Q: should public schools celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 2, 1996 | by Eric Buehrer, | Edd Doerr

When it comes to Thanksgiving, the Antigo, Wis., school-district policy is very clear: "Thanksgiving is a national custom. Please try to avoid religious connotations." Unfortunately, this antieducational approach to holidays is all too common in public schools across America. If Thanksgiving is only to be taught as a national custom, it begs the question: "A national custom of what?" Eating turkey? And how are educators supposed to teach about Thanksgiving without mentioning religion?

Under such a policy educators could not teach students that during the first Thanksgiving celebrated in America in 1621 the Pilgrims feasted. prayed and sang songs of praise to God for three days. Students never would learn that George Washington said, in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation, "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."

Seldom, if ever, do today's public-school students read what Abraham Lincoln wrote in establishing the first annual national celebration of Thanksgiving Day in 1863. After listing the many blessings America had enjoyed, Lincoln said: "No human counsel hath devised. nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, a,ho. while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people."

Contrary to what many school officials believe, Thanksgiving is a national holiday established by our government specifically to give thanks to God for the blessings we have received during the previous year. Its not even intended to be merely a nostalgic remembrance of the Pilgrims, first Thanksgiving. Very few presidents in giving their Thanksgiving proclamations even mentioned the Pilgrims.

For instance, Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in his 1963 proclamation: "Coupled with our grateful acknowledgment of the blessings it has been our high privilege to enjoy, we have a deepening sense of the solemn responsibility to assure for ourselves and our descendants a future more abundant in faith and security. Let us. therefore, on the day appointed, each in his own way, but together as a whole people, make due expression of our thanksgiving and humbly endeavor to follow in the footsteps of Almighty God."

FDR had the audacity to urge people to follow God. Educators should be able to teach this fact without trepidation.

John F. Kennedy, in his 1963 proclamation, stated: "On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist."

Bill Clinton, in his speech during the 1993 Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation Ceremony, said: "Tomorrow, I'll have the great good fortune of celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, reflecting on the past year and looking to the future. I'll have a chance to say a prayer of thanks for the many blessings that I've enjoyed. I ask all of you to do that."

All these presidential quotations routinely are ignored or censored from schools for fear of daring to attach religion to Thanksgiving. Millions of public-school children are deprived of being educated about the real meaning of an American tradition that brings us together. So what "tradition" are we left to teach in public schools if we cannot teach the religious nature of Thanksgiving?

Faced with this dilemma, many public-school educators simply change the subject. For their students Thanksgiving isn't about our deep national tradition of thanking God for our blessings. Instead, it has become a time of learning about American Indians. Since the Pilgrims were helped by Indians, many educators use this as a weak excuse to substitute multicultural political correctness for substantive education about our culture.

Chris Mullally of St. Mary's, Ga., told me last year that her third-grade sons class used Thanksgiving for just such a multicultural lesson. They "celebrated" Thanksgiving by studying American Indians and making tepees. Her neighbor chimed in, "My son came home saying that Thanksgiving is a remembrance of when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for helping them make it through the winter." No mention of God - too controversial.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children, an organization with 95,000 preschool and elementary teachers, publishes an "Anti-Bias Curriculum" that promotes this approach.

They encourage teachers to focus on the plight of American Indians. The suggest that teachers use the holiday to confront bias against them: "Talk about what is fair and unfair, what helps us learn about Native Americans, what hurts their feelings."