Teacher canned for telling kids Santa isn’t real
Okay, admittedly: it sounds like the teacher — a substitute brought in for a day — wasn’t exactly classy about it. Still…the school’s response (calling the substitute teaching agency that employs her and requesting that she never be sent back to the school) is a tad…over the top?
Especially since all she did was tell the kids the plain truth: Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist.
What really gets me are some of the comments, both on the article and from the parents, that this has prompted.
Mrs Roberston wrote that what the teacher had done “would be like telling someone religious that God doesn’t exist”.
Not exactly, Mrs. Robertson. Santa can be empirically disproven, after all, by the simple act of standing vigil over one’s Christmas tree and awaiting his arrival. Testing the existence of God is not quite so simple, the comments left by one particular atheist on my old blog nonwithstanding.
Yes, that’s a half-glib comment on my part, but still.
I am quite shocked the number who think it’s fine for a teacher to destroy the magic of Christmas to such young children. Do none of you remember the excitement it brought when young?
There really is very few years to experience this childhood magic, why make them grow up too soon?
How does learning that Santa isn’t real destroy the magic of Christmas, exactly? I mean, I guess if one doesn’t believe in — or has never been taught about — Jesus, learning that there isn’t a Santa pretty much means that the summation of the Christmas season is some fancy decorations and a few gifts from family and friends. And maybe a Christmas party or two, and a nice dinner.
But isn’t that enough to look forward to? When I think back on Christmas, I don’t think of the anticipation of Santa (e.g. presents, materialism) as much as I do the anticipation of family get-togethers, tasty dinners, and visiting relatives from afar. And church, of course — I always liked the Christmas Masses.
I suspect that the problem is not with teachers who are willing to speak truthfully, however tactlessly, about Santa Claus, as much as it is with parents and families who have, for their children, made the Christmas season into an essentially materialistic enterprise.
This story made http://detentionslip.org ! Check it out for all the crazy headlines from our schools.
Steynian 297 « Free Canuckistan! (December 15, 2008, 12:20 pm).
[...] TEACHER CANNED for telling kids Santa isn’t real/ Wonder what happens if the same statement was made about God, [...]
Steynian 297 (December 15, 2008, 1:11 pm).
[...] TEACHER CANNED for telling kids Santa isn’t real/ Wonder what happens if the same statement was made about God, [...]