Teacher defends "Santa" remarks (Full, unedited statement)

Lebanon Daily News ^ | 12/23/05 | Theresa R. Farrisi

[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."

[Carolinamom]

I am a retired HS teacher. When I left instructions for a substitute, I expected that substitute to follow my instructions to the letter....nothing more or less.

This particular teacher acted on her own in an officious manner. She destroyed the joyment of the poem for these small children. Regardless of what you think, she was and continues to be a cruel person who is not fit to be around small children.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Do you go off on the "Tooth Fairy" too?

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Intellectual honesty???? There seems to be a group of posters that want to throw a group of kids into the middle of adult topics. The kids should not be in the middle of this period. This should have been handled out of the classroom, just like other disputes about curriculum. This is a matter between the parents and the adults that are running the school. Curriculum disputes need to be handled at the adult level, period. Kids should not be involved, especially 6 year olds.

You were the one who brought up discussing abortion (an adult topic) with 6-year-olds, not me.

It's difficult to tell from what you've written above, but when you write of 'adult topics', are you talking about about Santa Claus or abortion?

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

I am a retired HS teacher. When I left instructions for a substitute, I expected that substitute to follow my instructions to the letter....nothing more or less.

I'll have to take your word for it.

This particular teacher acted on her own in an officious manner. She destroyed the joyment of the poem for these small children. Regardless of what you think, she was and continues to be a cruel person who is not fit to be around small children.

This is your opinion and you're welcome to it. I happen to disagree.

[Dog Gone]

I just clicked on this thread for the first time I read all the comments.

The primary conclusion that I draw is that religious nutbags that call themselves conservatives can be every bit as dangerous as non-religious nutbags that call themselves liberals.

At times it may be hard to distinguish the two.

And I kept waiting for conservatrix to come back to answer the accusation that she in fact is the Wench Who Stole Christmas. I'm assuming that's because she doesn't want to admit it and doesn't want to lie, even to adults. So she won't answer.

While I respect everyone's rights to hold their own opinion, this action went way over the line. I'm glad she didn't have to read a story about a stork bringing a baby, or she'd feel compelled to demonstrate to the class how babies are really made.

[usmcobra]

"Saint Nicholas is not(real)."

Guess again Santa Claus AKA Saint Nicholas is based upon the life of an actual Saint.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Guess again Santa Claus AKA Saint Nicholas is based upon the life of an actual Saint.

Care to cite a source for this?

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is the truth.

People can justify getting upset about anything and everything I suppose.

[BibChr]

I've studied Greek for well over thirty years.

Why do you think I object to "Xmas"?

Dan

[BibChr]

I can't make any sense out of that question. Is there any?

[Gondring]

I've studied Greek for well over thirty years.

Then you realize churchmen themselves used X as an abbreviation for , and that Xmas has been in use in respectful application to "Christmas" for centuries?

Why do you think I object to "Xmas"?

I don't know....because you think people are beyond hope and cannot be educated?

[BibChr]

To your question, of course.

To the rest -- did you not really want a dialogue? Or is your best understanding of my position, honestly, that I "think people are beyond hope and cannot be educated?" You read the entire essay, you thought, and that's the best you can do?

Dan

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

It really is very simple.

A tempest in a teapot...

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This controversy has nothing to do with YOU, or YOUR rights to INTERFERE in what other parents, many of whom are Christians, teach their children about Santa.

#1. It is a PUBLIC school... I pay taxes, I vote (always Republican or not at all)...

#2. Christians are supposed to follow what is in the Bible, and I don't see a Santa clause (sic) anywhere in it...

I may not be a religious person or a Christian, but I will not defend or champion the heresy of others.

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It's called respect and common decency.

“Render unto to Caesar what is Caesar's...”

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I suggest you do more reading in your guilded (sic) Bible (and please spare me the pagan speech).

My gilded Bible is a fine work of art as far as I am concerned. If you herald Christmas as a Christian celebration of Yeshua, it is you that needs to better read it, as I have demonstrated.

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I think we're done with this conversation because frankly, I'm sure it will only continue to go nowhere.

“Nothing is but what is not.” (Macbeth)

[right wing]

Go take your meds. I'm done with you....

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

It's a poem.

Yes, it is. So is the Song of Solomon.

I think this is a fun, tempest in a teapot issue about contemporary Christians and their conceited heresies...

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Santa Claus is a cultural persona...

Santa is a phantasm. Who is prince of phantasms in the Bible? Beelzebub.

Consider the words: fan (fanatici), fantasy (phantasien), fantastical, fanatical, fantasia, phantom, phantasm, phantasmal, phantasmagoric, etc.; with their etymological and definitive relations to each other.

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fairy tales

That term caught my eye...

Thomas Hobbes...

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness

“...the kingdom of fairies (that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits and the feats they play in the night).”

“The fairies, in whatever nation they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons.”

“The fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves.”

“The fairies also have their enchanted castles and certain gigantic ghosts that domineer over the regions round about them.

“The fairies cannot be seized and brought to answer for the hurt they do.”

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Saint Nicholas is based upon the life of an actual Saint.

An Orthodox bishop...

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Regardless of what you think, she was and continues to be a cruel person who is not fit to be around small children.

How would you know? You taught high school...

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I'm glad she didn't have to read a story about a stork bringing a baby, or she'd feel compelled to demonstrate to the class how babies are really made.

There have been recent threads about just that...

[wintertime]

But this "teacher" is imposing her religious beliefs on children in a public school.( Gator Girl)

Gator Girl and All:

While in the government school the children WILL be exposed to the culture of the school. For many children that culture will NOT uphold the religious worldview taught in the home. For other children their religious values will be established and supported by the government.

At least the teacher has the freedom NOT to work in the government school, however, if children without alternatives refuse to attend armed police and social workers will force attendance.

Personally, I find Santa Claus offensive to our family's religious beliefs. We had the financial means for me to do this, but other families who believe as we do are FORCED under the threat of police action to send their children into an environment that is utterly hostile to their religious traditions.

There is absolutely no possible way for the government school to be respectful of all the religious traditions surrounding Christmas, evolution, prayer in school, sex education, and HUNDREDS of other curriculum and policy issues. The government school WILL uphold and ESTABLISH the religious traditions of some and trash those of others.

Solution: Complete separation of SCHOOL and state. Privatize universal K-12 education.

[luckystarmom]

May I ask what is so offensive about Santa Claus.

I think the idea of someone giving to children for nothing in return a very nice thing. I don't see how it can be offensive.