Everyday's a Holiday!!!
Good morning my blog-reading minions!
I'm sure everyone remembers when they were in high school and would count down the school days until the next break and/or holiday. Ahh, the taste of freedom from the 7 periods of brain-washing that pre-cursored our collegiate or "drifting" years following our 4 year terms of adolescent angst truly was sweet! No matter what the holiday, we were pleased to meet its acquaintance.
Recently, there has been national attention drawn to little ole' Hillsborough County in light of a decision made by the school board indicating that they will no longer close schools on traditional Judeo-Christian holidays such as "Good Friday", "Easter" and "Yom Kippur". The school board's decision was partly based upon requests by Muslims to add their holidays to the the list of days of school closure. Alah forbid, rather than canceling even more days of school to accommodate other religious holidays, the school board decided to allow students to take a certain number of "floating holidays" without penalty; however, schools would still remain in session. Certain holidays that naturally fall on a school break (i.e. Christmas, Chanukah, New Years, etc.) are coincidently during semester breaks and wouldn't have been effected.
Well, two members of the Board of Cunty Assministers.....I'm sorry, "The Board of County Commissioners" decided to get involved, (even though it is beyond their scope of responsibility), and raise a stink because the school board was "attempting to further erode the Judeo-Christian tradition that this country was founded upon." (Commissioner Brian Blair; oh you might remember him from the World Wrestling Federation tag-team, "The Killer Bees")
Anyway, at the last school board meeting, the school board pussies.... I mean, school board members, reinstated the previously observed religious holidays, excluding the Muslim holidays, of course...
It's true that this country has a majority of Judeo-Christian beliefs which imbed themselves in our laws and traditions, but weren't the pilgrims escaping religious persecution and control when they came to this land and raped it from the Indians? Furthermore, shouldn't there be a separation of church and state as stated in the constitution?
Just for reference, public schools are funded by tax payer money. For those slow-minded (CUNTY board members), those are public funds going to give those teachers paid time off on those Judeo-Christian holidays, as well as cheating those students who are not celebrating those holidays of an education during that time off. Let me reiterate that the original decision by the school board allowed students to take holidays of their choosing off without penalty, but still hold classes for those students who do not celebrate those holidays so they still have an opportunity to learn.
The issue:
Should the religious holidays of the majority be imposed onto all students? and is it fair to other religions and students to cancel classes on Judeo-Christian holidays?
Is it fair to cancel publicly funded school sessions for religious holidays? Was the school board being fair in their original decision?
I know this topic gets my nipples hard, so let's hear what you've got to say!
I'm sure everyone remembers when they were in high school and would count down the school days until the next break and/or holiday. Ahh, the taste of freedom from the 7 periods of brain-washing that pre-cursored our collegiate or "drifting" years following our 4 year terms of adolescent angst truly was sweet! No matter what the holiday, we were pleased to meet its acquaintance.
Recently, there has been national attention drawn to little ole' Hillsborough County in light of a decision made by the school board indicating that they will no longer close schools on traditional Judeo-Christian holidays such as "Good Friday", "Easter" and "Yom Kippur". The school board's decision was partly based upon requests by Muslims to add their holidays to the the list of days of school closure. Alah forbid, rather than canceling even more days of school to accommodate other religious holidays, the school board decided to allow students to take a certain number of "floating holidays" without penalty; however, schools would still remain in session. Certain holidays that naturally fall on a school break (i.e. Christmas, Chanukah, New Years, etc.) are coincidently during semester breaks and wouldn't have been effected.
Well, two members of the Board of Cunty Assministers.....I'm sorry, "The Board of County Commissioners" decided to get involved, (even though it is beyond their scope of responsibility), and raise a stink because the school board was "attempting to further erode the Judeo-Christian tradition that this country was founded upon." (Commissioner Brian Blair; oh you might remember him from the World Wrestling Federation tag-team, "The Killer Bees")
Anyway, at the last school board meeting, the school board pussies.... I mean, school board members, reinstated the previously observed religious holidays, excluding the Muslim holidays, of course...
It's true that this country has a majority of Judeo-Christian beliefs which imbed themselves in our laws and traditions, but weren't the pilgrims escaping religious persecution and control when they came to this land and raped it from the Indians? Furthermore, shouldn't there be a separation of church and state as stated in the constitution?
Just for reference, public schools are funded by tax payer money. For those slow-minded (CUNTY board members), those are public funds going to give those teachers paid time off on those Judeo-Christian holidays, as well as cheating those students who are not celebrating those holidays of an education during that time off. Let me reiterate that the original decision by the school board allowed students to take holidays of their choosing off without penalty, but still hold classes for those students who do not celebrate those holidays so they still have an opportunity to learn.
The issue:
Should the religious holidays of the majority be imposed onto all students? and is it fair to other religions and students to cancel classes on Judeo-Christian holidays?
Is it fair to cancel publicly funded school sessions for religious holidays? Was the school board being fair in their original decision?
I know this topic gets my nipples hard, so let's hear what you've got to say!
posted by Don the "Head Chimp" at
10:26 PM
12 Comments:
I liked having time off. I didn't get time off for my birthday...neither did anyone else (Unless it fell on a holiday). Or why don't we just go ALL THE TIME like some Asian countries? Hey, it cannot hurt. There are a bunch of retards in this country.
As for Christmas, we automatically got it off -- it was "Holiday Season", after all. And Easter is always on a Sunday.
The first question you have to get into, "What constitutes a religion?" I do know Secular Humanism is recognized as a religion by the Courts; in fact we may call the author of this post a secular humanist.
This country takes awhile to get things going. The religions of majority, at least when school typically began, were Christian Holidays. You couldn't go to school -- it was closed. You certainly didn't have to celebrate it, though. Penalizing a student for celebrating Ramadan, for instance, isn't right, but the separation of church and state will get 'them' every time. The only way to truly get around this is to eliminate all holidays..however, then Secular Humanism (a religion) will have prevailed.
Some religion wins. Everytime.
No matter who you are, you are part of some religion. Or some religion is part of you. And, majority, as they say, rules.
I don't think anything is fair, though.
In talking about politics or religion... Someone always gets the shit end of the stick. It's touchy.
By
Anonymous, at 11:49 AM
I like the "floating holiday" idea. It appears fair on its face, so, of course, it will be stopped.
By
D a n i e l, at 1:09 PM
Is "senior skip day" considered a holiday?
By
Anonymous, at 1:18 PM
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."
Whoa. I did that off the top of my head. Shall we guess? Public or private school?
By
Anonymous, at 2:46 PM
First of all:
1) when you send your offspring to a private school, you automatically agree to play by their rules; so if you don't like em' don't send your kid there.
2) For public sector employees, and correct me if I'm mistaken Dan, the only Judeo-Christian Holiday given off are two days for X-mas. All other holidays are "national holidays" (i.e. Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc.) Public sector employees used to get Good Friday off but instead get two floating holidays to use anytime they want. To me it just makes sense that the public school follow that same holiday philosophy of the county in allowing people to take time off for their own holidays without penalty and in limitation, instead of shutting the whole system down to favor the majority's holidays.
(the annoying part is Brian Blair, a.k.a. "Killer Bee" is a County Commissioner and should know that County employees have the same fucking schedule of floating holidays! So if he is to take issue, why doesn't he take issue with the County employees' schedule as well? The people down here who elect these fuckheads dissapoint me...)
Afterall, why should tax payer money (source of public sector income) be utilized for religious holidays of a sub-population of society?
I would argue for getting rid of all school closures due to religious holidays of a sub-population and give people the freedom to choose which holidays to celebrate as well as the ability to still receive an education that they pay for with their tax money.
This way there is no favoritism, people are free to celebrate their holidays without penalty, and those students who choose not to celebrate certain holidays are not cheated of their education.
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 4:59 PM
I think the school board should concern itself with turning out high school graduates that have the skills to compete either in the job market or in college. I had the unfortunate experience of being a TA for a freshman college level course, amazing how many had no clue how to write. I actually had one student come see me during office hours and ask "how do you write a paragraph" No joke...I sat in silence hoping the student was joking but no...no joke...how does someone get into college and have no idea how to write a paragraph????????? I should mention this was not a community college, it was a four year university...so how about we start bitching and complaining about how shitty some of our schools are educating young people and not if we should get Good Friday or Ramadan off and whats fair to the Christian and the Jew...you know whats fair...getting an education and being able to compete with students from China and India. Thats my solution...school year round with a set schedule for breaks and if coincides with your religious holiday great! Have fun!
By
Anonymous, at 6:28 PM
Agreed UT; however, the quality of education is a whole other can of worms... we can deal with that in another session.
In regards to the "pantheon of the mighty mortals", this mortal would say:
"hey, you've got 3 excused days off from school to celebrate, or not celebrate anything you want; school and education will continue forwards with or without you there..."
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 6:40 PM
I attended a high school that had a significantly sized Jewish population (myself included). School didn’t close down for Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah so we just had to take those days off. Let me assure you that academic process surely suffered from these interruptions as every Jewish kid failed out of school!!!!! Oh, no, wait- that didn’t happen. They did fine. Somehow the learning process was able to be planned and realized. Perhaps this was due to problem solving preformed in the pantheon of the mighty mortals?
I would also agree with Oruga that the solution to the problem you’ve touched upon lies on the political plane, as the “floating holiday” model is a political idea.
- mdbm
By
D a n i e l, at 7:03 PM
Who would be the pantheon of the mighty mortals? The Kansas state school board? The problem with the political plane is that the people need to be elected, re-elected...with the sudden surge in Christian morals wouldn't people with Christian morals get elected to make that poltical decision...especially in Kansas...do we really want to schedule days off based on the whims of some politican who wants to get elected, re-elected?
By
Anonymous, at 10:28 PM
1) The research shows there are no significant differences in IQ cross-culturally; so your assumption of Jewish, Italian, and Arabic students doesn't hold up. If anything, it's the mighty Asian who holds supreme in IQ averages; represent!
2) Conservative politicians have recently made a come-back with "family values" as a cover for instituting laws and legistlature that will overall limit American freedoms of speech and life so that people can feel "safe"; which is pretty much an illusion.
3) Hey, I like music as much, or if not more than the next guy, but we are all paying for public schools with our tax money. Private schools can do whatever they want, because they are paid for by the individual who wishes their child to go there and not by the general public. Whether private schools have floating holidays, I don't care, my moneys' not going there; however, my money IS going to fund the public schools.
Whether or not I am willing to pay more for whatever reason is beside the point that I'm already paying for a shitty system that:
A) teaches to the lowest common denominator in the classroom, therefore boring the intelligent and coddling the slow. and
B) is catering to one population of religion by in essense saying "oh, since your religious group celebrates this holiday, we'll cancel school for everyone so you can be happy." That's not the system I want my money to go to support.
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 7:13 AM
Cultural differences and perspectives asside, there shouldn't be much difference in learning times, especially to the degree that you describe, unless there were IQ or age differences; so quoth the literature.
If you would like scientific research citations I could provide you with them.
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 4:25 PM
Dan, you made me wet myself....
Oruga, I will try to find some research for you to read, however, what you are basing your assumptions on are stereotypes. Sure, there is a kernal of truth to every stereotype, but there is also a more complicated equation of that impacts IQ and overall intelligence (what is known as "g");
Factors to consider:
- Cultural differences in value in education, family, economics and child development.
- Nutritional differences that may impact early biological/neurological development
- Quality of education & social-economic status
There isn't a whole lot of research specifically addressing cross-cultural differences in IQ and intelligence because A) most of psychological research is done in the U.S. or within a the culture it originates and B) who really cares and is there a point? The research I have is based upon different races within the U.S. (Asian, Hispanic, African-American, and Honkeys). There are some differences, but they are biased by extraneous factors other than "race".
The point I'm trying to make is that there are multiple factors that go into IQ and the majority of them are not related to race, but to the factors that I mentioned above.
Furthermore, the topic is not cross-cultural "intelligence", it is whether or not we should impose the religious holidays of most people upon all people when we could let everyone have take their own holidays off without interupting the education process.
By
Don the "Head Chimp", at 7:05 AM
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