Our son's teacher informed us that the kids would not be allowed to dress up or otherwise "celebrate" the pagan holiday of Halloween. This, in and of itself, doesn't really bother me. Bear with me here.
The school is going to have a fall festival. Wanna take a guess what the theme of this festival is?
Pirates
Yes, they get to dress up as pirates and participate in pirate-themed activities for the fall festival.
So let me see if I get this straight...
1) The kids are NOT allowed to dress up as firemen or doctors or cowboys or angels or princesses or astronauts or power rangers or Luke Skywalker or cute animals and "celebrate" a holiday that, although it may have some pagan origins, has become so widely commercialized and ingrained in our society that it's lost it's original pagan meanings.
2) The kids ARE allowed to dress up as murderers, thieves, and scoundrels and celebrate the profession of piracy.
Somehow that just doesn't make sense to me. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say they shouldn't be able to have a pirate-themed fall festival either. Like Halloween, I think "pirates" have become a commercialized popular icon through rides at Disneyland and movies like Pirates of the Caribbean. (Heck, I just took my kids to see The Pirates of Penzance.)
The two policies just seem very contradictory to me. I thought about writing to the school about it, but I figured they'd say, "Ya know what? You're absolutely right! We're hereby CANCELING the fall festival!" I don't want to ruin the fall festival for the kids, so I just decided to vent about it here in the blogosphere instead.
...My sons will still have fun dressing up as a Military Policeman and as Luke Skywalker after school gets out on Halloween this year.
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4 comments:
Saw your blog link on another blog and thought I'd check it out. (DH is a submarine officer)
I agree, I think that's quite the interesting resort to not allowing traditional halloween celebration. At my elder's old school in GA they couldn't do the "scary" thing either and it was a "fall" theme as opposed to Halloween. Here, we've yet to hear anything about his 'halloween' festivities, but I think we're ok seeing as how his costume request is to be a "red bird...with lots of feathers."
If you make contact with the school about the situation, I'll be interested to read the followup!
You could just opt to sue the school. I'm sure you can come up with some justification...
Welcome to the world of a Parent... now you know why I'm called "Badger" - get near my kids (you included) and I'll fight you to the death! :)
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