Schools across the country have announced they are cancelling Halloween activities this year. These decisions are being made by administrators, often with little or no input from parents. Administrators claim they want to focus on academics but also note "religious and cultural" issues are at play in the decision to downplay Halloween.
A school superintendent in Skokie, Illinois just north of Chicago recently announced that District 69 schools will not be celebrating Halloween this year. A letter sent to parents last month mentioned the need to focus on academics but also explained the decision as the result of economic, religious, and cultural concerns. "Many students cannot afford costumes and there is an economic disparity... We also have students that are unable to participate for religious or cultural reasons."
7 comments:
The Administrator's are discriminating against those that do not have a problem enjoying Halloween, that CAN afford costumes.
(or have a mother and father that can make a costume)
This is DISCRMINATION!
These kids parents pay taxes and deserve the same benefits that poor kids and religious kids receive, they deserve it because there parent's feed them in the morning without Government assistance! How about rewarding ACHIEVEMENT for a change instead of rewarding those that are incompetent at life.
It shouldn't be the school's role in the first place! Our Halloween was ALWAYS a family, neighborhood, night time clandestine activity. It's the almighty government that decided that it should be daylight oriented, time slots determined by government, and in schools during broad daylight! YUK!
Can we look at the origin of the Holiday? Guess what, kids, November first is.... keep thinking... ALL SAINT'S DAY!!!! 10 points if you got that one! Do you know what that MEANS??? That means that the last few nights (Vampires can't come out in daylight) for the lost and evil souls in hell and purgatory to come out and make their last plea of the year to be released from their hellish bondage before Nov. 1, when all the saints are marching in celebration and being honored.
For me, Halloween was 3 days long and a bar of soap for the windows for those with lights out!
Oh, the good old days when everybody was a neighbor,got along, and helped celebrate a holiday!
..Done with PC
They haven't been celebrating it in Wicomico county schools since my son started kindergarten. He's now in middle school, so that's at least 7 years that I'm aware of. I'm sure it longer than that, but he's my oldest child so I don't know. They have a Fall festival at our elementary school, and used to call Halloween " Character Day" where if you were to wear a costume to school it had to be of a non scary character from a book. I think they have done away with that a few years ago also.
709 says,
I forgot to add that this kind of makes it a religious holiday, and kind of not, so don't EVEN pull that crap on me!
7:09 PM
Halloween is also thought to have been influenced by the Christian holy days of All Saints' Day (also known as All Hallows, Hallowmas or Hallowtide) on November 1 and All Souls' Day on November 1.[28] They were a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed who had yet to reach Heaven. All Saints was introduced in the year 609, but was originally celebrated on May 13.[29] In 835, it was switched to November 1 (the same date as Samhain) at the behest of Pope Gregory IV.[29] Some have suggested this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea.[29]
By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing bells for the souls in purgatory. "Souling", the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for "all crysten christened souls",[30] has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating.[31] Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door on All Saints/All Souls collecting soul cakes, originally as a means of praying for souls in purgatory.[32] Similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.[33] Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas."[34] The custom of wearing costumes has been linked to All Saints/All Souls by Prince Sorie Conteh, who wrote: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".[35] In Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Nicholas Rogers explained Halloween jack-o'-lanterns as originally being representations of souls in purgatory.[27]
Families picking pumpkins for Halloween in Maryland, United States, 2012
In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation as Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the notion of predestination.[28] This, coupled with the rising popularity of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November) from 1605 onward, led to Halloween's popularity waning in Britain, with the noteworthy exception of Scotland.[36] There and in Ireland, they had been celebrating Samhain and Halloween since at least the early Middle Ages,[12] and the Scottish kirk took a more pragmatic approach to Halloween, seeing it as important to the life cycle and rites of passage of communities and thus ensuring its survival in the country.
In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is sometimes cited,[81] and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland. Nevertheless, the Vatican has strongly condemned the traditions popularly associated with Halloween as being "pagan" and "anti-Christian".[82]
Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween, and reject the holiday because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[83] A response among some fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches in recent years has been the use of "Hell houses", themed pamphlets, or comic-style tracts such as those created by Jack T. Chick in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[79] Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith,[84] believing it to have originated as a pagan "Festival of the Dead".
Mr. Know It All! That should be your costume ;)
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