Holiday/Celebrations in Schools
Should holiday celebrations be included in schools? Many schools refrain from celebrating any kind of holidays for the reason that they do not want to 'offend' anyone. In case someone do not believe in celebrating holidays and even, birthdays, for that matter. A few years ago, one of the kids in our preschool did not celebrate birthdays or any kind of holiday due to their religious beliefs. We tried not to make a big deal of it, but when there was someone having a birthday and their family want to celebrate by bringing cupcakes or some kind of a treat for the other children, we leave that up to the family. Although the preschooler's family did not believe in celebrating birthdays, it did not bother them if someone else would like to do so. What we did in preschool is serve the cupcakes and put the treats in their cubbies or distribute it at the end of the day to not make any kind of distraction in our program. We also gave a crown and sang the "Happy Birthday" song to the celebrant. This has worked out well and no one has really complained about it.
Another reason, why I think, schools refrain from celebrating any kind of holiday is that it becomes more of a hassle than enjoyment. For instance, if we celebrate Christmas, we should also celebrate Yom Kippur, Chinese New Year's, Cinco de Mayo, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day and so forth or whatever cultures that we currently have in our program. As many of you are aware that preschool programs are only about three to three-and-a-half hours at best and if we do celebrate all of the holidays, we will not have enough time to do the rest of our program.
Thirdly, celebrating holidays can be quite costly. Teachers often need to get the materials themselves and not always being reimbursed by the schools when it comes to holiday celebrations. Although I think that celebrating holidays in schools will help our children appreciate different cultures, needless to say, celebrating holidays is becoming unpopular these days. One of the solutions that our preschool program to solve the dilemma of celebrating holidays is to teach cultural diversity to our children by reading books about different cultures. In today's diverse society, I think, we all need to accept and understand each other's traditions and cultures, in order to minimize prejudice and biased preassumptions which can lead to misunderstandings and sometimes, even violence.
Thank you very much for reading my hub and I look forward to your comments:-).