![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwingI hope you all still believe in Santa, because apparently, you can be fired for saying that he doesn't exist. A few days ago, someone on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
teaching posted a video about the case of the substitute primary teacher to whom exactly this happened, which apparently left a class of seven-year olds "in tears". Awww.
I bet. The entire class.
Please.
Could she have handled it more tactfully than straight out telling them? Definitely. Should she be fired because of that? I don't think so.
Even during my really sheltered childhood I found out that Santa doesn't exist from other kids during my first year at school, which was when I was six years old. If I am not mistaken, students start school at age five in the UK, don't they?
So these kids were told that Santa doesn't exist during their second or third year at primary school and the parents complain?
And as if this entire case is not already WTFy enough, people inteaching support the school's reaction, saying that she abused the trust placed in her, that she disrespected their family's customs, and by telling them she shattered the kids' innocence, and that it's just like smacking a child in the face. Oh, Santa is also a belief system like Christianity and too good a motivator to pass up.
Seriously.
I liked believing in the Christkind bringing the presents, but it's not as though my entire childhood was over when I found out that it didn't. In fact, I felt as though I had just matured because I stopped believing in something that the uninitiated little kids like my younger friends still believed in.
The amount of importance people place on kids' belief in Santa is really unnerving. Clearly, they want to believe more than their kids do, and that's a trait that I find mildly disturbing in people who are supposed to teach a generation critical thinking.
teaching posted a video about the case of the substitute primary teacher to whom exactly this happened, which apparently left a class of seven-year olds "in tears". Awww. I bet. The entire class.
Please.
Could she have handled it more tactfully than straight out telling them? Definitely. Should she be fired because of that? I don't think so.
Even during my really sheltered childhood I found out that Santa doesn't exist from other kids during my first year at school, which was when I was six years old. If I am not mistaken, students start school at age five in the UK, don't they?
So these kids were told that Santa doesn't exist during their second or third year at primary school and the parents complain?
And as if this entire case is not already WTFy enough, people in
teaching support the school's reaction, saying that she abused the trust placed in her, that she disrespected their family's customs, and by telling them she shattered the kids' innocence, and that it's just like smacking a child in the face. Oh, Santa is also a belief system like Christianity and too good a motivator to pass up. Seriously.
I liked believing in the Christkind bringing the presents, but it's not as though my entire childhood was over when I found out that it didn't. In fact, I felt as though I had just matured because I stopped believing in something that the uninitiated little kids like my younger friends still believed in.
The amount of importance people place on kids' belief in Santa is really unnerving. Clearly, they want to believe more than their kids do, and that's a trait that I find mildly disturbing in people who are supposed to teach a generation critical thinking.
no subject
Date: Sunday, December 14th, 2008 10:43 pm (UTC)Concerning Santa, I never wanted Hannah to believe in it, but of curse she does due to the people around her. What I'm gonna do is the same my parents did with me: tell her that he doesn't exist BEFORE school starts. My parents didn't want others to laugh at me for talking about the Christkind. At least they had some brains as opposed to the parents in your post.
no subject
Date: Monday, December 15th, 2008 08:31 am (UTC)And ultimately, what was worst about the situation was not that I had been wrong about this in front of a friend, my friend was pretty fine with it, as it was a common thing to get wrong and a novelty for her, too, but that "but my mother said" did not prove to be the rock-solid evidence it used to be. :D