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 think it comes down to this:
Let's take Jesus vs. Santa out of the mix for a second. As a parent, I am the ultimate moral authority when it comes to my young child. When I have chosen a course of action as it relates to raising my child, it is extremely harmful for another (albeit lesser) authority figure to directly and knowingly contradict or undermine my approach.
In my opinion, this is the height of educational arrogance, whether it be from the Left, or in this instance, from the Right. This substitute teacher, regardless of the topic or her particular view, took upon herself the mantle of moral authority, overruled without the benefit of any discussion the parents' wishes, and destroyed the approach that those parents were going to be taking with their kids. Not only did she destroy the approach, but she cast doubt on the parents' role of moral authority and the trust that the kids have in them.
As for her being in a bind, I'm not really buying that. As others have laid out, she had a couple of options-- as distastful as she felt they were. This wasn't about "making a stand". This was about self-righteous, holier-than-thou, falsely-pious arrogance, and sticking it in the eye of both the secular school system and those heathen parents.