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Teacher defends Santa remarks
Editor:
Lebanon Daily News
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, 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.
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 whom children are taught to make supplications and requests, is a religion indeed — a distorted substitute for the Judeo-Christian God.
In presenting the poem, I gave the children some 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 as 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 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 — 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.
Theresa Rodriguez Farrisi Myerstown
Non-right-wingers got blamed for ruining the Christmas of classes of little children at this public school. But wait, the truth often reveals itself slowly (think ‘I’) and now we learn that it was just some over-zealous Christian substitute on the loose.
So this season has left us with several false stories about young children prohibited from wearing red and green (Texas and Michigan), a false story about “Silent Night” (Wisconsin) and the teacher who “killed” Santa (Pennsylvania), just to name a few.
I can only wonder what next years’ “War on Christmas” will bring? I’m sure the army of elves is planning more make-believe battles and cultivating future tattle-talers.
Teacher defends Santa remarks
Editor:
Lebanon Daily News
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, 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.
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 whom children are taught to make supplications and requests, is a religion indeed — a distorted substitute for the Judeo-Christian God.
In presenting the poem, I gave the children some 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 as 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 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 — 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.
Theresa Rodriguez Farrisi Myerstown
Non-right-wingers got blamed for ruining the Christmas of classes of little children at this public school. But wait, the truth often reveals itself slowly (think ‘I’) and now we learn that it was just some over-zealous Christian substitute on the loose.
So this season has left us with several false stories about young children prohibited from wearing red and green (Texas and Michigan), a false story about “Silent Night” (Wisconsin) and the teacher who “killed” Santa (Pennsylvania), just to name a few.
I can only wonder what next years’ “War on Christmas” will bring? I’m sure the army of elves is planning more make-believe battles and cultivating future tattle-talers.