Anonymous wrote:I too feel slightly annoyed by this trend, but I dealt with it by throwing an over-the-top Halloween party for my kids whole class. Think about all the annoying rules the school has and then savor the joy of breaking them all in the comfort of your own home with the company of your kid's class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celebrating something and learning about something are two totally different things. The latter is appropriate at school, the former isn’t.

Making a little Diwali lantern is not celebrating Diwali? Other examples included kids getting and playing Dreidels for Hanukah.

If you really believe this, please suggest an activity that would be comparable to these activities, but "learning about" rather than "celebrating" Halloween or Valentines but would not directly contradict the email instructions I quoted.

I actually would LOVE it if some Irish American or Catholic people did a little presentation about Halloween and its origins and the kids could make masks and hand out candy to each other and same for Valentines Day- someone could come and talk about it and the kids make cards for each other and learn about the whole concept of 'saint's days' in Catholics, same with Lent and Easter. It was so much simpler for me to tell my kids that halloween etc were Catholic holidays b/c we live around Catholic U and go to their event for Halloween. Having someone come in and specifically 'claim' a holiday and do an activity centered around it is both fun for the kids, and teaches all of these minority kids about holidays that most people have been celebrating for a long time without making one set of holidays the 'norm' for everyone and some holidays the 'diverse' holidays.

Compare it to when you read a book and the author only mentions teh race of teh characters in teh book who are 'African American' or 'asian', never says anything about anyone else b/c in there minds 'white' is the default, in 2024, making anything the default is not accurate. I love Halloween and my kids love easter egg hunts but we celebrate with other people, they are not OUR celebrations, we put no effort into them but when I was kid- my mom had to spend effort on the costumes for Halloween and effort on the cards and treats for valentines day when she honestly could not care less. So if these holidays are your holidays, like the Jewish mom make all the effort for the Hanukah activity, you make all the effort for the Halloween activity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celebrating something and learning about something are two totally different things. The latter is appropriate at school, the former isn’t.

Making a little Diwali lantern is not celebrating Diwali? Other examples included kids getting and playing Dreidels for Hanukah.

If you really believe this, please suggest an activity that would be comparable to these activities, but "learning about" rather than "celebrating" Halloween or Valentines but would not directly contradict the email instructions I quoted.

Anonymous wrote:I agree OP. It seems like MCPS likes to pick and choose what celebrations are allowed, and Halloween in particular is a no-no, and I guess at some schools Valentine's Day as well.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I wouldn’t admit it out loud but I agree OP. I have a bunch of virtue signaling liberal/lefty friends with “in this house we believe…” signs who trip all over themselves to schedule events around people fasting for Ramadan yet are openly contemptuous of people doing similar things to observe Lent. It’s so clear they’re doing it strictly because it makes them feel superior to other less culturally aware white people, they have no interest at all in sincerely supporting a diverse array of spiritual practices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading the Valentines Reminder differently. It says no candy because of allergies (which seems like a necessary health precaution and culturally neutral) and to remember that not everyone celebrates Valentines.

It doesn’t say that your child can’t celebrate, or even that the class won’t celebrate together, just that some people prefer not to celebrate. I’d see it as a heads-up to warn the kids not to get offended or think it weird if someone doesn’t give them a valentine or doesn’t want to accept one.

I’d suggest e-mailing the teacher for clarification.

OP here, and I agree that maybe there is a more charitable interpretation than how I initially read it and I hope you are right. However, for context, they made it very clear elsewhere there will be no class party and the class will not celebrate together, so I do know that that is part of the intended message.

Also, to be clear, I of course completely understand the candy issue and have no problem with skipping that due to allergies. It's the larger messaging that seems to signal (and I could be over-interpreting, but this is one of many such emails) that "certain specific holidays are arbitrarily not welcome here" that bothers me.

dp.. you seem to be having an issue understanding the difference between a whole class party for one event vs a cultural sharing day where every kid gets to bring something about their culture.

Did the teacher forbid a white child from bringing in something "American" if they wanted to? We live in America, so the "American" culture isn't really something different for the kids to learn about.

My DH is British. For cultural heritage day, there wasn't that much they could share that Americans don't know about. I mean, there's the "spotted d!ck", but I don't think that would've gone over well with the teacher; I'm sure the kids would've thought it hilarious, though. So, DC struggled to think what to bring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading the Valentines Reminder differently. It says no candy because of allergies (which seems like a necessary health precaution and culturally neutral) and to remember that not everyone celebrates Valentines.

It doesn’t say that your child can’t celebrate, or even that the class won’t celebrate together, just that some people prefer not to celebrate. I’d see it as a heads-up to warn the kids not to get offended or think it weird if someone doesn’t give them a valentine or doesn’t want to accept one.

I’d suggest e-mailing the teacher for clarification.

OP here, and I agree that maybe there is a more charitable interpretation than how I initially read it and I hope you are right. However, for context, they made it very clear elsewhere there will be no class party and the class will not celebrate together, so I do know that that is part of the intended message.

Also, to be clear, I of course completely understand the candy issue and have no problem with skipping that due to allergies. It's the larger messaging that seems to signal (and I could be over-interpreting, but this is one of many such emails) that "certain specific holidays are arbitrarily not welcome here" that bothers me.

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading the Valentines Reminder differently. It says no candy because of allergies (which seems like a necessary health precaution and culturally neutral) and to remember that not everyone celebrates Valentines.

It doesn’t say that your child can’t celebrate, or even that the class won’t celebrate together, just that some people prefer not to celebrate. I’d see it as a heads-up to warn the kids not to get offended or think it weird if someone doesn’t give them a valentine or doesn’t want to accept one.

I’d suggest e-mailing the teacher for clarification.