In the Holiday 2010 issue of Scholastic Instructor, on page 10, there is a clear example of cultural incompetence. The page is entitled "IdeaSwap: Winter Activities" and the article is "Christmas around the World." It talks about different ideas for arts and crafts that all revolve around Christmas. They also say that they talk about Israel and they paint a menorah.
The fact that they put Israel's menorah under Christmas just annoys me a lot because Christmas is for Christians. CHRISTmas, so it could be looked at as offensive by people who are not Christian. If you look at our population right now in this school district of Somalians, there are a lot of Muslim Somalians in the schools right now. Are we really going to teach about Christmas and say that we are going to do Christmas arts and crafts? That is unacceptable to make students feel marginalized because they are not Christian, therefore, they may feel like they are a freak for not being Christian.
It just disappoints me that this is in a teacher's magazine and many teachers are going to think "Wow, this is a great idea, I'm going to do it." And by doing it, they marginalize their students who are not Christian.
Holidays around the world would be better to teach. Talk about all of the holidays around the world during the Christmas season. Granted, this is a heroes and holidays approach, but this is better than the approach that the magazine takes. Because it doesn't marginalize anyone.
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