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Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears
Lebanon Daily News ^ | 12/23/05 | RORY SCHULER

Posted on 12/23/2005 10:07:40 AM PST by TexasGreg

Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears By RORY SCHULER Staff Writer Lebanon Daily News

LICKDALE — Jamey Schaeffer stretched her mouth open wide, showing off a pair of twin gaps in her smile. With a mouthful of fingers, she said she has no interest in two front teeth for Christmas. Instead, she’d like a Barbie doll from Santa Claus — and Santa Claus only.

But a substitute music teacher almost came between the 6-year-old and a Christmas Eve spent dancing cheek to cheek with sugar plums.

Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.

“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”

Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.

Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.

“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth. “‘Why didn’t you tell me Santa Claus died?’”

Elizabeth Schaeffer said she was appalled by Farrisi’s bluntness.

“I had to call the school,” said Schaeffer, a part-time custodial employee for the school district who is on temporary leave after complications from her last child’s birth. “I had to do something.”

Meanwhile, Farrisi, who is well versed on the history of “Santa Claus” — the traditional and literary figure — clarified her comments.

“I did not tell the students Santa Claus was dead,” she explained. “I said there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth (is based).”

On Monday night, Jamey started to recite Moore’s famous poem while sitting on a couch next to a freshly cut tree, trimmed in tinsel and topped with a golden star: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. No creatures stirred.”

She paused, looked up, and said that’s when the teacher interjected, just a few lines before the verse that announces the arrival of “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

“The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.”

Sharing in the belief of Santa Claus is a very special event in the Schaeffer home. Jamey’s the second youngest of five children. The three oldest have already grown up and left the family nest. Only Jamey and her 18-month-old sister, Amanda, remain.

Last year, Elizabeth Schaeffer recalled, Santa left a trail of boot prints in charred ashes from his feet-first landing in the fireplace. And this year, the family will continue their tradition of leaving him a plate of cookies, a tall glass of milk and a ripe, shaved carrot for Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

The Schaeffer family wasn’t the only one taken aback by Farrisi’s approach to Santa.

Tim and Beth Rittle said they found their 7-year-old daughter, Holly, in tears in the back seat of their car after they picked her up from school that day.

“All of a sudden, Holly just started crying,” Beth Rittle said. “She said she had a substitute in music class, and she told the class there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

Schaeffer and Rittle both called Northern Lebanon School District Superintendent Don L. Bell.

Since the issue involves personnel, Bell said Monday, there is little he can say about the incident, adding that it has not been determined if any disciplinary action is warranted against Farrisi.

Bell said he was aware that several parents have expressed concerns about the incident.

He also noted that the handling of Santa Claus isn’t covered in the school code.

“We do not have a Santa Claus policy,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but I really can’t say anything about it.”

Farrisi said she considered approaching the school’s administration with her concerns about how to handle Santa Claus in class. Instead, she said, she decided to add a disclaimer to her lesson.

“Those same children are going to know someday that what their parents taught them is false,” she ex-plained. “There is no Santa Claus.”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Schaeffer was carefully thinking about her next step. She decided to make a photocopy of editor Francis P. Church’s famous response to a little girl, who wrote to The New York Sun many decades ago, asking the same question Schaeffer’s daughter struggled with last week.

“I mailed (Farrisi) a copy of ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,’” she said, giggling with satisfaction. “I wish I could be there when she opens it.”

As for Jamey, in an attempt to reaffirm her spot on Santa’s nice list, she drew up a new letter in bright red magic marker, a message destined for the Santa she refuses to abandon.

“Dear Santa ... How is the North Pole?” she said, reading her letter loudly and proudly. “How is Mrs. Claus? You are Great. From Jamey.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: christmas; firstgrade; grinch; santaclaus; school
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To: d-back
Oops for you letter writers: Theresa Farrisi lives at 610 Brown Road, Frystown, PA 17067.

Sorry for typo.

21 posted on 12/23/2005 10:32:00 AM PST by d-back
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To: Politicalities; BenLurkin
Let me guess . . . Blue State?

Yup. Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Lebanon (pronounced locally, "LEP-nun" is a very red County as is almost all of the "T" of Pennsylvania, meaning the northern tier Counties and the whole midstate.

If Philly ever voted honestly Pennsylvania would be a red state.

22 posted on 12/23/2005 10:32:52 AM PST by lightman (The Office of the Keys should be exercised as some ministry needs to be exorcised.)
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To: TexasGreg

I don't know that this is a firing offense. But you know, it's amazing how quickly substitute teacher assignments can dry up sometimes...


23 posted on 12/23/2005 10:33:42 AM PST by RichInOC (Stupidity is its own punishment...but not as often as it should be.)
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To: TexasGreg
Happened in the Dallas area last week.....
24 posted on 12/23/2005 10:34:47 AM PST by DKM
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To: RichInOC

I think it was a firing offense: She was intentionally, maliciously cruel to young children. There's no other way to spin it.


25 posted on 12/23/2005 10:34:47 AM PST by d-back
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To: TexasGreg

Only one word to describe this woman: monster.


26 posted on 12/23/2005 10:39:46 AM PST by Apparatchik ("drunk driving on the information superhighway")
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To: TexasGreg
It's astoundingly arrogant of this idiot to feel that she just had to 'enlighten' these children. She is obvioulsy convinced that she did the right thing, after all, what those parents told those children was false!
27 posted on 12/23/2005 10:40:14 AM PST by CaptRon (Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead)
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To: All
Attention all Freepers...

There is no Santa Clause.

Deal with it!



Sincerely,
Scrooge
28 posted on 12/23/2005 10:44:36 AM PST by PetroniusMaximus
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: saquin

That's today's editorial in my paper The Malden Observer.


30 posted on 12/23/2005 10:50:53 AM PST by massgopguy (massgopguy)
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Comment #31 Removed by Moderator

To: TexasGreg

But I'm not suggesting that anyone actual call her. I just find it interesting what one can find out.


32 posted on 12/23/2005 10:53:30 AM PST by TexasGreg ("Democrats Piss Me Off")
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To: d-back

Actually, a modern Christian should really consider not raising their childern on the reality of myths. How much can a little child distinguish from Santa Claus and Jesus Christ anyway? When they get informed Santa is bogus what will they think about Jesus? You have already lied to them once.


33 posted on 12/23/2005 10:53:48 AM PST by FNG
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To: pops88

The problem with "But don't tell your friends there is no Santa!" is that it doesn't work.

They run off and tell their little friends there is no Santa, all superior, because that is what kids do.

Pisses me off! Why some parents feel compelled to ruin the magic at such an early age (first grade or earlier) is just beyond me. You ruin it for other people's children whether you know it or not.


34 posted on 12/23/2005 10:54:15 AM PST by olivia3boys
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To: imskylark

I have 5 kids, now grown and gone. My answer for THE Santa question was that he represented kindness and sharing. That he, and I, believe that it is better to give than recieve. That a prayer for someone in need was as important as a Christmas gift. That Santa means more than "what did I get" but "what did I give".

Merry Christmas.


35 posted on 12/23/2005 10:54:56 AM PST by Texas WOP
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To: PetroniusMaximus
There is no Santa Clause.

Yes, Scrooge, indeed ... there is NO Santa "Clause." But there IS a Santa Claus. ;-)
36 posted on 12/23/2005 10:55:12 AM PST by TexasGreg ("Democrats Piss Me Off")
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To: CaptRon

Exactly, this is pure arrogance. If she had any sense she would have simply not read the story and explained to the permanent teacher that her conscious wouldn't allow it or somthing like that, but the bottom line is she thinks she's a little smarter than everyone else and she couldn't resist the opportunity to try and show it.


37 posted on 12/23/2005 10:57:12 AM PST by gingerky
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To: TexasGreg

What a bitch! Hope she finds a lump of $#!^ in her stocking Sunday morning! Gotta be a heartless lib.


38 posted on 12/23/2005 10:57:54 AM PST by conservativewasp (Liberals lie for sport and hate our country.)
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To: CaptRon
It's astoundingly arrogant of this idiot to feel that she just had to 'enlighten' these children. She is obvioulsy convinced that she did the right thing, after all, what those parents told those children was false!

Wait, that is what public school teachers do. It is their job. The child shows up with their parents' belief in G-d, creation, etc., - and then the public school systematically tears those beliefs down.

FReepers need to get a grip. "Santa Claus" is a idiotic myth. Sure, the teacher shouldn't have done it, but when you scream just as loud about a teacher teaching the theory of evolution, then you can pile on this teacher.

I taught my sons that "Santa Claus" was not only fake, we didn't adhere to pagan customs. We didn't act like iconoclasts, but we didn't cater to other children's myths either.
39 posted on 12/23/2005 11:00:35 AM PST by safisoft (Give me Torah!)
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To: d-back
Send her a letter

Send her a CHRISTMAS CARD.

40 posted on 12/23/2005 11:03:15 AM PST by Howlin (Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. - GWB, 12/18/05)
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