Kylie Lang: Grinch is alive and well in Qld schools that ban Christmas
Australia is a predominantly Christian nation, so a ban on Queensland state schools holding yuletide classroom festivities is definitely not in the Christmas spirit, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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Mean-spirited autocrats are hard at work in Queensland state schools, ordering staff not to hold Christmas festivities in their classrooms because, wait for it, “it sends the wrong message”.
What message that might be is open to interpretation, but last time I checked, we were a predominantly Christian nation so why not indulge in a little Christmas spirit?
Might we offend the 3.2 per cent of people whose religion is Islam, the 2.7 per cent who are Hindus or the 2.4 per cent who are Buddhists?
And could we be alienating the 38.9 per cent – and these are all the latest census figures – who say they have no religion at all?
People who, you’d have to say, are still very happy to celebrate Christmas and buy into its commercialisation.
The Teachers Professional Association of Queensland is right when it describes the ban as “grinch-like”.
I mean, it’s not like these classroom parties are lengthy shindigs serving booze to minors.
They are, generally, a 15-20-minute acknowledgment of all the work the kids have put in this year – and for graduating seniors, the last two years – and a countdown to the holidays.
TPAQ secretary Tracy Tully says the union has received more than 50 reports about the “frightening” and “almost communistic” directives.
“Teachers are feeling lost and sad that they can’t farewell their students in the ways they have done previously,” she says, referring to the well-established tradition of kids bringing a plate of food and/or gifts to school at the end of term 4.
One teacher has noted in an online chat group that their school’s executive team has banned a Christmas countdown because “it sends the wrong message”.
The Courier-Mail understands that one school principal has attempted to justify the ban by saying the year 12s still have to sit external exams, so parties beforehand are inappropriate.
This is also nonsense. We’re not talking about raucous free-for-alls on school grounds.
The Education Department likes to crow about empowering its principals to make local decisions.
Being the person on the ground, you’d figure, makes them best-placed to know what their school communities want and the best way to deliver results.
When it comes to end-of-year parties, it is clear some principals are way off the mark and, as the kids say these days, “wigging out”.
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