Banning nativity plays

[Gemma & Jake]

My little brother has got his nativity at playschool next week. I hope they don't stop doing them before Jake starts school because I would love to see him in one. I remember I always used to end up as a donkey

 

[foxymum]

i don't think they will ever stop doing nativity plays at school, it just depends on what type of play & how traditional it is.
Josh has his play next thurs & fri, it is called 'Christmas Recipe' it isn't the traditional mary/jesus play, but it does centre aroung Christmas & also has a Father Christmas in it to.

if our school ever tried to 'ban' Christmas plays, i would absoulutely kick off big time.
the whole thing is ridiculous & we seem to be allowing for every religion except what is the majority for our country .

 

[annem]

its good to here some schools are keeping the nativity but just seems such a shame that teachers feel under pressure to change traditions. Surely just because we have different religions and cultures here does not mean we have to change traditions. As long as all religions and cultures are respected thats all that matters.

I wonder whether any teacher actually has been confronted by many angry parents about doing nativity or they are just doing it to keep on the safe side

Yes it happens all the time- I'll give you 3 examples- A little girl in my class (y3 so 7 years old) didn't have school lunch one day as it was a Christmas dinner, she was a JWitness and she started to cry around 2 O'clock saying she was hungry- I asked her why and she told me that she couldn't have dinner cause her mum would spank her for eating it. I then got her something to eat and approached mum- mum was really angry...that we hadn't told her it was a Christmas menu and praised her daughter for doing the 'right' thing
I have had another parent take there child out of school for the whole month of Decemeber when I refused to stop doing the Christmas activities (cards, decorations, play...) It went as far as LEA but was dropped about 4/5months later- not a comfortable situation for me!
Another teacher I know in a inner-city school was told by the head after the PTA had a meeting (about 50% Muslim) that Christmas wasn't to be addressed anymore- she tried to fight the decision by writing a letter to the PTA explaining that Muslim, Jewish, Hind and Sikh feastivals were acknowleged too and as these religions are the most 'popular' throughout the world it is necessary to teach them (Christianity being the largest). The answer was still no.

So in response to your comment- it happens all the time! Sad but true

i think its important to celebrate all faiths. Its such a shame but can see why teachers play christmas down when they have such a hard time.

 

[kimmumof2]

i think they should involve children in learning about all religions and all the celebrations in school. my dd1 is having a nativity but the hcaracters are fairytale characters but they still stick to the story of jesus' birth its just made fun for the kids to act out as they are only 4yrs.


xxxxxx

 

[zebrastripes]

To be honest i think this is another example of those-dirty-arabs-destroying-our-culture syndrome. Someone,somewhere,has kicked up a fuss about their child being in the play,for religious reasons or w/e,and it has been twisted to make it seem like they are all being banned. I remember last year,my gran going on this big rant about how they'd taken down the xmas tree in Derry or somewhere because some Muslims complained-total nonsense. There are still few muslim families over here, but the few i know don't mind celebrating christmas for their children's sake- one little girl was even Mary in a nativity at the local school. I think it's important to keep it all in context.

 

[lauramumof2]

its good to here some schools are keeping the nativity but just seems such a shame that teachers feel under pressure to change traditions. Surely just because we have different religions and cultures here does not mean we have to change traditions. As long as all religions and cultures are respected thats all that matters.

I wonder whether any teacher actually has been confronted by many angry parents about doing nativity or they are just doing it to keep on the safe side

Yes it happens all the time- I'll give you 3 examples- A little girl in my class (y3 so 7 years old) didn't have school lunch one day as it was a Christmas dinner, she was a JWitness and she started to cry around 2 O'clock saying she was hungry- I asked her why and she told me that she couldn't have dinner cause her mum would spank her for eating it. I then got her something to eat and approached mum- mum was really angry...that we hadn't told her it was a Christmas menu and praised her daughter for doing the 'right' thing
I have had another parent take there child out of school for the whole month of Decemeber when I refused to stop doing the Christmas activities (cards, decorations, play...) It went as far as LEA but was dropped about 4/5months later- not a comfortable situation for me!
Another teacher I know in a inner-city school was told by the head after the PTA had a meeting (about 50% Muslim) that Christmas wasn't to be addressed anymore- she tried to fight the decision by writing a letter to the PTA explaining that Muslim, Jewish, Hind and Sikh feastivals were acknowleged too and as these religions are the most 'popular' throughout the world it is necessary to teach them (Christianity being the largest). The answer was still no.

So in response to your comment- it happens all the time! Sad but true

i think its important to celebrate all faiths. Its such a shame but can see why teachers play christmas down when they have such a hard time.

to be honest, I am not that interested in celebratng other faiths. Christmas is what I have celebrated since I was wee and Im not going to stop other people celebrating the holidays and festivals for their religeons but I am not that interested.

 

[mary70]

i can tell u that christmas does cause trouble in school, we now have to have a class of children that are not allowed to take part, and this is not all ethnic, we have one family that belive in trolls (i am serious) and there children are not allowed to take part and as the other lady said we do have lots of children kept of school in the run up to christmas. I find the hard part is explaining to a 3/4/5 year old why they cant take part in all these fun thing it breaks my heart

 

[sazzylou]

if i made a fuss next time beth comes home saying that they will be celebrating all these other non-christian fesivals, then no doubt id be thought of as rascist or a bigot or something, yet other people apparently dont like the whole christmas thing in schools?!? I hate all this PC crap. Its getting way out of hand. We're constantly having to bend over backwards so that we dont offend anyone. Does my head in.

 

[muppetmummy]

Following on from my earlier post, it seems my sons school are including a nativity in their xmas show. I was talking to my son about it last night cos he was singing some songs from it (he never wants to talk to me about school, unless it's bedtime, he gets very chatty all of a sudden when it's time to go to sleep ).

It turns out he's going to be a sheep in the nativity and other in his class are going to be sheep, stars or cows, I think the older kids are taking the bigger roles of mary and joseph etc.

I don't mind him being in the nativity at all, as long as the school aren't telling him any rubbish about going to hell and brainwashing him I'm happy. I think they just teach them the xmas story and leave it like that. As far as the kids are concerned it's a story and it's up to their parents to tell them anything other than that

Apparantly they also have a nativity version of the toy play mobil in his class and James likes making mary and the angel fight, and pretending mary's chopping the angels wings off with her hands! Kids!

 

[Lou]

I'm glad this is happening. I don't want Isaac brainwashed at school to accept the nativity story without question. If people feel that strongly about it then whats stopping them allowing their children to take part in their local churches nativity play?

Maybe because they don't go to a local church

Its very hard to comment on this without being hypocritical. I celebrate christmas because it is something 'traditional' I suppose you could say but there is absolutely nothing religious about the way we celebrate it in our family!

I think the world is changing and evolving away from religion and I for one think thats a good thing

 

[jenna]

i used to look forward to doing them at little school

 

[muppetmummy]

I think the world is changing and evolving away from religion and I for one think thats a good thing

I think people are moving away from organised religion. I think the majority of people do still believe in 'something' and believe in a god or after life, they are just making their minds up for themselves. They are thinking for themselves rather than accepting everything they're told without question. I don't think that is a bad thing either.

 

[Lou]

I think the world is changing and evolving away from religion and I for one think thats a good thing

I think people are moving away from organised religion. I think the majority of people do still believe in 'something' and believe in a god or after life, they are just making their minds up for themselves. They are thinking for themselves rather than accepting everything they're told without question. I don't think that is a bad thing either.

Yeah I agree.

To me its along the same lines as eating meat. We all know that animals are slaughtered, more often than not its done in a not very 'humane' way and there is an awful lot of suffering that can go into a pork chop or beef joint but people turn a blind eye and eat it anyway. I mean you would have to be a pretty cold person to acknowledge what happens in some abbatiors and watch the suffering of animals and then still eat the meat produced from that suffering. Wouldn't you?

When Isaac is older he can decide his religious beliefs and he can decide to eat meat or not but for now he is being brought up in a vegetarian non religious household. We are not deciding for him but he is living with us and his lifestyle is part of our lifestyle.

I am happy for Isaac to not take part in a nativity play as religiously it has no meaning for him until he is old enough and wise enough to make an informed judgment for himself.

 

[mummykay]

I want my Jam to be in the nativity play (as Joseph of course lol ) and I bloody well wanna film it too

doesnt matter if he believes in any religion or not, Im his mum and I want him to be in a christmas play

 

[Lou]

I want my Jam to be in the nativity play (as Joseph of course lol ) and I bloody well wanna film it too

doesnt matter if he believes in any religion or not, Im his mum and I want him to be in a christmas play

 

[annem]

i'm pleased 'The head of Britain's equality watchdog has urged the country to ignore "politically correct" critics and put Christ at the centre of Christmas festivities.' in article below

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20071 ... e80_1.html

 

[annem]

I want my Jam to be in the nativity play (as Joseph of course lol ) and I bloody well wanna film it too

doesnt matter if he believes in any religion or not, Im his mum and I want him to be in a christmas play

thats how i feel!! i only got to hold a star and walk behind mary my little girl will be Mary!!

 

[zebrastripes]

Quite ironic as firstly,Christmas was originally the pagan festival of Yuletide anyway-it only became a Christian festival in order to convert people-ad secondly,Jesus was born in April anyway

Personally I couldn't care what the festival's in celebration of, any excuse for a party

 

[annem]

Personally I couldn't care what the festival's in celebration of, any excuse for a party

too right. i loved making christmas cards and things at school instead of doing work, i just don't want to lose the festive spirit!

 

[zebrastripes]

I know,it was such a shock to the system when I went into secondary school and realised we no longer got to make glittery stockings etc for about a month before christmas