OPINION: Knowledge can curb Christmas controversy in schools
As the first-grade teachers in a Wichita, Kan., elementary school talked about Christmas, they expressed tinges of anger and regret at the way times had changed, particularly in their school.
“We don’t say Merry Christmas anymore. We say Happy Holidays. There’s nothing wrong with Merry Christmas,” said Vita Lamb, a Wichita native who had taught at the school for nearly 20 years.
In her view, the country had become too politically correct and schools were spending so much attention honoring other cultures that they neglected America’s custom of celebrating Christmas. “Amen,” said Shari Goetzinger, another teacher.
First-grade teacher, Deborah Fagg, recalled how she used to love to help decorate classroom Christmas trees at her previous school in a nearby town. But she, unlike some of her colleagues, had stopped missing those traditions and instead had grown to fully embrace the idea of education rather than celebration regarding religious holidays in schools. It’s the approach that her school, Minneha Core Knowledge Elementary School, prefers. Minneha, one of roughly 1,270 public and private schools in the country using the Core Knowledge curriculum, starts instruction about world religions in first grade. Core Knowledge, not to be confused with the Common Core, was developed by educational researcher E.D. Hirsch.
At Minneha, the first-grade teachers teach about Judaism, Christianity and Islam over a few weeks’ time in late fall. They cover each religion’s holidays, including Christmas and Hanukkah, but also the holiest days for Jews, like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and for Muslims, such as Ramadan. I spent a week reporting at Minneha for my book, Faith Ed., which examines schools’ efforts to teach about religion. Though some teachers clearly struggled to relinquish Christmas traditions, their attempt to change the focus from celebration to education could be a model for schools elsewhere.
The tension over how to handle Christmas in public schools is far from over. Some, out of fear of violating the separation of church and state and promoting one religion, do nothing about holidays. Other schools, figuring students are all Christian anyway, hold Christmas concerts, set up Christmas trees and put Merry Christmas on marquees — until someone complains. Concord Community Schools in Elkhart, Ind., is now fighting to keep its decades-old tradition of having high school students dress up as Joseph and Mary and the wise men and simulate a nativity scene in the annual Christmas Spectacular concert. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a student and his father in October. And a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction Dec. 2 barring the school system from using the live Nativity scene.
The judge reiterated what should have been clear from the get-go: the Christmas show wrongly sends a message of favoritism toward or endorsement of a particular religion.Yes, schools can include religious songs, but the program’s purpose must be educational rather than “devotional or proselytizing,” wrote Charles C. Haynes, the First Amendment Center’s senior scholar, in a past column about sacred music.
At the Wichita school, Fagg talks openly about Christmas and what it’s about as part of the lesson plan each fall just like she does about the holidays of Judaism and Islam. In the case of Christmas, she’s careful to say that this is what Christians believe and keeps her beliefs out of the equation.
“The figure you’ll be reading about is Jesus Christ,” she announced to her first-grade class as I observed. “Who do you think Jesus is?”
Students’ hands shot up with various suggestions. “Moses. David. God. A leader. An angel. A pharaoh who died long ago.”
“OK, put your eyes on me again. You’re going to be listening to find out who Christians believe Jesus Christ to be,” Fagg said.
The Wichita school is heading in a direction many schools should follow, even though its path has not been perfect. One teacher, at least when I visited a few years ago, still put a Christmas tree in her classroom as the holiday approached. Others, like Angelique Badgett, stuck to the curriculum. As a second-grade teacher, Badgett gives lessons on Hinduism.
Rather than treat Christmas as the bogeyman, teach about it and other religions’ holidays in schools. Hold a concert of sacred music representing many faiths, but base the date on an academic rather than a religious calendar.
Badgett won’t do Christmas activities out of respect for non-Christians in her class. “In terms of holidays, celebrate it at home,” she says. Yes, but it’s not just about being sensitive to our country’s growing religious diversity or the nearly one quarter of Americans who affiliate with no religion. It’s about doing what’s legal and what’s educationally sound.
Linda K. Wertheimer, a veteran journalist and former education editor of The Boston Globe, is the author of Faith Ed: Teaching About Religion In An Age of Intolerance. Follow Wertheimer on Twitter.