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The "War on Easter" - MERGE


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My kids had 'Science in the Garden' this week. The little ones had cute flower festooned hats, the older ones demonstrated the things they had learnt this term, mostly about bugs and seed germination. I liked it far better than the tedious Easter bonnet parades I have sat through in previous years.

My children attend a state school with a culturally diverse population. They are one of the few schools in the region that do not have religious education classes, but teach philosophy instead. I love this school so much.

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My house is covered in Easter crap. Including a DJ Eggstra decorated shoe box which apparently incorporates both an Easter theme and my child's recent Sweden project (Yes I have no clue either, except I had to hard boil three eggs at eleven PM on Monday night.)

The teacher gave all the kids an Easter egg. There was I believe an Easter bonnet competition, and a shed load of other craft things. Kid is now on holiday for two weeks as is the rest of the schools in the country. I really don't care one way or another about it. They celebrated Diwali, learned about Ramadan, Passover and Thanksgiving this year at different times. We did not fast or eat a turkey in November and I don't feel my child missed out because of this.

Somebody somewhere is going to feel left out. I just don't get why religion has to suck the chocolate out of life.

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hlntv.com/article/2013/03/22/holidays-overwhelming-st-patricks-day-parenting-rage-against-minivan

Good article/blog about how holidays have gotten out of control

Hahaha I was thinking about that! Rage against the minivan is one of my favoritst mainstream/evangelical/emergant christians. She is funny, cool and really embraces social justice and she often has really thoughtful posts. And her kids are so stinking cute.

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I have no recollection of people getting their panties in a wad because of any of this but that may be because Long Island doesn't have a large population of offense-collecting fundies.

But you have Taryn!!! :D

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My house is covered in Easter crap. Including a DJ Eggstra decorated shoe box which apparently incorporates both an Easter theme and my child's recent Sweden project (Yes I have no clue either, except I had to hard boil three eggs at eleven PM on Monday night.)

The teacher gave all the kids an Easter egg. There was I believe an Easter bonnet competition, and a shed load of other craft things. Kid is now on holiday for two weeks as is the rest of the schools in the country. I really don't care one way or another about it. They celebrated Diwali, learned about Ramadan, Passover and Thanksgiving this year at different times. We did not fast or eat a turkey in November and I don't feel my child missed out because of this.

Somebody somewhere is going to feel left out. I just don't get why religion has to suck the chocolate out of life.

:( :cry: Meanies!!

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I do think that the drive for complete freedom from religious holidays goes too far. Why not take the opportunity to learn? Even if it's five minutes at the beginning of the day - "Oh, today's the beginning of Ramadan, it is a time of fasting among Muslims to mark..." - that's better than practically denying they exist. As long as you're not promoting anything it doesn't seem like a big deal. Isn't it better to try to understand than to just ignore?

We never did any Easter stuff beyond maybe the teacher passing out candy, and getting Good Friday and Easter Monday off (but those are statutory, everyone is out that day). But I vividly remember a Christmas concert which had winter traditions from around the world - including a Japanese telling of the Nativity. (I want to say this was in 2000? 2001?) No one complained, and maybe some of the kids - gasp! - learned something.

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I grew up in a predominantly Catholic area of Massachusetts. Our public school ALWAYS had Good Friday off. I don't remember any Easter themed activities at school however, and I know my kids aren't doing anything at all this week out of the ordinary at school.

The kids are off today in my southeastern MA town.

I attended the same public schools my kids do/did and never once has Easter been a theme or topic for any of us. The same schools also were and are closed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. No religious-themed activities take place before these days either.

Beyond social studies and world history classes, religion has no place in public schools.

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I have no problem with religious celebrations being TAUGHT in public school, as long as equal time is given to at least the major religions, but I do have an objection to having them celebrated, even those that have become secularized. I went to school in the late 50s and 60s and celebrations of Christmas and Easter were very much a part of the school year. We had a Christmas concert, Christmas trees in all the rooms, Easter egg hunts, Christmas vacation and Easter vacation and so on. We also still had school prayer. :? All despite the fact that our school had a fairly significant Jewish population. Even as a young kid, I remember feeling excluded even though we were VERY reform Jews. Somewhere around the late 60s this started to change. Christmas and Easter gave way to winter and spring concerts and vacation. No more officially sanctioned religious celebrations. One other significant change I remember is the timing of spring vacation was changed to accommodate Passover. Not really for religious reasons; it was more financial because so many teachers and students were Jewish that the schools would have been half empty. I have no recollection of people getting their panties in a wad because of any of this but that may be because Long Island doesn't have a large population of offense-collecting fundies.

Thanks for saying what I was about to say.

Education ABOUT different religions and cultures is great. Acknowledge that students may be celebrating their faiths in many ways during Easter, Passover, Eid, Diwali, Lunar New Year, etc. CELEBRATING, though, is very different when it involves public schools. It either involves some degree of state coercion in religious observance (and even having to sit out an activity as a kid has an element of coercion and identifying a child as different), or it completely degrades religious celebrations by essentially saying that they are meaningless.

My kids know that in North American Christian culture, kids commonly hunt for colored eggs, eat chocolates and hear about an Easter Bunny. It's not their holiday, and there is no reason for them to participate. We had our own holiday which kept us quite busy, and didn't expect non-Jews to have Passover seders. At most, I'd simply like them to be aware that Jews in the area have this holiday and may have some extra restrictions for a week. It's nice that the local courthouse switched the trial sittings from April to May, and the latest challenge is getting local officials to realize that mandatory store closings on Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a hardship when there are thousands in the community who were not able to shop on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Monday or Tuesday for religious reasons, nor were they able to eat out or even eat the food from the local convenience stores. [seriously, the last minute Christmas shoppers rush on Dec. 24 has nothing on the rush of crazed grocery shoppers in my area.]

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townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/2013/03/30/hey-isnt-that-the-spring-bunny-n1551297/page/full/

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I can't say that I'm a fan of the anti-Jewish dig (no, I don't think that 2% of the population is more powerful than 80% of the population, and the ADL doesn't tend to concern itself with policing observance of Jewish traditions by the general public).

The Easter bunny rant, though, was just absurd. I know I'm just a Jew, so any Christian is free to correct me, but I thought that the religious significance of Easter was to celebrate the date on which Jesus was said to have risen from his grave after the crucifixion. I know that Easter bunnies and egg hunts are common cultural practices for Christians here - but are they actually things with any true religious significance for Christians? Isn't it part of a Germanic myth, possibly associated with pagan fertility rites and the goddess Ostara?

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By rising from the dead, Jesus made it possible for rabbits to lay colorful eggs. This is the true miracle of Easter.

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The bunnies and eggs are a sign of spring and new beginnings. At least that was how I was taught.

That's what I've heard as well - along with the fact that Jesus' resurrection is the ultimate in new life and new beginnings, the ultimate in "coming back to life," and at the same time the earth coming back to life with the arrival of spring is just an echo of that theme.

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Ugh the merge ate my comment!

Bunnies (I don't know about eggs) are associated with paganism a lot. I have no doubt that their inclusion at Easter is derived from pagan practices, just like Christmas trees and evergreens at Christmas. It doesn't bother me at all though. There's no religious significance for me (although I think the eggs are significant to Orthodox Christians?) but they're a fun part of Easter.

Calling Easter 'Resurrection Sunday' is the true war on Easter! :lol: I really hate that term. Call it Easter or Pascha.

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townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/2013/03/30/hey-isnt-that-the-spring-bunny-n1551297/page/full/

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I can't say that I'm a fan of the anti-Jewish dig (no, I don't think that 2% of the population is more powerful than 80% of the population, and the ADL doesn't tend to concern itself with policing observance of Jewish traditions by the general public).

The Easter bunny rant, though, was just absurd. I know I'm just a Jew, so any Christian is free to correct me, but I thought that the religious significance of Easter was to celebrate the date on which Jesus was said to have risen from his grave after the crucifixion. I know that Easter bunnies and egg hunts are common cultural practices for Christians here - but are they actually things with any true religious significance for Christians? Isn't it part of a Germanic myth, possibly associated with pagan fertility rites and the goddess Ostara?

BiilO might be interested to know that my my very religious husband "invented" the Spring Bunny more than 30 years ago when our oldest daughter was very small. He didn't want the Easter Bunny to distract our kinds from the religious meaning of Easter. My girls got their baskets on the first day of Spring for the longest time.

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Yes that makes sense. I'm just wondering what are schools to do? Completely ignoring holidays seems like an overreaction.

Avoid the holidays.

The big problem is the educational minutes. I don't know about every school district but in California when I was teaching it was 360 minutes per day/180 days per school year. And you didn't count recess, lunch, or non-academic celebrations like holidays. And you had to offer the same amount of time for each religion represented in your class. Say you had Christian, Jewish and Muslim kids and the Christians wanted 2 hours one afternoon for an Easter party. That meant you had to set aside two hours for the other two. That means you just added a day to the end of the year for Every. Student. In. The. School. because they're not going to keep the school open just for your class if you're the unlucky one to have more than just Christians.

And the very parents who complained about not getting an Easter party would be the ones who complained about having to have little Johnny in school an extra day.

And don't forget to make nice to the Jehovah's Witness kids who's parents freak about every celebration and tell everyone that Satan has come to school.

And be sure to cram those six hours of instruction in before the NKLB tests or it's your job.

Yeah, no. You want a holiday party? Do it after school at your church. I'm here to teach not play.

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In a multicultural area like mine, you acknowledge that children are celebrating various holidays on various dates (so no, you do not celebrate all holidays at Xmas). You have a multifaith school calendar, make an announcement along the lines of "We'd like to wish a Happy _______ to our _____ students who will be celebrating it on [date]", and expect that some students will write about their holiday celebrations in their journals, mention it at show and tell, etc. There may also be some class discussion of customs and practices associated with a holiday. And if there are kids who don't celebrate anything including birthdays or sing the national anthem - you politely explain that this is part of their religious beliefs, accommodate them in a way that they don't feel like freaks and emphasize that religious tolerance is an important value. [My mom - a agnostic Jewish teacher - spent an awful lot of time explaining this to colleagues as our formerly WASP town grew into an exceedingly multicultural city.]

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In a multicultural area like mine, you acknowledge that children are celebrating various holidays on various dates (so no, you do not celebrate all holidays at Xmas). You have a multifaith school calendar, make an announcement along the lines of "We'd like to wish a Happy _______ to our _____ students who will be celebrating it on [date]", and expect that some students will write about their holiday celebrations in their journals, mention it at show and tell, etc. There may also be some class discussion of customs and practices associated with a holiday. And if there are kids who don't celebrate anything including birthdays or sing the national anthem - you politely explain that this is part of their religious beliefs, accommodate them in a way that they don't feel like freaks and emphasize that religious tolerance is an important value. [My mom - a agnostic Jewish teacher - spent an awful lot of time explaining this to colleagues as our formerly WASP town grew into an exceedingly multicultural city.]

I think that this is a good idea.

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In general I don't think religious holidays should be celebrated in public schools (not least because parties at school are a waste of time), but religions of all types should be discussed. For instance in October when kids dress up to go to school we should tell them all about Samhain - which, by the way, influences why we dress up as scary things in the first place.

The other issue with Christian holidays is that they're intimately tied up with Western culture. I don't think you can fully segregate them because Western culture is so Christian. The Christianity informs our culture, but the Christianity itself is informed by the European cultures that existed before they converted to Christianity, and the general lifestyle of people in Europe. We hunt for eggs at Easter because, hallelujah, the hens are laying and we can have eggs and cake. We have mulled wine at Christmas because it's warming on a cold winter's day. When I say "we" here, I'm not talking about Christians, but about people who live in Western societies with a Christian history, regardless of their personal religious persuasions. So where do you draw the line? No more hunting for yummy cake-making eggs, because it's been co-opted by Christianity? Or do we continue to do the egg hunt but talk about how for most of human history people's lives were affected by the seasons far more than they are now?

ETA: Of course, even though Christian celebration is tied with Western cultural celebration, there are loads of children at Western schools that come from other parts of the world, and why shouldn't we acknowledge their cultural holidays? Then there are places like Florida which, while influenced by European culture, isn't somewhere you need to celebrate the end of winter ;)

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townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/2013/03/30/hey-isnt-that-the-spring-bunny-n1551297/page/full/

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It's BillO, so either is probably appropriate (or just ignore the insanity, which is what I try to do). Our local paper prints his syndicated rants regularly - the latest was something about zombie TV (Walking Dead?) getting better ratings than the crucifixion episode of The Bible. Apparently this offended BillO and is a sign of . . . I don't know, cultural decline or something. He kind of lost me along the way.

It was about as random as this bizarre email I got from Burpee.com, which I kept because I still haven't figured out what the heck it all means, or why they sent it to their newsletter subscribers in the first place, it has zilch to do with gardening as far as I can tell.

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