Hark! Song ban heralds misguided policy

New York Daily News ^ | 12/15/04 | David Hinckley

[kattracks]

You could say the Maplewood/South Orange School District in New Jersey is trying to take Christ out of Christmas, or at least out of Christmas music.

And yes, that's silly.

In case you missed the story, Maplewood/South Orange has dropped all Christian religious music from holiday-season celebrations this year. This doesn't just mean the choir can't sing "Adeste Fideles." It means the band can't play an instrumental "Silent Night," which is apparently considered too evocative.

It's a bad decision for several reasons, one of them musical.

Songs are a wonderful learning device, because they don't feel like school. "Silent Night" or "Adeste Fideles" engages you simply because it's a great song.

It's hard to find songs that help a school teach the French Revolution or the multiplication tables. But for holiday culture, few tools are better.

Students should hear "Silent Night" for the same reason they should learn about the Festival of Lights, the principles behind Kwanzaa and Ramadan and Winter Solstice rituals. They will learn about their own culture, other cultures and the common ground between, and the more that happens, the less we will all regard the rest of the world with suspicion and fear.

Is it vital that those who teach material with a religious component not promote that religion? Absolutely. Is it important to structure the teaching in a way that doesn't make "Silent Night" exclusionary? Sure.

Happily, it can be done. Thousands of schools do it, and they should. We can't have too many reminders that these holidays are about more than a new iPod.

What may be more disheartening about the Maplewood/South Orange story is the way some commentators are waving it around as evidence that a large crowd of secularist liberals is trying to throw all God-fearing Christians over the side of the American ship.

In fact, no such thing is happening. This story has gotten attention because it's unusual, not because it's becoming a norm.

Just this Monday night, a hundred miles south of Maplewood, the Jersey township of Egg Harbor reversed an earlier decision and reinstated "Silent Night" to the Egg Harbor schools' annual holiday sing-along pageant.

Score one for common sense, a trait that, contrary to the scoldings of both left and right, many Americans actually possess. The truth is that almost everything schools teach in the liberal arts and humanities has a religious element somewhere, from the wars we have fought to the songs we sing. Removing all trace of religion from school studies would be like trying to take the flour out of bread. It can't be done.

And when we get to music, the answer is always more songs, not fewer songs.

Originally published on December 15, 2004

[kattracks]

In fact, no such thing is happening. This story has gotten attention because it's unusual, not because it's becoming a norm.

Just this Monday night, a hundred miles south of Maplewood, the Jersey township of Egg Harbor reversed an earlier decision and reinstated "Silent Night" to the Egg Harbor schools' annual holiday sing-along pageant.

But before they reinstated it they banned it. Just another "unusual" occurrence.

[DustyMoment]

But, before it was reinstated, schools were more than welcome to include such holiday favorites as:

I Wish You a Merry Jihad
Allah Rest You Merry Martyrs
Silent Fight
We Three Infidels
and, of course, that wonderful holiday favorite, Blow up the Jewish Settlement (They stole the Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer tune, however)

[Conservatrix]

A bunch of churches should get together out there and stand in front of the school during the annual holiday pageant and sing Christmas carols. With the name of Jesus in them.

Can they get arrested for that? They are just caroling! OR do it across the street in someone's yard... but do it.

"Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day,
To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray;
O tidings of comfort and joy!"

[Tax-chick]

Students should hear "Silent Night" for the same reason they should learn about the Festival of Lights, the principles behind Kwanzaa and Ramadan and Winter Solstice rituals. They will learn about their own culture, other cultures and the common ground between, and the more that happens, the less we will all regard the rest of the world with suspicion and fear. Is it vital that those who teach material with a religious component not promote that religion? Absolutely. Is it important to structure the teaching in a way that doesn't make "Silent Night" exclusionary? Sure.

Hogwash. This is (one of many reasons) why our public schools, in the aggregate, are a failure. Just teach the poor children to read, write, and do math, already, and then they can go to the library and check out books about all the interesting religions and cultures in the world.

[little jeremiah]

Moral Absolutes Ping.

A little editorial about taking Christmas out of Christmas. I don't agree with everyting he says, though. He thinks that stories of removal of everything Christmasy out of Christmas are overblown, apparently. I see it as a tidal wave.

And regarding "Kwanzaa", it's a made up nonsense by a murderer. No one in Africa celebrates it or ever has. Kwanzaa doesn't actually exist.

Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.

[little jeremiah]

Dear Moral Absolutes Pingees - I am stoopid and I erased the Moral Absolutes list of names. All I have are the ones visible above. Apologies to everyone not visible; please freepmail me to put yourself back on the list.

[:-(

[jordan8]

There is an accepted phrase for this process: cultural genocide.