In my previous classroom experience, I have made christmas trees out of popsicle sticks, wrote about Santa, and gave gifts to students during the holiday season. Granted, many of my students did not know what we were doing besides that it was art and not math. I have never had a family complain about our activities, but we were always conscientious about which families did not celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah and made them feel included with different activities. This year however, makes me think a lot deeper about the beliefs of ourselves and our students.
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, 76% of America is some form of Christian, including Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, and all other forms of Christianity. But this same survey states that only 51% have attended church services. Judaism, Muslim, Hindi and Buddism make up about 6% of the American population, but again, the same study related that 19% of the Judaism group reported that “God does not exist”. A whopping 19.6% of the entire population self reported as Agnostic, Atheist or No Affiliations (thats like 60 MILLION people!).
The question I found myself facing was, “How do I ignore something in my classroom, something that 90% of my students believe in and love, while making sure that that 10% is happy and included”. This originally came about at Halloween time when I was asked by a parent for an alternate writing prompt other than “Write a Halloween Ghost story”. I had heard that certain religious groups do not condone Halloween, but had never seen it in practice. I do not know the actual religion of this family, but lets suffice to say that Christmas falls into the ‘not celebrated’ category as well. Luckily for me, the parents were the type to ask only for an alternate assignment, not to repeal the assignment altogether. They were kind and not too demanding about their child not be included in our Halloween activities, but I have seen other teachers have a much harder time.
I agree that forcing religious beliefs on any person is a no-no. Lets not get into the Pledge of Allegiance debate right now.
My question, stated before, and my thoughts on this boiled down to, are all of my students who celebrate Christmas, actually Christian? And the answer was a definite No. I’m sure many of you know people who celebrate by getting a tree, putting up lights, and spending barrels of money on things to say I love you to family and friends, who haven’t attended mass since they were baptized at 2 months old. Growing up Catholic, I went to mass on Sunday’s, Easter, and Christmas. I was raised with the understanding of what Christmas was ‘originally’ about. But I would be stupid to think that everyone believes this. If every self-identified Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, etc etc stopped celebrating Christmas, I’m sure the economy would truly suffer.
As long as you, as the teacher, are celebrating ALL of the Holidays *teaching about Holidays around the world is a great common core lesson!*, not discriminating against any religions, not going against another child’s beliefs or forcing them to participate, theres not reason not to include some Holiday fun in your class. You don’t have to be a Christian to celebrate love, giving, selflessness, and joy. Christmas, and even to some degree, Hanukkah, to the chagrin of the Churches and Synagogues, HAVE become commercialized holidays where the priorities become gifts and children cry when they don’t get I-Pads. Sad? Maybe. But in December each year, beyond the shopping and Black Fridays and credit card bills, I see people volunteering for food drives, giving clothes and toys to the less fortunate, writing checks to non-profits, and giving more than they receive. And it makes me wonder if the world wouldn’t be a better place if we had more than one ‘holiday season’ each year.