Our son's field trip

[Orrex]

Our son is in Pre-K, and the overall program is excellent. It is pioneering in many ways and has been nationally recognized for its success in nurturing young minds and preparing them to make the most of their subsequent education.

Like many schools, this one features several field trips throughout the year. Tomorrow the four Pre-K classes are heading to a nearby city to see the display featuring the Gingerbread House sculpture that they worked on a few weeks back. The whole event should be a blast for them, and they're getting a pizza lunch as well as other fun activities.

Naturally, we had to sign a permission slip to allow our son to go.

However, today we received a supplemental permission request with the following statement:

Note: If time permits we will make one more stop in ((the city)) at the ((building)) to view the life-size nativity scene. If a parent does not want their child to walk past the Nativity Scene, please return the bottom portion of this fomr with your child tomorrow. Any child that is not to visit the nativity scene will remain supervised on the bus with other students and adults. The visit to the nativity scene is for educational purposes and does not in any way signify any religious affiliation. The public display is visited by school students on a regular basis.

(Emphasis original, though I omitted the name of the city and the building in question.)(typos here, if any, are miner)

Well, that's lovely. The choice for these four year olds is either to walk around outside with your classmates or sit on a bus. And it's not as though they're visiting the Little League Museum or The World's Biggest Ball of Twine; they're being marched past a creche chock full o' the Baby Jesus. The children who aren't hanging out with The Newborn King aren't being given an alternate activity; they're sitting on a bus.

It's very much akin to telling a child that he or she doesn't have to recite The Pledge of Allegiance and can instead stand by quietly and be the weirdo while everyone else joins in obeisance.

Somebody tell me how this "is for educational purposes and does not in any way signify any religious affiliation."

[ogneopasno]

1. Where is this Nativity Scene? At the city? Why not let him see it and then talk to him

about whether other religions were represented there?

[Orrex]

5. Having seen it myself, I'm pretty sure that no other religions are represented

And I have little doubt that we will be discussing it with him. However, I would prefer to see this supplemental permission more than one day prior to the event.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Sitting in a buss? It says that on the fomr.

Why, that means he's sitting in someone's kiss.

They could at least spellcheck the damn thing.

Morons. Absolute morons. If you want your kid educated about the Nativity, I think that's something best left to you, don't you think?

Educational purposes, my ass. That comment reminds me of how Chimpy Fucknuts is now bleating about what a great President he's been - if you say it often enough, people will believe it.

Want to ask the person who wrote that little masterpiece how Jewish kids and Muslim kids and children of atheists are going to be "educated" by that Nativity scene? That should be good for a whole lot of laughs.

Good luck on this one. I'm so glad my kids are grown.

[Orrex]

7. That typo was mine--now fixed

I'm fairly confident that they're taking the kids to see it because it is a locally famous display, and the animals and all of that will be fun for the kids to see. Heck, even I liked playing with my Noah's Ark set as a child because of all the cool animals.

But in public school I never went on a field trip to see a religious display.

[Dora]

3. I think the best answer to your question can only come from your son's school.

If I was in your shoes, I'd say something to the administration about the wording on that letter. If it's not religious, exactly what are they educating the children about?

:shrug: O8)

[Orrex]

8. Thanks--I'm trying to think of a diplomatic way to approach it

I don't want to seem like an asshole, but I'd also like our views re: son's religious education to be respected.

[Dora]

10. Ah, the diplomacy is easy.

"What is the educational content of a nativity scene?"

That leaves your opinion out of it. You may yet be perceived as an asshole, mind you, but at least you would know that they are bigger assholes for thinking you're an asshole just for asking.

But then again, a good argument with preschool could give you some nice holiday party anecdote opportunities.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. My question to the school would be

are they going to let the kiddos see a Hannukah display? How about Kwanza? Or something for Solstice or Yule? How about talking about Hajj? If the answer is in the affirmative, then let the kiddo go. You can have an interesting discussion about how different people celebrate this time of year. THEN it becomes cultural, and I do think it is important to stress how DIVERSE the culture of America is.

[Orrex]

6. I'm reluctant to put him on the hook for views that I don't expect him to be able to articulate

For that reason I'm reluctant to make a big flap about it, because I'm confident that I'll accomplish little except to label myself as a loudmouthed atheist and someone to be watched out for in years to come.

I meant it when I said that the school and its program are excellent. I was one of the parent-chaperones for the first field trip, and I've made two visits during the school day to see how things go (such visits are actively encouraged by the school). This is the first time I've had qualms about the way they're doing things.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. well then, use it as a learning experience

tell the kiddo that many people in this nation celebrate Christmas as the birth of a great teacher. That would be simple enough for him to grasp without going deep into religious aspects of it. As he grows older, you can teach him of stories from other cultures of "virgin births", etc--and how these stories were likely used by the early Christians to show that their teacher was a great man, just like Mithras and Zoroaster.

For right now, though, I would seek out ways of showing him that people in this nation celebrate the holiday in many different ways--talk about Hannukah if you don't have a temple nearby, and that Muslims go on Hajj, and Blacks celebrate Kwanza. If you lived in my neck of the woods, you could take him to a Pagan bondfire as well. The point I'm trying to make is to make him aware that there is not one way to celebrate this time of year--so that he knows HIS way is perfectly OK.

[trixie]

42. I agree with you completely!

We are not a religious family but we do bring our kids up with a knowledge of religion. It is throughout history and we can see the movement of groups of people, war, political lines etc reflected in this thing called religion. Our neighbors are diverse in race, religion and ethnic background. I would think that by the age of 4 a child would be taught that there are different philosophies.

Having said that: I would also go to the school and not hold up this year's event but offer to work on next years event. There must be a menorah (sp?) or Kawanze lights or something to offset a one point view.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. When he gets home,

make sure he has lots of Santa stuff around, snowmen, candy canes, reindeer with blinking red eyes.

Then, when he's older, do what my big sister did to me, and tell him that Baby Jesus grew up to be Santa Claus.

I believe that today, in fact.

[Orrex]

12. As it turns out, he might not be going anyway

We talked to him tonight, to try to gauge his excitement about it, and he asked if he was looking forward to seeing the gingerbread sculpture he'd helped to make.

"No," he said, "because I already saw it."

Out of the mouths of babes!


The bottom line is that he's really nervous about being so far away from us, because the field trip involves a bus ride slightly longer than an hour each way. The school day wouldn't really be any longer, but the journey itself has him kind of worked up.

As we tucked him in, we told him that if he still doesn't want to go in the morning, he doesn't have to. He's only four, after all, and there'll be plenty of other field trips in his academic career!


So we might have side-stepped the whole "who's that baby?" issue!


Thank you, everyone, for your responses!

[knitter4democracy]

13. My son when he was four wouldn't have liked that trip, either.

An hour each way on a bus without Mommy just to walk around and look at stuff would've sounded like torture to him at that age. It really might be best to skip that one.

[cosmik debris]

14. Please be sure to let us know the outcome.

For the record, I would have called the appropriate person in charge and said something like this:

"I know you are committed to diversity and equality and I'd like to know what plans you have to give the non-Christian children an equally stimulating field trip?"

Most people would get the message.

[trixie]

43. Why aren't parents required to go?

Our kids schools have insisted on parents as partners from Preschool through kindergarten. First grade was the first time they had only parents as helpers for 3 kids apiece.

[Orrex]

44. Chaperones go along, about one per three kids

The chaperones are chosen randomly from a pool of parents who volunteer for the role. I was a chaperone on the previous field trip and offered to go along on this one, but I wasn't picked.

[JerseygirlCT]

15. No, that's wrong.

And making the opt-out kids sit on the bus is even worse.

Perhaps if they were talking about a nativity scene of some particular artistic or architectural or historic value... but just because? And then to try to sneak the disclaimer in that it's not connected in any way to anything religious?

Wrong. No.

[Orrex]

16. Okay, so he didn't go

The distance was just too much for him. He knows where the city is, because we've driven through it, but he just wasn't comfortable being so far from home.

"I'd miss you too much," he said. And how can you argue with that?


Actually, it's simple--he uses that same excuse about three times a week when he doesn't want to go to school, and the building's barely a mile from here!


But in the context of the field trip, his demeanor was notably different, so we let him stay home. I doubt that they'll talk about the nativity scene at school tomorrow, so we may have dodged the issue altogether.


For now...

[knitter4democracy]

38. Good call.

You have to listen to everything he's saying, verbally and non-verbally. Good call, Mom! :thumbsup:

[Orrex]

40. Mom made a good call indeed!

And so did Dad, if I say so myself!

[knitter4democracy]

41. Definitely!

:D

I often found myself in that situation with our son when he was that age, and it wasn't about faith stuff, just anything preschool related. I ended up pulling him out of school a month early, as his anxiety level was ramping up worse every day. He ended up doing really well in kindergarten the next year and now in first grade. I think his preschool teacher just didn't understand how much of an introvert he really is and was pressuring him to interact at times when he needed space.

[Meshuga]

17. That really sucks

My five-year-old goes to public school and I am glad we haven't had to face a dilemma like that.

[Evoman]

18. Doesn't seem like a big deal...just a time filler.

Sometimes you gotta pick your battles, and this doesn't seem like it's significant enough to make trouble. Since your kid isn't even going, even better.

[Orrex]

24. What bothers me most is how they sprung it on us at the last minute

The supplemental permission slip was sent home on Tuesday in preparation for Wednesday's trip, and prior to that there'd been no mention of any visit to the Nativity Scene.

Also, I'm very conscious of the fact that no alternate activity was offered. The choices were "do something fun and visually interesting" and "wait on the bus until the kids who are doing something fun and visually interesting get back."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. They're being sensible and you're being silly, I'm afraid.

They're bending over backwards to accomodate parents who not merely don't want their children proselytised to, but don't even want them exposed to religion.

While I wholeheartedly oppose teaching children religion, opposing teaching children *about* religion - without at least some knowledge of which it's very hard to appreciate or understand huge swathes of western culture, literature or history - is foolish.

[cosmik debris]

20. Wow, that's pretty harsh

Saying that it is sensible to practice religious discrimination and silly to expect religious equality.

Well, under the circumstances, it is kind of silly to expect equal treatment for religious minorities for Christians.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. "Showing children a nativity scene" is not "practicing religious discrimination".

Especially not when it's as an afterthought to a trip to a large city, and they're specifically allowed not to go.

[cosmik debris]

22. Giving preference to one religion is discrimination.

Providing special benefits to members of one religion is discrimination.

You may pretend that it is not so, but it is discrimination.

[Orrex]

23. Separate but equal is just fine, then? The kids (and their parents) were given two choices:

Choice One: Walk around and see the dazzling life-sized Nativity Scene, an episode so infused with religious significance that it's impossible to look on it without being exposed to the religious symbolism of one faith in preference to all others.

Choice Two: Sit in a bus, with a view of the interior of the bus.


After they've given the children a glimpse of other religious traditions, perhaps I'll believe that they're not giving preference to one faith over annother. But I've checked out the year's scheduled field trips, and I don't see a trip to a mosque or a synagogue or a UU church planned...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. Are you deliberately parodying yourself?

"an episode so infused with religious significance that it's impossible to look on it without being exposed to the religious symbolism of one faith in preference to all others" certainly sounds a lot more like the kind of caricature of atheists that right-wing polemicists promote than it sounds like an actual serious position...

[Orrex]

26. You're right--the Nativity Scene is a religion-neutral display

:eyes:

How would you describe the depiction of the divinely prophesied virgin birth of the Christian Messiah?


And you didn't address my point. Nor cosmic debris'.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. I wouldn't use words like "dazzling" or "significant".

Deliberately or accidentally, you're conflating teaching children religion (a bad thing) with teaching children about religion (a good thing).

Saying "this is what the Christian nativity story is, and it is true" to children is bad.

Saying "this is what the Christian nativity story is" to children (especially children in Western countries whose history, literature etc have been more influence by Christianity than by any other force) is good.

The school is bending over backwards to accommodate parents who desire to keep their children ignorant, and you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Orrex]

28. They are teaching children about one religion

Perhaps you've chosen not to understand that no other religions are being showcased. They're not witnessing the lighting of a menorrah, nor are they hearing the chants of a muezin; they're visiting a depiction of the birth of Jesus Christ.

And as for "keeing their children ignorant," I don't know who the fuck you think you're talking to, unless that was an attempt at generic snark, in which case you should stick to your strong suit. Whatever that might be.

My neighbor across the street has a big, lighted, wooden nativity scene on her front lawn, and about half a dozen houses up and down my small street likewise have depictions of the mythical event. And he's heard Linus recite scripture in Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown more times than I can count; believe me, he knows all about it.

We also live up the street from a church that puts up a large Easter display, and another nearby church has a life-size mock-up of The Tomb, complete with roll-away boulder, so we've talked about the other end of the Christ myth, too.


Desperate though you seem to make this about what you perceive as my own personal crusade, that's the last thing it is.

[cosmik debris]

29. He's right about one thing

It's silly to expect equality from Christians.

They seem to believe that equality is not really desirable.

That's a shame. Especially when they preach love and kindness and treat others like shit.

Oh well.

[beam me up scottie]

30. I know plenty of other DUers who would agree with you, atheists and believers.

They love to patronize their token minorities but when it comes to actually following their own professed tenents...

People who want their constitutional and equal rights are just whiners you know.

[Meshuga]

35. Sounds also like a caricature of Jews that bigots promote...

when Jews refuse to accept Christianity and we don't accept to have the majority religion shoved down our throats. So we are the ones giving fodder to "polemicists" who feel that "those fucking whining Joos complain about everything?" Just so you know, I have to deal with this bullshit from time to time and I am amazed that you think this bullshit is okay. :eyes:

It is incredible that you think people should just accept and not complain just so we don't get attacked by right-wing polemicists.

I mean, how can you not understand this? Perhaps it is because you are not a member of a religious minority so you think we are supposed to be happy with choosing between letting our kids go through that religious display or be "the kid" separated from the other kids who get the privilege of enjoying the trip. With a 5-year-old I wouldn't doubt s/he'd think, "I wish I was a Christian so I can go with my friends".

I mean, WTF? It is amazing how many people cannot put themselves in other people's shoes.

[Evoman]

31. Damn, now that your being kinda dickish, I'm changing my mind.

I didn't think it was a big deal until your post.

Now I gotta back my boy Orrex. Your wrong.

[Orrex]

32. Thanks! The sack full of unmarked bills will be in the usual location by dawn

[Donald Ian Rankin]

33. Well, it's good to know people care what I think...

N.T.

[Evoman]

34. Of course we do...you're a good guy. But you are wrong in this, so I just thought I'd let you know.

I'm sort of suprised that you don't have any problem with very young kids being taught about a single religion in school. I mean, you can't really make much of an attempt to teach religion in a factual, comparitive or critical way with kids that young. They take everything as true...very impressionable. And if you tell them about Jesus, they will believe in Jesus....it really is that simple. And Orrex doesn't want his kid to be exposed to it.

I didn't think it was a huge deal....more because it is probably an after-thought. The kids would probably be more excited about the life sized animals than anything. But when you brought up teaching kids about religion, it left a bad taste in my mouth. You can't each a kid that young critical religious thinking. And really, having a four year old sit in a bus doesn't sound like much of an alternative to me....sounds more like a punishment.

[cosmik debris]

36. If you were promoting equality for minorities

more people would care. But that's not what you are promoting.

It is as if equality was the last thing on your mind.

[knitter4democracy]

39. You're not taking a few factors into account.

First of all, we're dealing with preschoolers. The curriculum for them is more elastic, and no, you don't have to teach them about religion at that age, especially as they would have a hard time synthesizing it with what they're learning at home.

Secondly, the opting out problem is the kids staying on the bus. Would you really want, after an hour each way on the bus with preschoolers, to leave one or two kids on the bus while all of their friends get out to wander around? What message does that send a four year old? Not that Mommy and Daddy love him and want to protect him, that's for dang sure.

If they were bending over backwards, they would've come up with an equally fun educational opportunity that didn't require the kids left behind to stay on the bus with a chaperone and watch their friends go have fun without them. They would've had something else those kids could've done instead.

Keep in mind we're dealing with 3, 4, and young 5 year olds.

[SidDithers]

47. 4 year-olds believe everything they hear from their teachers...

they're too young to be studying comparative religions. Exposing 4 year-olds to the baby Jesus and the nativity scene is brainwashing them.

Sid

[dmallind]

48. But they only seem to "teach them about" ONE religion

Again if this sightseeing trip was to a creche and a Hanukah display and a Solstice festival that would be teaching.

Visting JUST a creche implies that's the only one worth "teaching them about".

[BurtWorm]

37. It seems perverse to me that they would even think of doing this.

It's one thing if they're a religious school. It's another thing if there's something really unusual about the creche--if it's a work of art or something. But to go out of their way to take some kids to the creche knowing some won't be included seems thoughtless to me. Dumb.

[Orrex]

45. A brief follow-up

That same church down the street from us that puts up the big Easter display (complete with ten-foot-tall crosses) also hosted a live Nativity Scene this weekend. The part of the Blessed Child was played by a doll, but Mom and Surrogate Pop were alive, as were the two sheep and the donkey. Despite the cold, I took my two boys to see it because I thought it would be interesting for them, and indeed it was, because they really liked the animals.

I know a bunch of people who attend that church, as well as several of the staff who work at the daycare center located on-site, and I can say that they're all nice people (even if they lean a bit to the Right). Happily, there was no undue proselyziting at The Manger; the only religious message I found was a small stack of papers declaring "feel free to visit our church."


However, I am glad that I was there for the boys' visit to the site, because if they'd had any questions, I'd like to have been the one to answer them.

[cosmik debris]

49. HA! I live right next door to a drive thru nativity scene

with two camels and a donkey 20 feet from my back fence.

Unfortunately the baby Jesus sent 40-50 mph winds to blow their silly dioramas all over the parking lot.

I sat in my rocking chair on the back porch and watched them rebuild it a couple of times.

That baby Jesus is quite a rascal!

[Igel]

46. Late, but relevant, I think.

Years ago, when I was in high school, we had a class trip to Philadelphia. We hit the usual places, but had time late in the day for something that the organizers considered a must-see.

A department store with a humongous Xmas display. The entire store was decked out, with a lot of room set aside for reindeer statues, nativity scenes, etc., etc., IIRC. I just remember being overwhelmed by the "deck the halls" experience. (I think I recall seeing the the store went out of business a few years ago.)

I don't keep Xmas. I didn't at the time. Neither did my girlfriend.

It didn't matter. It was an explicitly Xmas affair, but one so stunning that we couldn't imagine a parallel Hanukah or Kwanzaa display. It was also fun to look at and to wander around in. Her parents took issue with it, but when she explained what it was (after the fact, of course, it was sprung on us) they realized it was kitsch, in part, and non-religious at its core. Even the nativity scene.

The nativity scene was an artefact of religion; it was not preaching or teaching a religion in any significant sense. It's rather like looking at an Aztec pyramid and talking about the rites; it's not preaching, and one doesn't expect to follow up discussion of the Aztecs or Egyptian religion with a discussion of Islam or shamanism to provide "balance". It was after Hanukkah, so there'd be no Hannukah component; and Kwanzaa isn't (or at least wasn't) as "flashy".

In similar fashion, after visiting the art museum in DC with all the Renaissance religious stuff there wasn't a pressing need to see Buddhist or Taoist art. Not the mainstream US tradition, and there was nothing religious about it. Religious artefacts, sure. Like looking at a picture of a Vinca clay figurine.

I still don't keep Xmas, my son doesn't (he's 4 going on 5, so it's sort of a moot point), yet he likes nativity scenes. Other kids his age consider them Xmasy; he just thinks they're neat.