Holidays in the public school kindergarten: An avenue for emerging religious and spiritual literacy

Childhood Education, Winter 2001/2002 by Myers, Michal Elaine, Myers, Barbara Kimes

An Avenue for Emerging Religious and Spiritual Literacy

Early childhood professionals were placing young children in the position of choosing between dishonoring their family's deeply held religious beliefs or feeling like outsiders.

Not so long ago, holidays were often one of the main frameworks for developing curriculum in early childhood programs, including those in public schools in the United States. Every teacher of young children seemed to have stories, songs, finger plays, and activities for what were considered the traditional Christian holidays. As a result, it could appear as if the Protestant faith was the state religion. Those of other faiths must have felt invisible or at least overlooked in public education, as schools across the nation began each day with the Protestant version of the Lord's Prayer. Everywhere in the country, signs of a dominant culture and religion could be found-in stores, on television, and displayed in restaurants and other public places.

If a Jewish child was in the class, a token Chanukah song might be included in a teacher's December repertoire. Or, a parent-usually the mother-of a child from an Islamic family might be asked to tell a bit about the family celebration of Ramadan. A child from a family of Jehovah's Witnesses could be kept at home during the school Halloween party. Because these children were in the minority, it appeared to be accepted practice to relegate them to the periphery of public school curriculum and teaching strategies during holidays.

These practices had an unintentional negative effect on young children, however-all young children. First, early childhood professionals were placing young children in the position of choosing between dishonoring their family's deeply held religious beliefs or feeling like outsiders-as if they did not belong to the classroom community. Second, an implicit message was being sent that it is acceptable to view those whose religion is not in the majority as strange or outside the group, and that it is acceptable to leave them out of shared events. Third, the classroom activities often perpetuated historical misinformation.

The authors' discussions with colleagues about this issue brought these points home. In relation to the first point, one colleague, a psychologist who is Jewish, described her confusion when, as a young child, she brought home her carefully crafted Christmas wreath, only to be spanked by her father, who believed that she had dishonored memories of relatives who died in concentration camps. The second point comes through clearly in the story of a preschool teacher, who told the authors about her discomfort and sadness as she sat with a child whose family's religious tradition prohibited him from celebrating birthdays. The child and teacher sat together on the edge of the sandbox as his classmates gathered on the other side of the room for a party. The assistant teacher helped the birthday child light the candles on an elaborately decorated birthday cake brought in by the child's mother. An early childhood professional, a member of the Seneca Nation, illustrates the third point through her tearful recollection of the degradation she felt when her teacher led her public school 2nd-grade classmates in singing "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians." In her estimation, the teacher had little sense of the Senecas' long history as a people or their rich contribution to the constitutional government of the United States. She was made to feel as if her teacher considered American Indians to be funny little figures simply to be used in a counting song.

Today, most educators like to think of themselves as more aware and tolerant of differences. Early childhood education curriculum and related teaching strategies include community-building exercises. We understand the importance of young children having a sense of belonging. We talk about celebrating diversity and, in the United States, we take seriously the separation of church and state. We may even eliminate holiday celebrations from our early childhood programs because of their connection to religious traditions. Perhaps in our attempt to be unbiased, however, we have locked out of our programs an important dimension of being human-religious and spiritual literacy.

The holidays give us a vehicle through which we can address our differences by recognizing the important celebrations and historical moments of our students' faith communities. Because young children come to us as whole beings, holidays will be part of our classrooms, whether we plan for them or not. Children cannot leave events and activities that are important to them and their families on a figurative shelf outside the door of their classroom, then pick them up on their way home. For the young child, everything in their lives (including religious and traditional activities) becomes curriculum.

A classroom teacher making room for the discussion and perhaps even celebration of holidays can provide an opportunity to talk about perceptions, and build, rather than fragment, classroom community. Through holidays, the class can frame the passing of time over the year as they share different cultural events. Holidays help us enrich and nurture the human spirit.