Holiday season at school

A gentleman stopped me in the hall the other day and said, "I heard you don't believe in Christmas. Is that true?" Well, no, that isn't true. The truth is that the Swanton School follows Federal law and local policy in terms of how we handle holidays at school. Federal law is clear: we can teach about religious celebrations in the context of our curriculum, we should not celebrate or promote any one religion in schools. Our local policy in terms of nutrition asks us to limit the amount of sugary and low-nutrition foods. We cannot afford to stop all learning for the month of December and only have holiday fun! So, we have learned to incorporate our Core Concept of "caring" into many classroom activities and focus on the history, culture, or science that are part of our curriculum and can be linked to the holidays. In instances where students do learn about holidays, they learn about the true historical aspects of the holiday and how it is celebrated by various cultures. Sadly, too many children do not really know about the amazing historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth or the story in the Christian bible that tells of his birth. It is appropriate for us to tell them this story just as we might share the story and practices of the Hindu celebration of Diwali or the Jewish holiday of Hannukah. First graders might still make little construction paper Christmas trees, but they do so after learning about the history of the Christmas tree tradition. Common to many December holidays is the theme of "light," so some classrooms incorporate a study of light into their science curriculum. Others focus on a service learning project, such as our 4th graders learning about hunger issues and supporting Project Happiness. We don't do traditional gift exchanges, but many classrooms do offer special activities - an example is the kindergarten classes where each child makes enough beads for all their classmates and everyone goes home with a necklace constructed of the unique beads made by all the children in the class. Others focus on a writing piece that they can give to a friend or family member. I am proud of how we are able to weave history, culture, science, reading, and writing into our curriculum this busy month, keeping the learning going while honoring the historical and cultural diversity of the world our children inhabit.