Cancelled
First, I’m a bad speller. I always have been. so, today when I wasn’t sure if I was spelling “cancelled” correctly I looked it up. I found out that it can be spelled with one or two l’s. And now you know too.
I was flipping through the channels this morning and on one of the morning talk shows they were talking about Halloween. They said that Seattle Schools were cancelling Halloween festivities in the schools. Why? According to the talk show and the article I found, it is for 3 reasons, 1) Witch cotumes are offencive to the Wiccan community, 2) The time spent for Halloween parties and parades is a waste of valuable classroom time, and 3) Some families can’t afford costumes.
The hosts of the show thought that it was just absurd that schools would cancel Halloween. (I think they should really be saying the schools are cancelling Halloween festivisties at school. The community is still celebrating Halloween.) Then one of the co-hosts, the ditzy blonde, said that students that can’t afford costumes should just take a sheet and cut holes in it and go as a ghost. To which the equally ditzy brunette replyed, “Stop taking about that, ghosts scare me. I’m getting scared right now.” I can’t help wondering if any of the three hosts thought for a minute that maybe the families that can’t afford costumes also can’t afford to cut holes in thier sheets. Or that maybe it’s not so much that they can’t afford a costume, because you can make a costume for almost nothinh if you’re creative, it more that these families are so overwhelmed with life, there are simply more imortant needs that have to be met.
As a future teacher, I graduate in May, I’m not sure how I feel about a school cancelling Halloween. Personally, I love Halloween, I always have. It’s fun to dress-up and pretend to be someone or something else; it’s fun to go out and get candy; it’s fun to go to haunted houses and get scared; and it’s fun to get a break from school work. I think that Halloween allows kids to use their imaginations in a way that they might not always get a chance to do. So many kids today lead hightly structured lives, they don’t have time to be kids. Halloween allows them to just be a kid and enjoy childhood. And I frimly believe that every child and every teacher needs a break from school work every now and again. This is an opportunity to take one. I also understand the need to teach. With the No Child Left Behind Act there is an ever increasing need (or maybe pressure) on teachers to make sure their students can pass the standardized tests, and for administrators to make sure their teachers can teach to the state standards. (And that’s all I’m goign to say on that right now.) But the thing is, a creative teacher can turn any occasion into a learing experiance. The creative teacher will see a Halloween party as a chance to teach valuable life skills.
Which brings me to the Wiccan community. Yes, the witches many children decide to dress up as for Halloween are not accurate portrayals of real witches. I won’t claim to know anything about Wicca or the Wiccan community. But I do know that the witches from Fairy Tales that children dress up as are much different from the real thing. Knowning this, when I’m a teacher I would find away to teach my students about the differences. In doing so I would also be teaching acceptance and understanding and tolerance and openmindedness and the list could go on and on. These are all important qualities for children to possess in todays world.
There’s so much more I have to say, but I’m getting so sleepy, seeing as it’s 5 in the moring now. There’s the history of Halloween, there’s the fact that public schools still have Christmas celebrations or that public schools get off for all Christian holidays but not for holidays of other major religions (even though there is a division of church and state), and so much more.
And now it’s time for me to be sleeping. . .