Posted on 12/24/2005 6:54:11 AM PST by madprof98
They opened the show with a song about Hanukkah and paid homage to Kwanzaa with a South African tune. Then, students at Bethune Elementary School in Atlanta hammed it up on stage in hula skirts.
Yes, Christmas made an appearance. With antlers on their heads, students sang the classic "Up on the housetop, reindeer pause ... "
For the finale, a chorus of children holding cardboard red hearts sang, "We all come together during the most wonderful time of the year."
Bethune's choice of "Paint the Town December," a musical written for school-age children, reflects a change many parents and grandparents have noticed when taking part in an annual rite-of-passage, the holiday pageant. Today's public school performances often touch on several holidays, not just Christmas. Schools de-emphasize Christmas in an effort to keep students who don't celebrate the holiday from feeling left out. Hallway decorations are more likely to reflect winter themes such as snowflakes than Santa Claus.
In the Atlanta district, schools are under strict orders to keep celebrations "nonreligious and multicultural," said district spokesman Joe Manguno.
That makes sense, said Felecia Huguley, mother of Darlecia Bain, 8, a Bethune Elementary third-grader.
"You have to include everybody," Huguley said, adding that she thought this year's program was a refreshing change from the "basic Merry Christmas-type stuff."
Principal RoseMary Hamer said the production tied in with classroom lessons on cultural diversity and unity. "How fitting our program is a celebration of how the holidays are celebrated around the world," she said.
Such multicultural celebrations have drawn complaints nationally from parents and teachers who say they squeeze out Christmas and over-emphasize holidays celebrated by far fewer students.
They bristle at the idea of replacing "Merry Christmas" greetings with "Happy holidays," a peeve that has morphed into a political movement and spawned a book by a Fox News anchor.
Principals say they are responding to a changing population.
At Hapeville Elementary School in Fulton County, a recent multicultural fair included art displays and multimedia productions about countries from around the world. Students included in their presentations how different countries celebrate the holidays. Israel, Italy, Holland, India, Sweden, China and Mexico were represented. Christmas was recognized as a part of the presentation on Italy.
The fair was a culmination of a schoolwide effort to teach children respect for other cultures. The school's holiday concert featured songs from the different countries.
"It was a perfect time to teach the children that not everybody celebrates Christmas," Principal Juanita Nelson said. "It's especially important to us that we recognize we have children who bring a wealth of knowledge about their traditions."
Among the students at Hapeville Elementary , at least 12 languages are spoken. About a third of the school's students are Hispanic, as is the PTA president. The faculty includes teachers from Spain, Mexico and Venezuela.
Benny Ferguson, president of the Georgia Music Educators Association, said holiday pageants generally reflect the students in the school. "Teachers have to be sensitive to the fact that we serve a diverse community," said Ferguson, director of visual and performing arts in Chatham County. "When we started 20 years ago, we didn't have to worry about it."
The music publishing industry has many multicultural musical offerings such as "Paint the Town December," Ferguson said. Also, schools are usually safe with secular songs like "Frosty the Snowman" and "Jingle Bells."
Frank Jones, who sat in the audience at the Georgia World Congress Center auditorium, where the Bethune Elementary program was held, said he was aware of the controversy.
"There's a bunch of people who don't want to put Christmas aside and don't want to see it left out," he said. But Jones didn't want to talk about politics. He said he just wanted to see his 5-year-old daughter, Jakalin Anderson, on stage.
"If there's a bunch of kids involved, I love it," he said. "You never know what they're going to do."
The school, incidentally, is one of the poorest in Atlanta, a place where children rarely have two parents in the household, as the last names of the kids and parents here illustrate. What "values" are these already confused children taught in school? A mishmash of crap, it seems.
Happy Holidays---so---how long before someone figures out that the word "holiday" really comes for the phrase "holy day" or "saints' day?"
Dear Lord, dont these MSM dweebs have Google?
It is one of our most sacred hymns...
Nobody in Africa's ever heard of Kwanzaa.
I live in a central jersey shore town which shall remain nameless, in case any ACLU trolls are lurking. Our Municipal Building features a creche outside, amazingly, there is no Menorah and no fruit basket nearby. The PUBLIC school high school band and choral concert last week finished up with Haydn's "The Heavens are Telling" and gasp!- Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, with the audience standing. There were some Hannukkah songs and "seasonal" type songs- Silver Bells, I'm dreaming of a White Christmas", but overall a good 50% of the selections were what could be considered "religious". Reading stories about what is happening out there, I feel like the characters in Jurassic Park when they first set eyes on the dinosaurs - experiencing something extinct, or at least almost so. P.S- for the teachers so concerned about teaching third graders diversity, first teach them READING,RITING,AND RITHMATIC.
Everything your school did is legal. The ACLU could scream about it til they're blue in the face but the fact remains that your school's program met the legal precedents already set by the courts.
I shudder to think what would happen here in my little neck of the woods if the ACLU caught wind of the goings on in the schools!
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