Christmas carol initiative no joy to California

[XemaSab]

Californians apparently weren’t feeling the Christmas spirit during Merry Susan Hyatt’s five-month carol initiative signature collection effort.

The measure failed Friday when the final signature count turned out to be only half a percent of the required 433,971, according to the secretary of state’s office. In all, 2,176 signatures were collected in California between Nov. 2 and March 29.

Hyatt is a retired substitute teacher from Riverside who now lives in Redding. She announced her initiative drive in November, saying schools needed to provide children with the opportunity to listen to Christmas carols during the Christmas season.

Hyatt, who wouldn’t give her age, said it didn’t make sense to celebrate the birthday of Jesus without inviting him to the party, and she believed bringing Jesus back into the classroom was the only way to curb violence among children.


http://www.redding.com/news/2010/apr/19/christmas-carol-initiative-no-joy-to-california/

[WolverineDG]

1. what's wrong with kids learning the carols at home & church

like they're supposed to? :eyes:

dg

[XemaSab]

3. How else are all the little atheist chilluns

supposed to learn about Jesus? :P

[ejpoeta]

4. when i went to school we learned the songs from church in chorus and our

teacher was in the 'band' at church. I could see it when i went to catholic school, but at a public school! wonder if they still do that there. I don't have a problem with them singing christmas carols at school as long as they are not religious in nature. there are plenty of christmas carols that aren't religious.

[zipplewrath]

7. We sang a mix

We sang mostly orchestral stuff, which is traditionally related to church. Hallelujah chorus as a prime example. We also did a boat load of the old english stuff, including a fair amount of translated german folks songs (Oh, Christmas tree for example). And of course we did a fair share of the "hollywood" stuff. White Christmas, jingle bells, Let it snow, etc. Never did really get complaints, but I figured a big part was that it was a huge mix of Christmas themed songs that the parents all grew up with anyway. Did kinda wonder what Louise Enselberg's family thought of it though.

[WolverineDG]

9. Unfortunately, most classical music was written for the church

and so if you want the kids to study the classical masters, you're going to have to use it. I sung many a mass in my day. Didn't make me a Catholic, but did help me appreciate good music.

dg

[ejpoeta]

10. personally i don't mind what they sing as long as the community supports it.

and no one is trying to push religion on my kids. one of my 11 year olds favorite christmas songs is 'away in a manger'.... i think for their christmas show hey did a montage that was really nice they called 'christmas in about a three minutes' that had about 23 songs in it.

[WolverineDG]

11. for some on DU, anything religious = automatically bad

& just because they don't like it, they think it should be banned.

dg

[stopbush]

13. There are work arounds to that.

Outside of JS Bach, most classical composers wrote tons of secular vocal/choral music. Brahms springs to mind, as does Handel, who wrote plenty of operas that are secular in nature. One need not sing the Hallelujah Chorus to experience Handel.

But people are lazy. Most professional musicians can't be bothered to step outside of the standard repertoire, so it's no surprise that teachers have just as much of a problem. The fact remains that there are piles and piles of great secular classical music compositions out there that would give kids the opportunity to study the classical masters. It just takes a little more work than usual.

[notadmblnd]

2. school is for learning, chruch is for celebrating Jesus

Go to church or turn on the radio if you want to hear Christmas carols Ms. Hyatt.

[mike_c]

5. bah humbug...

...and yer little dog too!

Jeez, I wish the christians would get raptured or whatever and just go away for good. They seem utterly driven to drag other peoples' thinking into their religious insanity.

[tblue]

6. So....listening to Christmas carols would be mandated in schools.

Alrighty then.

My husband would've yanked our kid out of school (or else made him substitute "Moses" for "Jesus" if he was forced to sing along). Has this woman nothing better to do?

[stopbush]

8. Nobody is celebrating the birth of the imaginary Jesus in a public school.

Public schools no longer have "Christmas Vacation," they have Winter Break. Christmas just happens to fall during the time of winter break, and - yes - winter break just happens to occur at the exact same time Xmas break used to occur.

There are no more Christmas Pageants at public schools, there are Winter Holiday programs. When I was in 2nd grade, they dressed us up as angels and put tin foil/coat hanger halos on our heads. I'm sure we all sang to Jesus and I'm sure the Jewish kids in the class just sucked it up and went along. The kind of Xmas show immortalized in "A Charlie Brown Xmas" doesn't exist anymore, at least it doesn't exist in civilized communities populated by intelligent and respectful people.

So, MS Hyatt ought to just give it a rest, because her entire premise for pushing Xian music into the public classroom reflects a situation that hasn't existed for decades.

[XemaSab]

12. Word.

n/t