Teacher tells children Santa Claus isn't real, is reprimanded

Great Debates
41

No, it doesn’t.

Google: the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

Wikipedia: The term political correctness (adjectivally: politically correct; commonly abbreviated PC) is used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.

Merriam-Webster: a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated

Cambridge: avoiding language or behavior that any particular group of people might feel is unkind or offensive

Collins: Political correctness is the attitude or policy of being extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.

False. A teacher’s job is to teach. Teaching about the Earth and Moon are part of the curriculum: they are a part of science.

Teaching about Santa Claus is not. Not in first grade, anyways. Maybe in a mythology class.

I also note that you ignore that this was a substitute teacher. Their job is to teach what the teacher tells them to teach. If you read other reports, you find that it was an announcement, not a lesson. And that the substitute went on to reveal that other parts of childhood mythology are not real, like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and so on.

And then there’s the simple aspect of “Why was she reprimanded if she was just doing her job?” You try to blame it on PC, the Santa story far predates the rise of the PC movement.

She got in trouble because it wasn’t her job.

42

First of all, I believe the teacher was out of line. That is an issue between the child and his parents. The same applies to religious beliefs. As an atheist, it is not my place to tell children who look up to and admire me that there is no god. IMO it is much of a fairy tale as Santa Claus, but it is not an issue that requires teacher intervention. One doesn’t need to lie in order to divert a primary school child.

That being said, there seems to be a belief that Christmas fairy tales have little impact. That is not true, especially in high poverty areas. At our school, the Christmas season is a time when discipline issues peak. Kids, even in the early grades, realize the differences in how Christmas is celebrated. Some of it is due to poverty. Christmas is the time when the differences between the haves and the have nots is most apparent and this is not lost on the children. Some problems are due to parental neglect. In other instances parents truly hate the holiday because it brings into sharp focus their inability to meet the expectations that the holiday presents. Their anger and frustration is often vented on their kids. The fact that everybody is supposed to be happy only adds to the sadness, frustration and disappointment.

Interestingly the happiest holiday is Halloween. Regardless of one’s background, everyone gets the same treat. And in our community, the creative costumes are considered better than the store bought ones. For one night, everyone is equal.

43

Curious how opinions differ here between parents and non-parents.

As a parent: kids are small for such a short period of time; I’d have been a little pissed if an adult in my kids’ life had taken it upon themselves to end the Santa fantasy at age 6. That’s not a teacher’s place, and I don’t care how much you want to get on your high horse and say “It’s a teacher’s place to educate and facts are facts, yada yada yada.”

As a teacher, you don’t have to lie, but there are ways to keep the fantasy alive… because ffs, these are little kids who watch cartoons where animals wear pants and talk. A little make-believe is fine.

44

Yes

and my family is not even Christian, but for that period due to the cultural exposure our son wanted to believe in the Santa Claus (it was always the American version, not the French one), we played along. It was a short period only two years perhaps, and it was fun for him. We just modified the religious aspect slightly and kept the fun story.

45

My wife teaches in a school that is nearly all Hispanic immigrants, and any mention of Halloween is met with loud parental disapproval. The don’t celebrate Halloween and there are no costumes or candy anywhere in the school.

46

This. So much this

47

Would it be acceptable for a teacher to tell grade-school students “Jesus never rose from the dead; that’s just some myth Christians invented to brainwash you.” No. Of course not. (Though it might be OK for a college professor to teach this.)

Telling 1st-graders that Santa Claus is a fake is also wrong, and for the same reason. Belief in Santa Claus is itself a sort of religion, albeit one where the parents who proselytize don’t believe it themselves. Teenaged Santa Claus-believers might be considered confused, and a good teacher might inform them. But 1st graders? :smack: That teacher should be arrested! :stuck_out_tongue:

48

At what age should they confront reality?

49

When my friend’s son turned five, I told him to enjoy his fifth year of life, as it would be all downhill from there. He just turned eighteen and remembers me saying that; he actually pondered my words, which were said in jest to get a rise outa his dad.

50

It’s a process, not a Mack Truck. Like I said above, we never taught our son Santa was real, but it’s a total misunderstanding of children to think that they approach “Is Santa real?” like adults approach “Is Bigfoot real”. Real/not real isn’t how their minds work. They are at least 5 or 6 before they really understand that there is a whole world out there that has nothing to do with them that has an objective reality. Primary school–K-2–is about gradually figuring this out and figuring out what that world is like (my son was delighted to discover lava and emeralds were real). At this age, they ask a lot of questions about what’s real, and they also share a lot of theories. Working through it seems to be a pretty important cognitive process, and the whole Santa System grew up as a playful, fun game based on that process. The discovery, the conversations, are part of that.

51

My older girl, when she was five, noticed that the Santa Claus who visited our house actually looked a lot like our neighbor Larry. “Was that Larry?” she asked, then followed up, “Is Santa Claus real?”

My wife asked her, “Do you want the story answer, or do you want the true answer?”

“One hundred percent the true answer,” she responded, so my wife gave her a lovely take on the true answer (also explaining the value of the story and how everyone who knew the story became part of the story, keeping it alive for younger kids).

My daughter was satisfied with that. Interestingly, when her grandfather died a year later, she went back to believing in Santa Claus for a year or so: the myth served her emotional needs, and we sure weren’t going to stop her.

My younger girl is different, far less fact-focused, far more interested in pretend and pomp. I expect she’ll stick with the story for longer.

Kids aren’t theories, they’re not programmatic constructs, and what works for one won’t work for another.

52

Did this happen to you or something? Because I’ve never heard of it happening and you’re acting like it is a common problem.

53

My goodness. This is wrong on so many levels, independent of the idiocy of a teacher taking it as their job to tell the truth about Santa.

Starting with the latter part. Education is NOT about receiving “truth” from the teacher. It is about developing a wide variety of skill sets, including those of critical thinking, of developing thought independent from your teachers, of creativity and imagination, how to effectively communicate, and learning a fund of knowledge that has to do with the subjects in the curriculum.

So teaching specific truths is one part of a teacher’s job and one part of what education is. No question that a teacher should not be using their position of power to declare untruths as facts, or to present fiction as reality. A teacher should not be teaching that Santa Claus is real; a primary school teacher should not be teaching about Santa Claus at all. Santa Claus simply is not the business of public education at that level.*

Speaking truth is no defense against rudeness and inappropriateness.
You want to tie this to what gets called political correctness? Well if PC means that we attempt to not be rude and inappropriate to others, especially when it is easy to avoid it, and even more so when there is a power differential (as in teacher to student) then I am all for it.
*Teaching a belief or non-belief in Santa Claus is not quite teaching religious beliefs or non-beliefs, even though it treads awfully close as it is teaching practice closely associated with a religious belief or non-belief. But it raises to me the idea that teaching about religion(s) is something public schools can and should do, while teaching religion is not. To educate students on what those of a variety of different religions believe and practice is laudable. To declare which is truth and what is not of those beliefs and practices is off-limits.

54

Some while back, I asked Cecil is there a Santa Claus..

If I was a lower grade teacher or substitute teacher, I’d punt that question. “Ask your parents.” I’d want to dodge religious questions.

55

Anybody else hope the principal enters this incident on the substitute teacher’s permanent record?

56

If the kids had outright asked ‘Is Santa real or not?’ and the teacher/ substitute teacher had answered ‘No’, there’d be a reasonable argument. Parents might not like it, but, especially if put on the spot like that, deciding that a kid old enough to ask the question is old enough to hear the answer seems like a valid viewpoint.

Just making an announcement to a bunch of 6 year olds, a few weeks before Christmas? That’s not an understandable reaction to a situation, that’s just trying to ruin some kids’ days for the sake of your own ego.

57

I don’t remember seeing that before, but that’s a wonderful answer.

(But that’s from back in 1997. So how come you have a join date of April 2013?)

58

I went on a hiatus from the SD when it left AOL. You can ask Tuba for my references. Or Diane.

59

That’s cool. When you mentioned the Straight Dope Message Board, it didn’t register that it must have been the old AOL version.

60

Rather than it being PC that administrators had a problem with a teacher telling kids ‘Santa Claus doesn’t exist’ (lack of specifics and context is, separately, a problem with this whole story, either way) I think it’s apparent from the post responses as a whole which way the pro-PC community leans on this. In favor of the teacher. Because PC is part a constellation of values beyond just ‘what you are supposed to say’. It includes a general iconoclasm against Western traditions. I’m not excluding the existence by now
of kneejerk mountain-out-of-molehill anti-PC people BTW, culture war is hell on both sides. :slight_smile: I just think it’s fair to say PC and related post-modern particularly skepticism of our own (Western) culture tend to go together. I very much doubt the teacher would be viewed as favorably by the same people if he/she have taken it upon him/herself to ‘debunk’ a non-Western cultural myth taught to the kids in that particular class at home.

Somewhat incidentally I find the claim that SC is oppressive to the poor to be pretty ludicrous. People don’t get their tendency (present in just about every culture) to look down on poorer people from trivial stuff like ‘naughty and nice’ at Christmas. That’s to me a remarkably shallow analysis, but it’s what tends to happen when your gut (Western tradition is being criticized in schools, good!) tells you something but you feel like you have to pretend there’s some analytical political/social reason (SC makes the rich kids will think they are nice and poor kids are naughty).