Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
I went to my youngest daughter's Christmas Concert a few days ago. It was all pretty safe and generic stuff (bells, snowmen, reindeer), but I was surprised they managed to get a Silent Night in. I'm sure they won't make that offensive mistake again.
My eldest daughter's school doesn't have a concert. They have a "winter solstice assembly" and for the students only. My daughter keeps making fun of it...I think even kids get how clinical schools have gotten.
We're already a fairly shallow country when it comes to shared heritage and culture, but I guess we're looking to get even more antiseptic. Personally I think if we're trying to be a multicultural society, then instead of trying to reduce everything to the bare inoffensive minimum, we should use holidays as a learning opportunity...teach children about Christmas, about Hanukkah, about Chinese New Year, about Diwali, etc. And instead of boilerplate land acknowledgments at ceremonies, how about using it as an opportunity to illuminate or share about indigenous traditions. You're not offending, you're teaching and enriching...that's the whole point of school.
|
The lead up to Chinese New Year was a big deal at my kid's school. Probably more so than Christmas this year and I think all the kid's really enjoyed it. Even now my kid is obsessed with goats because she learned she was born in the year of the goat. Even Halloween was a bigger deal than Christmas, which if you really want to get down to it, has a root in religion.
It does go both ways though. I heard a story from a teacher with Asian heritage who had kids draw and colour Yin and Yang symbols in art class. She received a complaint from one of the parents saying that she didn't appreciate pushing her religion on kids. The teacher was surprised because to her, it wasn't a religious symbol, but just a cool design with a non-offensive meaning. I guess for some people it has a religious meaning, but in general it is just a positive symbol that looks cool. I thought it was one of the dumbest things for a parent to complain about.