Sensitivity to differences
This week at public schools can be difficult for students whose customs do not include the observance of Christmas. While schools often attempt to ensure that their holiday programs do not include “obviously religious” elements (nativity scenes, etc.), this approach fails to recognize that Christmas is, by definition, a religious holiday. Therefore any activity that is dominated by a Christmas theme (Rudolph, Santa) may be perceived as religious by those with different customs.
Inclusion of a song or two from another culture does not negate the fact that a program has a predominantly Christmas orientation. Using the rationale that the majority of the students and parents enjoy these activities effectively silences minority students, making them feel invisible and excluded. Giving students the option of not participating also makes students feel like outsiders.
These results run counter to the common core educational goal of developing sensitivity to cultural differences.
We have wonderful and creative teachers and administrators in our secular public schools. Certainly these talented educators can develop programs that create feelings of inclusiveness and belonging within our community. I urge our educators to use the highest level of sensitivity in dealing with the events related to any religious observances, and to consider the educational goals they are trying to achieve.
Sondra Siegel
Dedham
No easy answers
Is gun control the answer to all the violence facing our culture today? Will it resolve the issues that are causing people to resort to the desperate acts being inflicted on the innocent? Are we all to be held accountable for the actions of a few or do we hold accountable to ones who did nothing to stop the incident before it ever happened?
These are only a few of the questions we should be asking of ourselves and of our government instead of mindlessly reacting every time there is a crisis. Determine the undermining cause of the violence and determine a corrective action instead of the age-old crisis management technique that does not resolve problems. It only patches the symptoms. Our troubles are systemic and will take time to heal the rifts of spirit and culture.
Kathryn Cope
Kenduskeag
Gun precautions, control
This talk of gun control has me confused. I can’t see any logic in what people are saying. Taking precautions such as background checks is good, but going as far as not letting people have guns at all is foolish.
Guns are needed for protection. It’s not OK to kill people, but Adam Lanza still did it. He wasn’t concerned with the fact that he was doing something as terrible and illegal as mass murder; I get the feeling that breaking one more law, such as having an illegal weapon, would not have stopped him.
Like the saying “pencils don’t misspell words,” neither do guns kill people. People kill people and not just with guns.
We can’t outlaw knives because somebody stabs a person to death. That doesn’t make sense. Take precautions but don’t leave good people defenseless.
Evil people will find ways to do evil things. We must be trained and have the tools to defend against those things.
Rachel Ouellette
Bradford
Seniors to pay again?
It was reported that President Barack Obama is considering cutting cost-of-living raises for senior citizens on Social Security as a way to compromise with Republican representatives.
One has to remember that numerous past presidents balanced their budgets by making line transfers from the Social Security account to other lines in their budgets with the promise to return the money with interest. This never happened.
Then, to stimulate the economy, payroll tax cuts were given to working Americans while seniors got a one-time small extra check, thus, in effect leaving seniors out of the equation.
As the economy improves, those on a fixed income such as seniors on Social Security will be at a greater disadvantage. How in good conscience can anyone suggest cutting cost-of-living adjustments for seniors who rely upon limited incomes for food, housing, heat and medications?
Where is there any social justice in this suggestion? I have started a petition to the president at the White House site (you must register with the White House to sign it) at http://wh.gov/nO8Z and urge all those concerned to sign it, to call their senators and representatives saying that sacrificing those who made our country great cannot be forgotten nor discarded as expendable.
David Berg
Searsport
Sondra Siegel: wonderful letter, though with public schools in Maine by now on holiday break, a bit late to consider any alternatives. In a country in which historical idiots like US Rep Michele Bachman and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin claim that the Founding Fathers and Mothers were nearly all conservative evangelical Christians rather than far more tolerant Dieists and mainstream Catholics and Protestants, it is hard to change ideas and customs. Ironically, historian Stephen Nissenbaum’s book about the evolution of Christmas demonstrated that what most of us assume came to these shores from the Pilgrims and the Puritans in the 17th century is simply wrong. Our Christmas traditions were “invented” centuries later. This doesn’t make them wrong, but neither does it make them as part of the nations’ founding.
Merry Christmas, by the way, Prof. Siegel.
You have angered fundamentalist Christians by using “evolution” and “deists” in the same sentence. Remember that Sarah Heath Palin is an anagram for “A plain harsh hate.”
Sondra Siegal,
Many of us prefer to celebrate the Solstice during this season, rather than the Judeo christian mythologies. The Solstice was celebrated long before these traditions were established, and will be here long after they are gone. Most cultures around the world have a festival of some sort around the 4 primary points of the year (the Solstices & equinoxes), and as we all know the Judeochristian mythologies incorporated them as well in order to win over Pagan converts.
That being said, I think our schools do a great job representing ALL cultures during our celebrations of the season. My children may not believe in those mythologies, but that does not mean that they should not learn about them. After all the only way our children can learn cultural sensitivity, is to learn about the traditions of other cultures.
I am extremely upset that those Christians have taken over my holiday of
Saturnalia. I consider this an affront to the Roman Republic and Empire and Romans everywhere. I want you to stop stealing our holiday and find your own. Thank you.
I expect you are a couple thousand years too late. You will just have to live with it I guess.
Sondra Siegel, don’t you think it would be good that all children be exposed to different cultures? We can’t keep them all in a bubble to insulate them from the reality of the world around them forever. Too bad we don’t really teach cultures of the world as a mandatory subject.
Good idea, our school children get a half assed education because of all the nonsense classes that are mandated by the government, lets add another BS subject.
As a teacher I can tell you that most children are getting a half arsed education because their parents diagnose. drug, and make excuses for them instead of being parents. Harvard, Yale and the like are still full of kids that graduate from our system. If your kid isnt get what he/she needs in school dont blame it on us.
“it can’t be my little billy’s fault !!”
Yup, that happens daily. It is not just parents that say it either. The justice system and the media are guilty of it too.
I am not blaming the poor education on teachers.
As a teacher, do you have to teach crap that is not really your subject resposnibility?
Surely there are things that have been mandated by the Federal and State governments that interfere with the efficient and propper operation of our schools.
Harvard, Yale and the like graduate many people that are not as smart as they have been told, by Harvard, Yale and the like they are.
Absolutely 100% agree with you.My children’s education is MY responsibility,the educators have a roll to play but I am the 1 ultimately responsible to ensure MY kids learn .My daughter is a second grade teacher in the Augusta area and it is so sad some of the stories she tells us.Parents need to wake up and take responsibility.
Not only are Americans ignorant of other cultures, they lack empathy for “foreigners” because they are so abstract. Basic anthropology courses are a great idea, and not at all a BS subject.
Just curious – what else are BS subjects?
At what educational level? Almost anything now classified as liberal arts at the college level, any course that is AP at the secondary level and most “social” programs at the primary levels.
Outside that much of the BS is part of actual core subjects.
“Just curious – what else are BS subjects?” Anything the right-wing trolls don’t agree with. You know things like evolution.
David Berg, maybe it would be a good thing if we just jumped off the fiscal cliff. It is apparent that they Republicans in Congress are not going to compromise and raise taxes on anyone on their own.
This country is in a hole of epic proportions due to too many reasons to list. Reasons that eminated from both sides of the aisle. It isn’t constructive to play the blame game. We are stuck with many of the same politicians who want to parilize the function of Congress. Until the voters kick these people out of office and elect replacements that are willing to listen and make hard decisions that will bring this country back to sanity, we are stuck with the do-nothing bunch we have.
I’m not sure what you mean by “hole of epic proportions” but if you’re referring to the national debt and yearly deficit you are quite wrong. At the end of WW2 this country’s debt was 120% of our GDP. Today that deficit, even in the middle of a massive recession, is about 80% of GDP. Could and should it be less? Certainly but not until what the rest of your comments said come true. If we continue on this tea-party path where taxes and Norquist are more important than this country then we may very well face a hole of epic proportions.
Christmas is a over commercialized creation by Christians who wanted to eradicate the Jewish population. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm
When you finish reading this please research it’s facts. They are all true. The puritans outlawed Christmas. Many Christians today don’t want to follow Christ. They want to scream Christ and let everyone know they are superior. True people of the Christian religion (whether true or not) are supposed to care and love. The word Christian makes me nauseas when I hear it now. When I was young and I watched my Christian family give, and love, and be kind it was something to be proud of. Today I hear judgment and critical comments and hatred by Christians. Signs outside churches hating others. Local preachers whose homes are full of abuse yet still scream superiority in the name of Christianity. If you want to know where the moral decay is starting in this country look no further than those who call themselves conservative Christians. Look at the man who blamed the Newtown shooting on homosexuals while his own sone was kicked out of boy scouts for abusing and killing an animal violently. This country is full of good people but most of them do not call themselves Christians. Some do.
You hit the nail on the head, There are many people on these threads, who are just as you’ve said. Organized religion will be the down fall of us all.
Problem with you is that when someone mentions Christ in any way that is not derogatory you screech the evils of Christianity. You are one sick puppy.
Kathryn: Is gun control the answer to all violence? No. Is some overly due tweaking to the laws the answer? Yes, it is part of it. Thirty round magazines can be knocked down to ten and for God’s sakes the closing of loopholes that prevent background checks in private and gun show sales is a no brainer. These things will help. What the NRA and the gun manufacturers rail about when they claim more guns will help is greedy insanity. Their perverted vision is stagnant and cut in stone. It also carries horrific collateral damage that stages the United States way on top of the mountain of domestic death.
Celebrate a holiday. There are plenty.
Saint Nicholas’ Day: 6 December
Bodhi Day: 8 December – Day of Buddha’s Enlightenment
Saint Lucy’s Day: 13 December-Saint Lucy comes with lights and sweets.
Winter Solstice: 21 December-22 December – midwinter
Dongzhi Festival –December 22 Chinese and East Asians solstice festival can be traced back to the yin and yang philosophy of balance and harmony in the cosmos. Longer daylight hours mean an increase in positive energy flowing in.
Soyal: 21 December – Zuni and Hopi solstice
Yalda: 21 December – The Persian turning point, Winter Solstice. Mithra was born at dawn on the 22nd of December to a virgin mother. He symbolizes light, truth, goodness, strength, and friendship.
Mōdraniht: or Mothers’ Night, the Saxon winter solstice festival.
Saturnalia: December 25 the Roman winter solstice festival
Pancha Ganapati: Five-day Indian festival in honor of Lord Ganesha. December 21–25.
Christmas Eve: 24 December
Christmas Day: December 25
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti December 25 (Day of the birth of the
Unconquered Sun): Roman Empire Christmas
Yule: Finnish and German winter festival
Anastasia of Sirmium: Russian Feast Day: 25 December
Kwanzaa: 26 December – 1 January – Pan-African
festival celebrated in North America
Saint Stephen’s Day: 26 December
Diwali “festival of lights,” a five day Hindu festival, celebrated
on thirteenth lunar day of Krishna paksha (dark fortnight) of the Hindu calendar
Mummer’s Day: December 26 Pagan celebration involving disguises and
dancing.
Celebrate and enjoy. Leave lectures about who and what should be celebrated to the joyless and the sanctimonious. Let the positive energy flow from your joyous celebration.
Rachel Ouellette – The only entity talking about control of ALL guns is the NRA – no one else. The NRA has to keep gun owners in a panic. It’s how it stays alive. The truth is 20 six and seven-year-olds were lying on a class room floor in pools of blood caused by multiple bullet holes in each body – 11 in one child. We need to control any weapon that can do that kind of damage. Not a deer rifle, not a bird gun – killing machines that were designed and built to do one thing – kill people. The NRA wants gun owners to forget about the carnage in the class room and falsely claim “they” want to outlaw ALL guns and that’s non-sensical.