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."
LOL!
Boy, is your tagline ever true.
LOL
Darn ....... how much more intelligent you would have been if you had oxygen at birth.
You are right. If people would read the LAST LINE of her letter they would see she is a Believer. I have always felt that Santa Clause overshadows the true meaning and reason for Christmas, celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I think Santa Clause just confuses children about the real meaning of Christmas, just like the Easter Bunny at Easter.
LOL............ I have a lot of great new ideas and a lot of very old books.
*****
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. --- Groucho
What about Pentecost or Passover?
LOL........... who would have thought a thread entitled, "Track Santa's annual flight online" would be troublesome to a child?
;-)
I believe in Santa.
It's much easier to believe in Santa than it is to believe that all men are created equal, or believe that our government should balance the budget, or believe that government should be a servant of the people, not the other way around.
Of course, to your point, I have never claimed to be sane, or rational, or an adult.
Wherever there's harmless childhood fun, there seems to be somebody these days itching to wreck it.
Because it is an American literature classic.
Could she teach the Iliad and the Odyssey to older children or would the pagan beliefs also be too offensive to her?
Neither Santa or the Easter Bunny confused me or my sister about what we were celebrating. On Christmas Eve we read about Christ's birth from the Bible and then we went to sleep in anticipation of Santa. On Easter we went to Sunday School and Church, came home, ate dinner and took a nap while the Easter bunny came.
My son had no problems with believing in Santa or the Easter bunny. Just like me, he wasn't traumatized when he found out who they really were.
Are you this teacher, or not?
Your refusal to answer this simple question is quite curious.
How true, how true. My parents think I was playing games with my umbilical cord, crimping it like a garden hose. If only I hadn't, that doctorate of mine might have come easier!
I'm an atheist and I tell my children adults invented Santa Claus so children will behave and go to bed early in the winter while the adults get drunk and fornicate with each other.
In fact, I instruct my children not to lie and to tell others the same thing if asked about it. I don't lie to my kids.
Now if you think that is bad, lie to your kids all you like and they will lie to you.
I don't want my kids to lie to me, and they expect the same from me...
Anyone who's read FreeRepublic for more than a month, of course!
Ping me when he gets to Anna Kournikova's house. :)
I thought the photo was funny, too.
In a sick, twisted way, but funny none the less.
Of course it's your right to lie to your children. But you shouldn't pretend that doing so is a hallmark of a good Christian or somehow represents a tribute to Christ.
But on the issue of what the teacher should have done, I'm less certain. I know I flatly disagree with the "reasoning" of most of the disagreement I've seen on this thread, and 125% disagree with the personal attacks and insinuations on the thread's initiator. Your point is, I think, the most valid (and perhaps the only valid) point of opposition, and I agree with your basic insistence. I never said I was certain that the teacher was right to present her view as opposed to the parents', and I think the required curriculum put her in a genuine bind. I do say parents are wrong knowingly to deceive their children. But is it the government-school teacher's place to disabuse children of their parent's lies? That, I think, is your question, and it's the big one; and I think your answer ("No") is probably almost always right.
So here my fall-back, if-you-want-to-know-what-I-really-think position is that I don't believe in government schools, anyway -- certainly not mandatory attendance in such. So then the parents either educate their own children as far as they can (my preference), or they contract with a school with the understanding that their beliefs will be respected. So, they can ask at the outset, "Will you join me in deceiving my children about Santa?", and take their business elsewhere if they receive the wrong answer. But from what I read in this thread, they'd have no trouble finding plenty of other adults blissfully untroubled at the thought of lying to children.
Dan
I'm an atheist and I tell my children adults invented Santa Claus so children will behave and go to bed early in the winter while the adults get drunk and fornicate with each other.
In fact, I instruct my children not to lie and to tell others the same thing if asked about it. I don't lie to my kids.
Now if you think that is bad, lie to your kids all you like and they will lie to you.
I don't want my kids to lie to me, and they expect the same from me...
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