Which is why it really disturbs me that some public schools aren’t even allowed to celebrate Halloween anymore. According the Seattle Public School district, “costumes could offend or upset students who come from other cultures”. The pagan origins of modern Halloween can be found in the Celtic celebration of Samhain, or "End of Summer." The Celts believed that on this agricultural harvest festival the dead revisit the land of the living and communal fires were needed to ward off evil. Many feel that celebrating Halloween is somehow promoting paganism, witchcraft and the occult.
I’m not sure how dressing up as a comic book hero and knocking on doors for candy is related to paganism, but it did get me thinking. In a few weeks, we will be discussing our First Amendment rights, and the separation of church and state. Halloween isn’t the only holiday that schools have banned in the interest of not offending anyone. So my question to you this week is, “What do you think of school’s celebrating holidays? Should they celebrate all holidays, some holidays or none at all?” For an added twist, “What are your Halloween plans?” I’d love to hear what you’re dressing up as! Answers are due no later than Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016. Have a happy and safe Halloween!
I think that if you're going to single out certain holidays to either celebrate or make a point of not celebrating then you should celebrate all or none. That way you avoid offense by not celebrating any holidays or celebrating every holiday. In celebrating every holiday then you get to learn about new cultures. I will be going as Poison Ivy and my boyfriend will be escorting me as Bane. We're not for sure where or what we'll be doing, but it'll be super fun either way!!
ReplyDeleteI think that schools should celebrate holidays, maybe not all of them since every culture has so many. But it would be nice and I think educational to celebrate a variety of different holidays as kids can learn about each one and why it is being celebrated. Halloween plans? Well I am going to a friends house party as like every other year with my boyfriend. I am dressing up as little red riding hood while he will be dressing up as the huntsman!
ReplyDeleteI think schools should be able to celebrate these holidays. I never saw halloween as offending anyone and in this day and age everyone is somehow getting offended from everything. Halloween has been a tradition for years and if you do not wish to participate than thats your decision but it should not be banned. Everyone and everybody has the right to do as they please. The only thing that I would say is offensive is some halloween costumes. This year I went to couple halloween parties and went as an army girl I guess. My boyfriend is in the army so I just worse his jacket but I had such a fun weekend!
ReplyDeleteI think that all holidays should be celebrated in schools, or at least mentioned and taught to the students. It's not right to have students growing up blind sided by holidays that they don't celebrate. In an education system, it's important for students to learn about holidays and what they are and how they came about. For example, Christmas is a huge holiday celebrated by a lot of people, but not everyone. During Christmas time in my school district growing up, we would always have Christmas sweater days and the halls would be decorated. Even for Halloween, the halls would be decorated and people could wear costumes! I think it is ludicrous to not "celebrate" them.
ReplyDeleteFor Halloween this year, I was the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz and I went down to IU to be with friends (:
I believe that if one holiday is not being recognized based on religious grounds or because it may offend other cultures, all other holidays should be held to the same standard. Many well known holidays have pagan origins, including Christmas. I can't imagine any school district that would ban the celebration of the birth of Jesus, no matter how much it offends Satanists, but somehow it's okay to ban the celebration of an equally valid holiday? If schools are allowed to celebrate any one holiday, they should be able to celebrate all of them.
ReplyDeleteFor Halloween, I ended up being lame and not doing much of anything to celebrate this year. I worked or had class all weekend/actual Halloween. Also, the night I planned on celebrating, I unexpectedly hung out with my sibs, which was fun. If I had celebrated, I would have dressed up as Helena from the show Orphan Black.
Its america Halloween is a national holiday here in our land. Deal with it. They should have stricter rules on the costumes in schools but taking hallooween out of schools isnt going to stop kids from celebrating it anyways so why not allow them to have fun on the national holidays like the others.Also for the cultures that dont celebrate it here in america. Your still here in america and your going to have to deal with it anyways. even with the much less restrictions then they have at schools for kids. The only way to escape halloween is to lock yourself in side and don't turn on the telivion
ReplyDeleteI think all holidays should be celebrated at school no matter what. Holidays are supposed to be a fun time, and in my opinion, people get way to easily offended these days, and then spoil the fun for everyone else. We can't please everyone, so I say we celebrate because it's a nice distraction from all the stress and daily activities that go on normally. For my Halloween weekend I hung out with my friends and watched scary movies, and then on Monday I went out to the bars downtown to celebrate.
ReplyDeletePersonally celebrating Halloween in school doesn't offend me. Growing up we always celebrated Halloween at school. I remember every year the kids would dress up and have a parade around the school and all the parents would come watch. I think we should just let kids be kids and have a little fun. As for the other holidays i also think they should be celebrated. If some parents have problems with celebrating a certain holiday they should just keep their child home and not make the majority miss out. As for Halloween this year I didn't dress up because I had class from 6-9.
ReplyDeleteThis is Katie. I think that as long as they do not talk about the religious side of the holidays it should be allowed in schools. For example, if Christmas is being celebrated they shouldn't force other children to hear the story about Christ being born. There are different religious beliefs in school systems, and so its wrong to force that part of it on them. Now when it comes to holidays based purely off of religion like Easter, depending on the community that the school is in, it should be ok but should be addressed with caution. I come from a small mainly Christian town, so my opinion is slightly biased, because we didn't really have a lot of variety what so ever. For Halloween I dressed up as Chester Creb from American Horror Story Freakshow because i went to the American Horror Story party here at Ai.
ReplyDeleteWelp I had a well constructed comment posted last night, however using a high school laptop of my sisters it didn't allow me to post it. So in summary…I think schools should be able to educate students on holidays, while not necessarily celebrating them. We as United States Citizens are all part of a melting pot-therefore we should be able to recognize all aspects of culture in an educational manner- and while remaining separate of church and state. There could even be a lot of restrictions on it- but it sucks to think my future kids won't get the "fun" school experience that I had. If they can celebrate Valentines day (which is derived from Greek origins) then why wouldn't we allow them to be informed on actual historical holidays surrounding our County. I partied from thursday-monday…which has been a longggg time since my liver has been up to that. Honestly it was only because Halloweekend is my favorite :) I dressed up as a Kiwi (in a group costume) Snow White (at work) Rocky.. or as people referred to me as Rhonda Rousey, as well as Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood. My most memorable part of this weekend was The Vogue Theatre's party monday night- complete insanity.
ReplyDeleteI think that holidays shouldn't be celebrated at school. It takes away of the real history of the holiday because of course they teach us what they want us to know, not what really happened. You cant get far in life learning about Santa clause because eventually the truth gets revealed, there is no Santa clause.LOL I worked on Halloween but this was my 1 month old first holiday, she dressed as a sun on the 30th and a pumpkin on the 31st!!! And yes I'm eating her candy.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone mainly enjoys the holidays because the opportunity of having school and work off. Some religions have holidays that aren't widely known and aren't marked on the calendar, so yeah schools should allow the celebration of holidays.
ReplyDelete