Posted on 12/26/2005 8:11:14 AM PST by Conservatrix
To the Editor:
"Last week I substituted at a local elementary school in Lebanon County. The lesson plan required me to read the 1882 poem “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore to two classes of students. While I can appreciate the poem for its literary value, the subject matter is offensive to me, and the reading of this poem to the children imposed values upon me which are against my deeply held religious beliefs. I could not in good conscience present the notion of Santa Claus as a truth to the children, and stated so.
No public school teacher should be required to teach a belief, or custom, or religion that he or she believes to be false, or be required to pass those purported falsehoods onto impressionable children, without the right to state a disclaimer. Furthermore, freedom of speech and religion, no matter how unpopular the speech or against cultural norms the religion, are protected rights under the Constitution of the United States. A secular public school should not be propagating any kind of religion. The belief in Santa Claus as a divine, magical, omniscient, powerful, giving, loving father-figure, to which children are taught to make supplications and requests, is a religion indeed-- a distorted substitute for the Judeo-Christian God; a false form of Christianity; a zealously-protected American idol.
In presenting the poem, I gave the children quick historical background about the Santa Claus myth-- its evolution from the historic Nickolaus, Bishop of Myrna in Asia Minor, who died in 343 A.D., to its amalgamation with ancient Western pagan traditions of German, Scandinavian and Dutch origins, to the current manifestation in the secular Christmas culture of today. (Dutch children, for example, would put their wooden shoes out at night for “Sante Klaus” to fill with candies.)
The current Santa Claus figure was popularized in the late 19th Century by artist Thomas Nast of Harper’s Weekly Magazine, who depicted “Saint Nick,” not as an elf, but a rotund, pipe-smoking man in a red and white suit. This is the deity to which countless public school children today are taught to make supplications, and about whom they sing their many songs at annual public school Christmas programs.
If people are upset about the revelation to children that Santa Claus is a myth-- which all children who are taught this lie find or figure out eventually-- perhaps it is because Santa is that zealously-guarded idol of their own modern religion. Therefore, as a religion, let Santa be kept out of the public school classroom (no more “Dear Santa” letters to line those school hallways)--or perhaps, in the interest of “diversity,” make his mythical, oversized personage share equal representation in literature, and song, and Christmas programs, with the other Person of the season: the Lord Jesus Christ, God made flesh, God with us."
Or maybe she's just a demented hag who hates innocence and children.
those are the attributes of a made up, imaginative, fantasy being who watches childrens behavior all year to see if they deserve any presents....
You, are, a, TROLL.
Maybe not in the classic freeper sense, but you've definitely got problems...
Some believe they possess Truth.
I still see magic all around me.
Me, too. Without Baptists, we Catholics would have to drink and dance with one another on Christmas Eve!
(Joking, joking...)
Merry Christmas!
"In some mixed religious homes, Santa even leaves presents under the Hanukkah bush. I don't know where he leaves the presents in the homes that celebrate Kwaanza. Maybe under the crack pipes?"
How very Christian of you. Jesus would be very proud! Please share the love this holiday season.
Certainly not an English teacher, eh?
The fact that you are unwilling to admit that your post # 46 was perhaps just a little inappropriate for that sweet and gentle Christmas morning thread just shows why you can be such a miserable human.
Your tragic flaw.
You are appreciated here by nearly everyone, and you most certainly should be, but in this instance, you were stone wrong. To admit it would make you more decent............ but, you don't. Oh well.
*******
Happy New Year................ and let's hope we add some seats in Congress in 2006.
Oh, I do understand! Any "mistake" made was you allowing an 8 year old to read an adult web site....on Christmas morning, after she opened her gifts, of course.
Don't tell me to be silent. Got it?
My .02? The only people making Santa out to be a religious figure is her in her warped, attention-seeking brain. My kids were both saved within the last two years and are in church every time the door opens, and attend a Christian private school, and are quite familiar with the Biblical story of the Nativity (we read from Luke every Christmas Eve as a family) and the thought has never, not in a million years, not in this or any known solar system, crossed our minds that by having Santa Claus we are making him a religion or doing something that is not within the tenets of Christianity.
Of course I must practice a different brand of Christianity than Ms. Conservatrix/Farissi. I rather prefer mine, though. It has a little bit of fun and joy and happiness attached to it, and doesn't stand for denying children the enjoyment of childhood things. Oh I almost forgot, we took the kids to see the new Harry Potter movie the other day (they love the books), full of ghosts and goblins and magic and all kinds of EEEEEEVILL fantasy things. Don't guess we can do that and be good Christians, can't have any fantasy corrupting our kids' souls. :)
This situation was mentioned in a thread on DU the other day. Surprisingly, most who responded thought this teacher was way out of line. Of course there had to be one bad apple, somebody who said it was wrong for six-year-olds in the U.S. to experience Santa Claus when six-year-olds are starving in Darfur.
When you get right down to it, the two positions may be at polar extremes as far as political labels, but that poster and Ms. Conservatrix/Farissi are equally reprehensible in my book.
Bottom line, IMHO, this woman has an agenda that transcends Santa Claus that if presented to me, adult to adult, I might even find some common ground with, but I find it reprehensible that she would put six-year-olds in the line of fire, and if she'd pulled this with one of my kids, it would've taken all my willpower to keep my tongue from producing some un-Christian words, and I'd do everything within my power and call in every chip I had with anybody who could help along those lines to make sure that she was never, ever, ever in a position to do something like that to a group of six-year-olds again.
I think it comes down to this:
Let's take Jesus vs. Santa out of the mix for a second. As a parent, I am the ultimate moral authority when it comes to my young child. When I have chosen a course of action as it relates to raising my child, it is extremely harmful for another (albeit lesser) authority figure to directly and knowingly contradict or undermine my approach.
In my opinion, this is the height of educational arrogance, whether it be from the Left, or in this instance, from the Right. This substitute teacher, regardless of the topic or her particular view, took upon herself the mantle of moral authority, overruled without the benefit of any discussion the parents' wishes, and destroyed the approach that those parents were going to be taking with their kids. Not only did she destroy the approach, but she cast doubt on the parents' role of moral authority and the trust that the kids have in them.
As for her being in a bind, I'm not really buying that. As others have laid out, she had a couple of options-- as distastful as she felt they were. This wasn't about "making a stand". This was about self-righteous, holier-than-thou, falsely-pious arrogance, and sticking it in the eye of both the secular school system and those heathen parents.
I agree with you completely. And next time she opens her Bible, Ms. Conservatrix/Farissi should check out Proverbs 26:17: "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears."
LOL!!!!! The thread, "Track Santa's annual flight online" on FR is certainly a thread ("an adult web site") to keep ones neice away from (sarcasm off).
You need help.
When a thread like "Track Santa's annual flight online" on FR is to be avoided............ this place is not what I thought it was.
Santa is real AND a symbol of Christan giving- but he is also plain old Common culture. Deal with it.
Right on target. Unfortunately, substitute teachers can no longer be counted on being professional.
View the political continuum as a circle: she's so far to the right that she's slipped over to the left. Kind of like Hitler (or was Stalin so far left...?).
http://invoman.com/santa_claus.htm
I try to explain it from a Biblical view.
"Arrogant, self-important, intolerant, unyielding, sanctimonious -- and MEAN -- this person is everything that is bad about the extreme Right Wing."
AND, the above negative attributes also apply to the
Left Wing.
It wasn't inappropriate for GROWNUPS, which is what we are; if you don't like it, start a CHILDREN'S thread -- and see how roundly you're trashed for letting a child read FR.
To admit it would make you more decent...
If you don't think I'm a decent person, why on EARTH do you KEEP Freepmailing me, apologizing and asking to be friends -- and not just to me, some of my friends, too?
Now, I am going to tell you for the 10 millionth time, stop posting to and about me; I do not like you; you're scary -- and the Mary Mapes remark was beyond insane -- you have no idea what I look like.
Take a hint, pal; you creep me out.
Absolutely; evidently both sides have their crosses to bear, don't we?
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