Who are these people, and how did so many of them get hired by school boards?

The Toronto District School Board is encouraging teachers to cancel Halloween celebrations, for fear that Wiccans and/or immigrant children might be offended:

Teachers should forego traditional classroom Halloween celebrations because they are disrespectful of Wiccans and may cause some children to feel excluded, says a Toronto District School Board memo sent to principals and teachers this week.

"Many recently arrived students in our schools share absolutely none of the background cultural knowledge that is necessary to view 'trick or treating,' the commercialization of death, the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs, as 'fun,' " says the memo.

Entitled "Halloween at TDSB Schools: Scarrrrrry Stufff," the document seeks to clarify for teachers and principals the extent to which Halloween activities should be pursued in multicultural settings. In the past, the unsigned memo laments, schools have received "mixed messages" from the board regarding Halloween.

School board officials could not be reached for comment last night.

Citing calls by concerned principals and parents on the subject, the memo aims to make classroom Halloween celebrations consistent with the board's "equitable schools policies" and warns that "some students and their parents/ guardians might experience their first Halloween not as a 'strange surprise,' but a 'traumatic shock.' "

The memo goes on to remind teachers that, "Halloween is a religious day of significance for Wiccans and therefore should be treated respectfully."

For other students, "food products that are marketed heavily during the Halloween period" may conflict with dietary habits that children know from home. An alternative to eating sweets in class would be to "write health warnings for all Halloween candies." [emphasis added]

If I ever move to Toronto, I'm having my kids homeschooled. As usual with this kind of thing, it's not the supposedly offended ethnic or religious groups demanding the cancellation of Halloween, but politically-correct bureaucrats:

Nicole Cooper, a first-degree priestess of the Wiccan Church of Canada's Toronto Temple, agreed. "Frankly, Wiccans are a minority -- an extreme religious minority," she said.

The Halloween celebrations of North American pop culture, she added, are "not actually threatening to my religion anymore than eggs and cute little bunnies are threatening to Easter."

Will the TDSB demand that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny be excised from schools for demeaning sacred Christian holidays? Don't hold your breath.

Update: as one of my readers points out, the ultimate irony here is that the Toronto School Board, in the name of feminism and, um, Wiccan rights, has done exactly what fundamentalist Christians have been trying to do for decades: cancel a "Satanic" holiday. (Go to Google and type in "Jack Chick Halloween".) Once again, the extreme right and the extreme left find themselves on the same side.

Posted by damian at October 27, 2005 12:34 PM | TrackBack