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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

No Santa, Says Brit Teacher, Parents Outraged

thisislondon.co.uk

A primary school has been accused of spoiling Christmas for pupils after a lesson telling them that Santa Claus does not exist.

Children as young as nine were told that only 'small children believe in Father Christmas'.

And yesterday their parents criticised teachers for taking the 'magic' out of the festive period.

The blunder came after the Year 5 pupils were given seasonal worksheets containing various festive classroom exercises.

One began by informing the children that 'many small children believe in Father Christmas'.

It then went on to explain that thousands of letters sent by these children to Santa every year are actually answered by the Post Office.

The youngsters were then asked to write a pretend letter from the Post Office to a child explaining why their requests for presents had been refused.

I'll admit that I saw red for a second when the headline caught my eye but 9 years old is a bit long in the tooth for Santa Claus myths. I'd say 6 or 7 is about the right time for a factoid about the Roman Catholic Bishop of Myra, Turkey (see previous post). But that is the problem with the myths ... they explode and the children are left with nothing. Better to give the truth (Jesus, the Nativity, Virgin Birth, Bishop of Myra) and give it to them early, the teachers are militant deconstructionists and they'll have their claws into your kids starting at age 5 in most cases.

I'll also admit that I am not pushing Santa on my little guys. This was met with protests by a Catholic friend but this person could not answer one reason why on religious grounds why Roman Catholics should push the Santa thing. This person also admitted that they dared not relate the story of the Nativity to their child. Weird. Filipino wifey looks at all this stuff as weird, also. I guess fat white guys dashing through the snow does not go over so well in sub-tropical Philippines.

The parents in the story and my Catholic friend, kept going on and on about the "magic" of Christmas. Sorry, I don't buy it and neither does wifey. Maybe we knew too many threadbare Christmas morns.

Here's my beef. What's up with the assignment? Why assign the kids a task to write other kids about why there is no Santa or about why they get no gifts? What are the being assigned the task of being a Scrooge? Seems a little militant to me.

Anyway, I'm officially ceding Santa Claus to the wicans, pagans and athiests ... call him Kwanzaa Claus for all I care. I'll stick with Jesus, the Virgin, the Nativity and the good ole Bishop of Myra, Turkey.

2 comments:

Ryan Spaulding said...

Organized Religion or Just fun and games?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/12/17/fun_and_games_for_the_nonsecular_world/

Thomas Coolberth said...

It is good that Christians have an avenue to support Christian commercial ventures. We're not the Amish. Roman Catholics have been famous for this for 2000 years. The Church has always offered cradle to grave services including hospitals, schools (Catholic always opposed public schooling and built schools long before public education was invented), universities (including the world's first true University in Paris), funeral and retirement homes.

The Church's members in Europe early on established guilds which were the pre-cursors of labor unions and professional associations. Naturally, Catholics branched into every possible professional practice. I'm proud to come from a long line of military men, milk deliverers (my maternal grandfather's trade) and factory workers (my own and my paternal grandfather's trade.)