View Single Post
  #6   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 25-12-2003, 17:57
jonathan lall's Avatar
jonathan lall jonathan lall is offline
Registered User
FRC #2505 (The Electric Sheep; FRC #0188 alumnus)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 547
jonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond reputejonathan lall has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via MSN to jonathan lall
Re: Christmas and Schools

Let's bring a Canadian perspective to this...

In Canada, (the spirit of) our constitution would say that if there is sufficient demand, it is justifiable for such things to occur. For example, provincial governments will get in deep trouble if they don't cater to their francophone constitutents with schools and other government institutions if there are 'enough' French-speaking people; this is actually a constitutional law issue in Canada.

Whether or not I agree with this policy is another, more complex issue, but let me offer this: The large Catholic School Board in Toronto (and elsewhere too) gets enough government funding to be basically a public school system. My school has a large population of non-Christians however in a recent 'holiday' performance I noticed a lot of things that relate to this issue. One thing that really stood out is how a Christian extracurricular club could say 'God did this and this', whereas other religions had to say, 'it is our belief that, God did this and this...' like they're wrong or something. It's subtle, but definitely annoying. We had a yearbook cover rejected by the principal because it had (humorous) depictions of evolution, which I pointed out is recognized by most Christian institutions and even the Catholic School Board.

My point? I find it annoying that we now see it being the 'holiday season' rather than the Christmas Holidays. It's Christmas, come on! Christmas is a government holiday because of the amount of Christians who celebrate it here. The Ontario Education Act even explicitly tells teachers to practice "Judeo-Christian morality" mainly because of demand. As was mentioned earlier, you must be completely exclusive of religion, or completely inclusive. Just about every multicultural school board I know of is somewhere in between (an exception being France) and is pretending the former, so that I think is what causes this discomfort. I think if more people realized the school board's and government's policies and the thinking behind them, they would mind less. That's why I don't mind the Christmas Holidays.
__________________


Last edited by jonathan lall : 25-12-2003 at 18:00.
Reply With Quote