Poor Halloween!

El Diaco said:
I don't see anybody wailing or claiming victimhood so please dispense with that nonsense.  There's a few, myself included, that just happen to think it's harmless fun and that it's a bit ridiculous to do away with school parties to appease a vocal extreme minority.

FWIW, the very few I've known who opposed these parties tended towards the extreme Christian types who were concerned about the devil/satanic side of Halloween. IMO, it probably wasn't good enough to just opt their kid out, they probably wanted to help "save" everyone else too.  Our grade school always did have a policy against bloody gory type costumes.
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I taught at a school where a few families wanted the Harry Potter books to be taken out of the library...because of witchcraft and stuff.

 
I generally have a problem with the vocal minority going after American traditions anyway, so yeah, the more I've thought about this the more it bothers me. Too be clear, there is a difference in vocally speaking out for equality where it lacks, and speaking out against cultural traditions that have been widely celebrated in this country for over 100 years in a lot of cases. As Americans, if we moved to another country we'd be expected to adapt to their culture, and it's well known that most countries are far less accommodating to outside cultural influences than we are here in America. 

I'm all for everyone worshiping who they want to worship, and celebrating whatever holidays they choose to celebrate. That is your right as an American citizen. However, it is not your right to expect most Americans to extinguish cultural traditions from public display because it makes you feel uncomfortable, or the more likely scenario, you just don't "like" it.

 
B.B. Hemingway said:
However, it is not your right to expect most Americans to extinguish cultural traditions from public display because it makes you feel uncomfortable, or the more likely scenario, you just don't "like" it.
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Technically, that's entirely their right. It doesn't mean that they're correct in that expectation, but they have the right to have it :P

Unrelated, I'll say this. I'd be happy with Halloween being a mandated holiday that was required to be celebrated in schools (not mandatory participation by the kids, obviously), if, in exchange, we did away with Columbus Day entirely.

 
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Landlord said:
Technically, that's entirely their right. It doesn't mean that they're correct in that expectation, but they have the right to have it :P

Unrelated, I'll say this. I'd be happy with Halloween being a mandated holiday that was required to be celebrated in schools (not mandatory participation by the kids, obviously), if, in exchange, we did away with Columbus Day entirely.
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Deal. :D

 
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Yeah, Columbus day is a complete waste. It takes ya until 4pm just figure out why there was no mail service and the banks were closed. Most useless holiday ever.

 
El Diaco said:
Yeah, Columbus day is a complete waste. It takes ya until 4pm just figure out why there was no mail service and the banks were closed. Most useless holiday ever.
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Columbus Day was great when I worked for a company that was closed on every bank holiday.  Other than that, it's pretty useless.

 
El Diaco said:
Yeah, Columbus day is a complete waste. It takes ya until 4pm just figure out why there was no mail service and the banks were closed. Most useless holiday ever.
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*some

After our merger we lost a lot of the holidays we used to have off. It's a total waste. No one ever knows we're open

 
Landlord said:
Like I said, all of these questions seem to only come from the place of, "this is what we've done in the past so why stop doing it?" If schools celebrating Halloween had never been something that was normal in our culture, nobody would be asking these questions. So, equally as valid of questions are what the point of having Halloween in schools is supposed to be in the first place.

"If there are kids who want to participate in halloween, they can just do it in their neighborhoods/at their churches/with their friend groups" is the same rationale as what you said, just from the other side of the equation. I always tend to lean towards the side that doesn't promote or celebrate specific holidays in public, government funded places. Just doesn't seem to be any need for it imo.

(Also I don't really know any details of this school and their specific context, I'm mostly speaking about the whole thing hypothetically"
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I guess I feel like school should be a place that is view as fun. The halloween celebrations are viewed as a reward for being good kids, hard workers in the class room. 

Why do schools do pep rallys? Not very inclusive of the non sports kids...

Halloween for us is a big deal because we are one building and the elementary love having the high school kids involved and "admiring" their costumes. Makes kids feel good by their older counterparts. It's one day of the year. Why NOT do it? IT'S FUN FOR THE KIDS. Why should a school be place where our kids can't have fun? 

We give shoes to the kids who can't afford separate PE shoes, why can't an art project be to create some sort of costume leading up to this day?

 
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