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."
Yes! My children believe in fairy tales!
My daughter wants to be a princess when she grows up. My son wants to be a knight. But you have made me rethink how unhappy they will be to think I have lied to them by omission.
So I shall go now and tell my daughter she will never be a princess. That princesses are really mainly rich neurotic women born into lives of philanthropic tokenism which occupies certain families of known geneaology, who are funded by the generosity of more progressive forms of government, as living cultural history icons.
I shall tell my son that knights no longer exist and thank God not, because they were merely defenders of the prerogatives of feudal despots.
I shall throw away my own well-worn copy of "Pretty Woman" because we must all recognize that most hookers don't marry Richard Gere, they die toothless and HIV positive with a needle stuck in a bulging vein. I shall tell this to my 7 yr old daughter so she can enjoy the movie without indulging in damaging fantasies..
Next Christmas we shall spend the day watching "Schindler's List" so the kids can be exposed to reality, not fantasy.
I shall tell them that I lied about Santa because I am a liar. I was misguidedly trying to make Christmas fun for them like my parents made it for me and their parents made it for them. But a lie is a lie. Times are different now and we can all take instruction in our erroneous parenting techniques by astute internet commentators.
Oh, and since we are being honest from now on...No...they aren't the smartest, cutest, or best behaved kids in the world, either.
I shall tell them there are no miracles. If you are injured or sick someday and a doctor gives you a 5% chance of surviving, you'll most likely die. No use being unrealistic, is there?
Thanks so much for showing me the error of my ways. I'm sure our kids will be much healthier and trusting now, in their outlook on life.
Now, you did promise to butt out. Right?
Good post... that is how we know Santa too :~D
Amen!
I am wondering if this "poster" isn't this "teacher."
Well, now, it's good to see you admit in front of everybody exactly what you do on FR, as Sally said:
Methinks you protesteth too much about Howlin and specifically about her.
Most of us knew it anyway, but it's good to see you finally admit it. Stop stalking me.
Get off my A$$, you dolt. Find somebody else to stalk.
And after the A$$ you have made of yourself on this thread -- in case you missed it, NOBODY agreed with you -- if I were you, I'd think a hundred times before I presumed to lecture anybody else again.
YOWZER.............LOL. You go, girl!
LOL. Don't kid yourself, Mapes.
........ and Happy New Year to you too.
Deeply offended and perhaps with a great point. Who among us did not go through the trauma of finding out mom and dad had outright lied to them and in a way that made them the laughing stock of school children around about them until they understood that to be so. It's bad enough to learn that your parents lied to you in no uncertain terms. Why lie to kids?
To make it easier to lie to adults? To get children used to being lied to so that it has no effect on them when they do it? It's one thing to tell fairy tales. It's quite another to tell the kid it's true. Or does it depend on the definition of "is"...
LMAO! Don't forget to tell them the tooth fairy is a fraud and how can we forget the Easter Bunny?!?! Let's see, how else can we suck the fun out of childhood? Oh yeah, Sparky the family dog, that we told you went to someone's farm to play forever, is really dead, and animals don't go to heaven, so just forget about seeing him ever again...
My kids are in therapy because of all those lies we perpetuated. The Dr. that's treating them says they are scarred for life and probably will never have any children of their own now. If ONLY I could go back and change everything! There would be no Santa, no Easter Bunny, no fairy tales, no "My Little Pony's", Star Wars, no Dr. Suess.
My kids walk around with a vacant stare, their psyche warped and fragile.....all because we were EVIL parents that thought imagination and pretending were a precious, beautiful part of childhood. Oy vey!
:)
btw, hug your little princess and prince for me!
ROFL ........... that indeed is a "lovely" image.
Find somebody else to stalk.
Don't kid yourself, Mapes. You aren't Catherine Zeta Jones ......... more like George Jones.
NOBODY agreed with you
You taking polls there, lib?
*****
Now, let's please not communicate again. I actually do not like these situations, where you blow a little complaint (right or wrong) into a bigger, unpleasant conflict. You seem to love conflicts, I don't. They make me feel lousy.
So, goodbye, Mapes.......... and again, here's wishing a healthy and pleasant New Year to you and yours.
Don't be one of those people.
Have a good day and thank you for your service.
ROFL
Was this teacher you, conservatrix?
What hypocrisy.....you are the one that hijacked this thread with your petty complaint about something from another thread.......that had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. And you ultimately dragged me into this with your petty obsession because on other threads it was brought up about how you had a dragged a post made to me into this nonsense.
Never mind the person who created the poem was a priest...
Then stop posting to me, you dimwit.
I actually do not like these situations
Then why do you start them? Try to find ANY post where I have posted to you first. I can wait.
Me thinks, like the poster up the thread said, you protest too much.
I don't think you're going to get an answer to that one.
My intention is to present him to my kids, unashamedly, as a, quote, "real person," unquote, until my wife and I believe that they are to the point to where they need to know what the "real" reality of Santa is, what the tradition is all about ... FYI, we explain to them every Christmas that the reason people exchange gifts is to remember the Gift that God gave to us so long ago ... and why we are, as I said in the original post, entrusting this wonderful and quite real thing to them to carry on.
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