I want to know.
What I want to know is whether allowing religion into public school is acceptable as far as ethics and laws are concerned. There are at least two polar sides to this argument, and that is why I have posted it in the debate forum.
From my kindergarten year when the teacher sent me home with a note for refusing to sing a Christmas carol in class, to the rebuttal “they’re too religious” when I offered the novel idea of my high school’s art/poetry club selling a Hanukkah-themed treat, it’s been nothing but a mess of confusion. There was even a loophole the school used to put ornamentally decorated “holiday trees” into the school library. Then there’s St. Patrick’s day and Easter. Not as bad, but I mean… they’re religious holidays to the best of my knowledge.
Where do we draw the line at what’s considered religious, and what is considered acceptable for the school to do? Hanukkah is barely anything in Judaism, it only rose to its current semi-popularity to combat what Christmas has partly become, a commercial holiday. I don’t resent Christmas, I don’t resent Christians, I resent the people who just HAVE to rub it in your face. More experience - the two chumps who came into my English class wearing obviously Christmas-related headgear. Antlers with ornaments? Red and green elf hat? They got pretty sour as soon as I pointed out that they should be asking for charity money for the holiday, not holidays. They were only representing a single holiday though, and never tried to bring up evidence that they had any others being represented. It’s all a matter of political correctness, and it is somewhat offensive when they do that kind of thing, to me.
I was under the impression that as a government institute, the schools should not be partaking in anything remotely religious. Fellow Teeming Millions, please clarify the situation… if it can be
Theoretically they shouldn’t–but if 90% of everyone wants to go about being silly and having fun in the same way at the same time, I see no reason to stop it so long as it isn’t physically or mentally damaging to any party.
Now, if they try to force someone to participate in things that are overtly religious that the individual would object to, then I would find that bad. (Personally I just wouldn’t say “under God” when we said the Pledge of Allegiance.) But if you choose not to join in in being silly and having fun because the source of the play has historical roots in religion, I would view that more as a case of your being irrational than the government being bad.
As an(other) atheist, I think some leeway should be allowed for “secular religious” holidays, as well. My kindergardener is currently in the midst of various Easter-related classroom activities, such as building baskets and drawing eggs to color. There are no religious messages being conveyed; as far as he’s concerned, it’s just one of those fun holidays people play with, like Halloween and St. Patrick’s day. And if and when he wants to ask him about it, I’ll just teach him the true context of Easter, as a spring festival from our pals the druids.
I suspect the OP would consider this to be another example of “letting religion into the schools,” a view I’d disagree with.
Most of the things people think of when you mention a “major christian holiday” are the symbols and rites lifted from the pagan holidays that occured around the same time… they don’t really have much of anything to do with christianity.
Very little of what shows up in schools in regards to the winter soltice (I.E. christmas), the spring equinox and/or the first fullmoon thereafter (I.E. easter), St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. has anything to do with christian mythology… beyond that it’s co-opted the trappings of the pagans.
Elves, red-and-green, reindeer, erc. have nothing to do with christianity. Santa Claus in his current conception is the result of a Coca-Cola advertising campaign. I just can’t get a good head of righteous indignation worked up over it.
Now… gimmie some of that Promise Keepers “Prayer at the Pole” crap… that I can get creative about.
Sometimes things that start out as “religious” can end up being almost “cultural.” Which is why I think that some things with religious origins are so often automatically included in public entities like schools, city government, public parks, etc. That may not be a good thing, mind you–it’s just easy for people to take such things for granted.
One might also see it as a sign of respect for the lifestyle/beliefs that people hold. Our school lunch program (when i was a child) served fish on Fridays during lent. It was clearly a nod to a religious tradition shared by only a portion of children in the school system, but it didn’t really hurt any of the rest of us to forgo hot dogs that day. Similarly, a nearby school system lets out for some major Muslim reiglous holidays, because a ton of the kids there are Muslim. Better to accommodate than to be inflexible, at least as long as you believe you are not harming children with different beliefs.
I probably align fairly closely with Sage Rats’s opinion. It can’t be easy for families who don’t share these beliefs and are troubled that schools are “reinforcing” them in some way with their practices. However, I think religious instruction and instilling a belief system lies with families. School practices that acknowledge other beliefs may make it a bit harder, but not impossible, surely. It sounds like your parents did a good job with you–you still know what you believe. Kudos to them. Some parents will let their child participate and just discuss it later, others will do like yours did and refuse. Either way works.
The intent of taking the pagan rituals into their own was in order to convert people, so… while some of it hurts no one, I just find that it increases a sense of singular-religion for kids, which is bad. They can do whatever they like outside of school in regards to religion, but in school, it should be religion neutral so that we can learn to like and accept differences without issues like this getting in the way. You see how I’ve turned out?
Santa Claus as far as the Coca-Cola ads go was a slow transition starting as a saint in Germany, I think. I’ll look it up. Funny how he’s “Santa” though - doesn’t that translate to the female word for saint in Spanish?
I heard about those prayer at the pole things going on at some schools. What’s your spin on it? I think it’s just an attention grab, as they could pray in their own homes with their families if so they chose.
I recently found out that Christmas was a national holiday here in the US of A. National… I just tend to feel that no matter what cultural aspects these things have, eventually someone who isn’t of that belief system will look toward the source of it and see the religious aspects. All the cultural parts of these holidays had to start with a religious reason. Holiday is how we currently say holy day. And the holiness factor goes up with the amount of religious association it has.
I’ve heard of Lent. It sounds rather like Yom Kippur. Heh, fish doesn’t agree with me at all, it just comes right back out. Looks different by then, mind you. But serving the fish is an interesting idea. Then again the kids can bring a bag lunch with some tuna salad. I mean, why trust the cafeteria food?
Too bad the schools can’t be that accomodating - we’d have breaks all over the place due to the lunar calendar affecting Jewish and Muslim holidays in addition to the others. There’s the thing. I would say that my experiences ended up either being or bordering on harmful. The latest things I will take the blame for bringing on myself out of my own insolence, but in grade school, it’s just not right to give kids a reason to split into groups based on religion. They need a chance to get to know each other without their (at that time) unwavering trust in their faiths obscuring anything. I know up until 2nd grade I couldn’t doubt any part of my religion, but ever since an incident involving it, I’ve found that any sort of true faith is something I just can’t achieve without youthful naivety.
I think when I got sent home with a note scolding me for refusing to sing a christmas song, my parents laughed. Lately my mom has been saying it’s a lost cause. I know that what I think is a barely-shared ideal. So why do people tell us we can do anything if we set our minds to it? Ah-heh.
I’ll pass on the message : P Yes I know of people who choose to simply let their children see it first. My parents didn’t brief me on what I was going to experience, and their only idea of what to do has been to put me in and out of Jewish private school (in 2nd, out 5th, in 7th, out 8th). I would’ve stayed in public school for middle school except for how astonishingly EVIL the people were there. Going off the subject, I’ll just say it had nothing to do with religion, simply ethics. The first suicide in the history of the middle school took place that year, in fact. Well, I’ll survive.
By their own rhetoric its the “thin end of the wedge”.
Basically, whenever I saw posters/fliers like this put up, I’d make up some of my own (Pay Hommage to Your Lord Satan! Bring Your Own Goat! See you at the Phallic Symbol!) and post them. If mine got taken down, I’d take down the other ones.
I never got up early enough to see what went on at these things, but apparently some of the self-decribed “goth kids” started actually showing up and doing rituals or one sort or another… either mockingly or seriously. In any event, the Children’s Crusade waxed wroth and verily did smite the evil doers… with the end result of getting the whole deal shut down for everybody.
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing. People “converted” for reasons of political expediency (I.E. because the King had an authentic conversion), but retained all the old holidays because they hadn’t really converted. It’s not a big evil propaganda plan of the Church reaching across the centuries. Not to say the church hasn’t had some concerted smear campaigns against the symbols of the old religions…
I’m not sure what sort of fixes you’re proposing for schools to be “religion neutral”, though.
I would argue that sending a child home with a note because that child believed that singing a particular song was violating his own religion–then that would be unlawful action on the part of the school. They have no right to force their beliefs on you. If they present you with something that they thought would just be entertaining and had no ulterior motives, then I see no issue. But trying to force someone to sing regardless when that person has a legitimate religious beef–which they have a constitutional right to have–then it is very very stupid of the school to do so as you could take them to court quite easily.
Nice, I’d love to see one of those posters! Unsurprising that the Pole People Union got shut down.
It always looks like only the way high up people in societies across the centuries converted for political reasons. Those lower down the scale were truly faithful to their beliefs - setting Catholics up for the Vatican and its hierarchy. There’s also the touchy concept of hell that was delicately picked out of the legends of Hades, the Greek underworld. I guess the pagans who converted the Christianity probably spotted their loophole… the Christians who attempted to convert them were so desperate that they would incorporate that which goes against the fundamentals of Christianity (the false god worship and monotheism laws), the pagan holidays, into their religion in order to get them over.
The pagans: hey, it’ll be like being pagan except these Jehovah’s Witnesses will stop knocking.
Yeah, the religion itself is based on peace, love, and the general fundamentals of good. HOWEVER, the leaders of a religion can twist it to their advantage. Christianity is a prime example of that, though lately we can see Muslim fundamentalism in the middle east, and 60 years back around the time of the creation of the state of Israel, a massive concentration of Jewish fundamentalism. Still today, just not all that outspoken.
Religion neutral in the sense that they only teach religion in history class when students can handle it. Middle school, the time they do it at anyhow.
The breaks we get at high school are called winter and spring break, but it’s just so annoying when the teachers refer to them as Christmas break and Easter break. In place of the holidays they celebrate in the schools currently, I envision simple things like Winter Week or Spring Week, or something. Just totally irrevelant cover ups that fit the time of year. The Christian kids will catch on fast to the timings, I’m sure, but at least it spares the people of other beliefs any obvious favoritism in holidays. Eventually the schools could ease out of the system and stick to Pajama Day and Superhero Day and other kiddy themed days scattered through the calendar.
Why would only the Christian kids catch onto the timing?
You said it’s supposed to be called the “Winter Holiday”, though the teachers lapse and call it the “Christmas Holiday”. Why wouldn’t you figure out that “Winter Week” was really “Christmas Holiday” and get some righteous indignation going?
The only really neutral way to do it would to revamp the curriculum and truancy laws to allows kids to take a certain amount of time off from school and let the days be scheduled whenever they wanted… no mandatory holidays. I think we both know that’s not going to happen any time soon.
I’d probably spread my days off around the year pretty evenly with little clusters around major solar events.
I think your annoyance threshold is set way too low.
Seriously, some religious holidays are so engrained in the culture that they are nearly impossible to remove. Schools and other public institutions have done the next best thing; they’ve removed anything remotely religious from the observance, other than the fact that the holiday is being observed at all. I think that’s all one could reasonably ask. You could ask that Christmas not be a national holiday, but it ain’t gonna happen in our lifetime. Or our children’s.
Like it or not, Christmas in the U.S. today is a hybrid holiday: part Christian, part secular. This annoys some Christians and some non-Christians. The Christians complain that their holiday has been commercialized, trivialized, and usurped. The OP is a good example of some of the non-Christians’ complaints. Then again, there are both Christians and non-Christians who are just fine with the whole thing.
Both sides’ complaints have some merit. And certainly, if you’re looking for something to be offended at, you won’t have far to look no matter which side you’re on. But compared to other religious-related persecution throughout the world and throughout history, stuff like this is pretty small potatoes.
Schools do need to be reasonable with holiday issues. I don’t care that they serve fish on Fridays all year 'round in the caf, becauce they have matzo over Passover and were really nice about getting me a boxed lunch on Yum Kippur. Other than for breaking up the year, giving time off around Christian holidays makes sense, as most people go to visit family for them. It would be ridiculous to teach to the few students that weren’t going somewhere, just like in mainly Jewish communities, they don’t have school on the High Holy Days. And to call St. Patrick’s or St. Valentine’s day a religious day isn’t quite right. St. Patty’s day is more of an Irish day than a Christian day. St. Valentine’s is owned throughly by Hallmark.
I’d just like to throw in that some school districts do follow Jewish holidays. When I was growing up in New York City, we had off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Actually, I just looked it up and it looks like this year at least they don’t get off for Yom Kippur, but they do get 2 days for Rosh Hashanah; that could’ve changed since I was in the system. http://schools.nycenet.edu/region7/ps199/info.htm
Anyway, being Catholic (at the time at least) I never cared that we got Jewish holidays off. Actually, I thought it was great (in true kid fashion).
