Trick or Treat?
This seems to be heard less by younger kids every year, which indeed is a sad statement. I remember when I was eight, sitting in my classroom next to all of the ghost, ghouls and goblins, all of my friends laughing and smacking on candy. This was but one of my elementary schools Halloween parties, and was looked forward to throughout the year by most every kid in the building. But now in present time, the new 8 year olds are being told they can’t dress up in their cherished costumes. These kids are being denied the chance to get a break from school, and just be kids.
No one has the right to take one of the most memorable childhood memories away from these students. In the past few years, Halloween in schools has seemed to been increasingly frowned upon by the district. Not being allowed to dress up in costumes or have Halloween celebrations. This would eventually lead to the complete banning of holiday celebrations within schools. One of the main reason for the districts reason is that “Many kids do not celebrate Halloween”.
This is a very un-convincing reason for me. The schools are not asking kids to celebrate. It is by choice and not enforced what so ever. I know there are many students who do not celebrate this holiday, and these students are offered alternate activities if they do not wish to participate. By what I have noticed, there is only a small minority of students who do not celebrate Halloween, so the district has no right to change an entire school tradition due to a minority of students.
This is completely unfair to the rest of the students. This needs to change. The district says that Halloween costumes and activities are an unecasary distraction from learning. But take a look at everything else that the school has, spirit cons, homecoming cons, veterans day cons, all which can be considered unecasary and a distraction from learning. But why do we have these, to teach kids, to let them be themselves and have fun in school. But what makes halloween so different? Why not allow the celebration in school? I think when it comes down to it, it is the teachers who are making the biggest deals about this, who seem to unotice the distracting hair and clothing of other students.
But when it comes close to the 31st a student wearing cat ears gets a detention. These are not the students who are making big deals, but the teachers who have decided to take away from teaching time to get a student in trouble.
