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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (90193)	12/3/2004 1:39:12 AM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Respond to of 108807

I volunteer at my son's school every Thursday (and a little bit on friday too). One of the things that I do is guide the painting efforts (it was going to be "art class" but that is really a stretch when I am mostly just trying to make sure that the paint brushes stay on the paper and not on the other classmates). For Halloween, we did pumpkins and witches and thanksgiving we did turkeys and cornucopias. For the most part, not very offensive to the major religions (we live in a primarily jewish neighborhood and are considered the token christians on the block). Although, when we were painting the witches, I was mindful of the fact that there might be some pagans there who might take offense. I was actually a bit apprehensive about today....now that Christmas is within sight. And lo and behold, today was paint santa day. Four of the kids objected and I couldn't find the teacher (who is jewish) to make the call, so I told them that they didn't have to paint something they didn't want to and whipped out a menora (sp?) for them as an example. When the teacher came back, I explained the situation and she said that it wasn't really necessary since next week we were going to paint draydles (I know I should know how to spell these things). After the painting period, she talked to the class, explaining that what we were doing is learning about what different people believe. And that it doesn't change our beliefs if we learn about others. But, I definitely agree with the U.S. Constitution/Bill of Rights and what the founding fathers intended WRT religion. For a kid in kindergarten, when does learning about a specific religion turn into a sponsorship of that religion. And what about atheists? All of the kids were disclosing to me what their religion was, I imagine that an atheist child would feel a bit self conscious in the discussion. What about the children in families who practice Wicca having witches depicted as ugly women? (I know some, though not at my son's school). I am pretty much anti-PC, except that I think that these things are real issues in a gov't funded school. Of course, this supports the idea for dismantling the public school so that we can avoid uncomfortable religious situations.<GGG> Funny story, a couple of weeks ago, it was "paint a turkey" day. And one of the boys was painting away (in yellow), but there was nothing that came close to resembling a turkey. I asked him about it and he said "that's my Dad". I said, "but we aren't painting our family today, we are painting turkeys". His reply "I know, that's my dad hunting a turkey". Sure enough, he painted a little brown blob that was the turkey and his dad was holding a gun by the time he finished. Along with being a jewish neighborhood, it is a very very liberal neighborhood (lots of hollywood types) and the mothers were all aghast at the painting. I was cracking up. But it wasn't my place to stop him. (note, I am not dissing liberals here, just setting the scene)