
I thought Christmas was about family, community, good will, acceptance, tolerance and togetherness. Turns out I was wrong.
Should a teacher have told her class that Santa doesn’t exist? Of course not. Should she have told them that their presents are planted under the tree by their parents? Absolutely not.
But here’s where the parents of these children had a choice. They could have had a quiet word to the teacher, accepted her heartfelt apology, practised the long-lost art of forgiveness and not taken the matter any further.
Allowing this mishap to get overblown and on the nightly news suggests that Christmas may not be about real values, but rather, about the “real” Santa:
A teacher ruined Christmas for a class full of second-graders when she told them that there is no Santa Claus during a lesson about the North Pole at their Rockland County, N.Y., school.
The educator even told the youngsters, mostly 7 and 8-year-olds, that the presents under their trees were put out by their parents, and not St. Nick.
The stunning behavior caused a blizzard of outrage at the quiet George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, where angry parents would like to see the teacher roasted like a chestnut over an open fire.
“If that happened to my daughter in her second-grade class … I’d be very upset,” according to 48-year-old Sean Flanagan, whose child was in second grade at the school last year. “If her brothers told her [there was no Santa], they would be punished. So I can’t imagine what should happen to the teacher.”
A nanny picking up a child at the school said that anyone who tells kids that Santa does not exist should get coal in their stocking.
“It’s outrageous that a teacher would strip a child of their innocence and try and demystify something,” 59-year-old Margaret Fernandez said.
A grandmother of a kindergartener added, “I think this is awful. If it happened to my granddaughter, I’d tell her [that] her teacher made a mistake, and there is a Santa.”
The unidentified teacher reportedly made her anti-Santa comments Tuesday during a geography lesson, when students told her that they knew where the North Pole was because that is where Santa lives.
School officials would not discuss the Christmas incident or say if the teacher would face any discipline.
District Superintendent Mark McNeill released a brief statement, saying only, “This matter is being addressed internally.”
Above is one of many scathing reports about this teacher. Let’s examine the facts.
Did she “ruin Christmas” for these kids? If so, their whole enjoyment of Christmas was founded on a lie. If the legitimacy of Santa is the only thing a 7-year-old can take out of Christmas, then they are missing a hell of a lot.
Was this “stunning behaviour”? No. It was a mere lapse in judgement.
Does she deserve to be “roasted like a chestnut over an open fire”? Absolutely not! Whoever wrote that line was being quite unfair and should have been made to delete it.
Did she “strip children of their innocence”? Hardly. Innocence isn’t just about believing everything adults want you to believe, it’s about seeing the good in people. It’s about not being judgemental and giving everyone a chance.
Apparently this teacher rang all the parents in the class and apologised. I think this is a fair consequence for her improper behaviour.
But I think this story is about more than a teachers conduct.
Is it possible that the mad scramble to make kids believe in Santa eclipses the very heart and soul of what the holiday is supposed to represent?
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