Jeff for America

I know it’s April. I’m under no delusion that this post has taken far too long to write down. I think I needed some time away from it, though, to really make sense of it.

December, as a month during the school year, isn’t really much of anything. Learning, although likely happening from time to time, is mostly pushed aside. The holiday season, in all its glory, takes center stage. Growing up, I remember Christmas time at school. Usually informal, my teachers would have us make gifts for our families and they would decorate their rooms with nondescript holiday colors. Maybe it was the 90′s, but my teachers and schools were overwhelming PC about the whole thing. There weren’t any Christmas songs playing or Santa hats worn. I recall being told not use green and red to decorate our middle school winter dance, and I thought to myself, “well that’s a bit much,” but I went along with – not wanting to leave anyone out. And so it went. As an adult, I came to adopt a very casual relationship with the holiday. Outside my family and friends, I refused to say Merry Christmas to strangers. And even within my circles of friends, I didn’t like using the term “Secret Santa” for our gift exchanges. Perhaps too sensitive, it nonetheless made me feel more comfortable about the whole thing. It is, after all, an entire month long.

And so when Christmas time rolled around at my school this year, where I was no longer a student but a teacher – I was, in the very least, a bit shocked when I saw this:

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “what’s the big deal?” I’ve asked myself the same question. But my answer, as it’s developed, has been a resounding “everything about it.” Let me explain.

Schools can be, and probably should be, a place for religious expression. But I have a problem when that religious expression is monopolized by a singular faith. And the truth is, most of the schools in this country serve predominantly Christian populations. So the story goes – Christmas, and Christian beliefs, including creationism, moral commandments, and other holidays become the go-to for school celebrations and norms. No one questions it, and when they do – they are demonized, ostracized or deemed too politically correct. I’ve seen people be accused of stealing Christmas for not wanting to push it on others (who might be Christian or not). There’s a whole narrative around this that Bill O’Reilly rails on every December. As he, and others like him, see it – the majority rules. Christians have a right to say Merry Christmas to whoever they want in whatever fashion they deem appropriate.

Suddenly, people seem to think it’s ok to have kids at a public school make ornaments for an evergreen tree, or take pictures with a santa. These are all strong symbols of a Christian holiday, and although my school doesn’t allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms, or crosses to be hung above doors, it’s almost sending the same message. I’ve seen muslim kids be denied from participating in our holiday program because they couldn’t wear santa hats or sing to the tune of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” (a song, I admit, transcends religions). And I see the way kids get sucked into the holiday without realizing what it’s all about. It belittles and makes irrelevant the religious beliefs and celebrations of other cultures, and makes people who don’t do it home feel out of place and left out. Indirectly, it rewards those who grow up in a Christian household and leaves others questioning their place in a Christian-dominated society without the context to build their own.

And if we’re going to celebrate religious holidays, we do it across the board. We do it to learn about, not necessarily to celebrate, the beliefs, values or traditions of other people. You can imagine my dismay, then, when during the week of Halloween, our administration made an announcement prohibiting the recognition of Halloween. No decorations, no candy, no costumes. I found it odd. I found it contradictory. And it proved the point I’m trying to make. The only reason they made that announcement was because Halloween, to some Christian families, represents a pagan, anti-Christian holiday. Like the parents that condemn Harry Potter because it’s witchcraft, these families don’t want their kids exposed to anything outside their religious comfort zone. Religious expression, it seems, is ok as long as it fits the norm and is approved by the majority.

That brings us to my point. With all this happening, it becomes reasonable to fall back on the belief that religious expression has no place at school. If it can’t be done with an eye for inclusiveness and the celebration of diversity, then it shouldn’t be done at all. And then we end up missing out on the potential to expose our young people to other cultures and beliefs altogether. As it seems all too often, it’s a case of all or nothing. On this topic, I choose nothing.

- Jeff