TV channels for children have been boasting about Halloween for almost two weeks, and people like my mother-in-law, with zero knowledge on Anglo-Saxon culture, get keen on filling children with Halloween products. In this context, and being myself very critical towards cultural/commercial colonization, I had to face the following dilemma: my 5-year-old daughter came to me and asked me to celebrate Halloween. What would you have done in my situation? And, why? I’d really like to hear your opinion.
13 comments:
Well, in my case I had my 10-year-old students asking me to celebrate Halloween...
and I said "OK, we will celebrate Halloween" so I started thinking about teaching them the customs of Halloween within the british culture. I took a map, I showed them where the UK was, and looked for "easy" information about the beginnings of this ritual.
They got really interested about it, and it was very useful to me, because they not only learnt about "Halloween," but also a little bit about geography and history.......
After all... aren't we supposed to teach a language within a culture? or just grammar?
I would suggest you tell her about Halloween's roots and how it is part of another culture, that is not ours.......
Polemico disfraz de "sin papeles" exito de ventas para halloween
viernes 30 de octubre, 11:04 AM
Madrid, 30 de octubre (Télam).
- El éxito de ventas de un disfraz de inmigrante clandestino para `Halloween` causó una polémica en Estados Unidos que se prolongó durante las últimas semanas y aumentó sustancialmente los pedidos(...)
(...) Informaciones recogidas por la agencia Europa Press revelan que las ONG y las asociaciones especialmente de la comunidad hispana, calificaron a esta particular vestimenta como una ofensa para los millones de personas en situación irregular que viven en los Estados Unidos(...)
"El mofarse de una comunidad nunca está de moda ni es apropiado. Es un insulto", señaló la presidenta de la Liga de Ciudadanos Latinoamericanos Unidos, Rosa Rosales.
http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/30102009/40/n-argentina-polemico-disfraz-quot-papeles-quot.html
Personally, I know how interesting and entertaining Halloween is to some children here in Argentina. Halloween is capitalized in plenty of Bilingual schools, private institutes and state schools as well and children evidences a marked interest in this topic. However, considering the piece of information mentioned above, cautious seems to be required in selecting any type of Halloween garment that appears to mock towards a certain ethnical group such as, in this particular case, the Hispanics.
Personally, I could never develop, even when I was a little child, a taste for all that culture namely Halloween which includes the use of masks, the use of black garnments, the garnments of witches with top black hats, the word 'ritual'. What all this means in the religious sense to me is not known. What I know is that millons of parents, in special those with religious formation, oppose to this idea of teaching Halloween to their children. I suppose that they must have their strong convictions and beliefs for opposing to all this culture called Halloween. Well, bye.
Well. sometimes I feel as if I were one of those that are against everything that comes from the USA and their imperialistic culture. What happens to me is that it is sad ( I don't even know if that is the word) to see that very young children are very enthusiasctic about this celebration that has nothing to do with our history and they don't care very much about our customs or celebrations. The thruth is, however, that the celebrations of Hallowing seems to be increasing every year and I don't think that a conservative position against it will achieve anything positive, children will keep on celebrating it anyway.So I believe that we should make them know about what they are celabrating ( history, customs, cultural characteristics) and maybe make them know about our celebrations as well to compare them.I think that would be very useful.
Personally, I believe that if some children are exposed to a foreign celebration, let's say Halloween, and these children enjoy and regard valuable this type celebration, there's anything wrong in working with activities connected with this. Now, it is widely known that there are some parents who pretend for their offsprings a religious instruction and they tend to be reluctant to the idea of having their children exposed to a celebration which seems to contradict their beliefs. What I see of negative in this determination is that these children seem to be deprived of sharing a valuable time of interation with their classmates. In my personal case, I prefer not to share the opinion of those who believe that a conservative position can make the things less positive. On the contrary, it seems to me that dismissing those conservative and traditional religious arguments on Halloween is like adopting a unique perspective on the issue, disregarding the different perspectives existing on the issue. From the religious Christian faith, let's take the Catholic one, the Vatican considers this pagan celebration so called Halloween as being anti Christian. Obviously, there must be other perspectives.
I think that in our country it is more an excuse to sell costumes, candies and to have parties than to celebrate a historic costum. To me, another example of this is Saint Patrick's Day. Isn't it just an excuse that bars use to sell more alcohol and increase their income? Do we really know who he was? And what about Saint Valentine?
If some children ask me to celebrate Halloween I would tell them some things. First, we would talk a bit about this celebration and the origins just for them to know about it. Second, I would tell them that it is not an argentinian celebration and that there are many more others conmemorations which belong to our culture and that they have no idea. So I consider that we, as teachers, have to give students the necessary information but we have to focus on our own culture and history.
I strongly agree with you Martin!!!It is important first to talk about the origins of this celebration.Why people started to talk about halloween, and how this celebration has started to celebrate all around the world.We as teachers of English should not be against this day because it will be always a student asking us about celebrating this fashionable event...So,I do not see anything wrong if it is done in a learning context.
I coincide with you Flavia. Now, let me present this hypothetical case. Supposing that a teacher is inserted in a catholic school devoted to Christian principles, namely Fransiscanos Schools, or the 'Colegio Emaus of Palomar'. On the one hand, this particular teacher has, on the arrival of Halloween's Day, plenty of students demanding for activities connected with Halloween. On the other hand, this teacher seems to be faced with a community encompassing parents, headmasters and the whole religious institution that oppose to all this 'fashionable' culture. What is the position of the teacher here? What position should this teacher adopt? Well bye
Hello people! Maybe I'm a bit disconnected to the world but I don't think that children are really celebrating or wanting to celebrate this Halloween. What I can see is that many shops and supermarkets are trying to sell things and sweets but not all the people buy them. In fact, I have never seen a child dress up and asking for candies door to door here in our country. So I'm not worried about it. What I consider positive of this is that we can use it in our classes as kenap4 said.
As regards Nestor question, I recomend this teacher to follow the headmaster's directive,if he wants to keep his job.
Of course Robert!!!Teachers know the place where they work and the rules or beliefs of each school.So,taking into account these issues and explaining students that they are not allowed to celebrate in that context,I think there won´t be problem beacuse students will understand...
I agree with Robert and Flavia. I had to follow my headmaster's directive because we, the English teachers, are not allow to celebrate Halloween in the school I am working so, when students asked me why we could not celebrate Halloween I tried to explain them the best I could. They belong to primary school and sometimes they do not understand adult's desitions.
In my personal case, I celebrated halloween with my students. The matter was not only to enjoy but also to let them know what is it about. I think that it's important we teach them about english customes. They love halloween but they have no idea what that celebration mean.So, I think is good to explain them the origins of this.
I see the topic deviated into celebrating Halloween at school. As to what to do with Halloween at Catholic schools, I think the answer may be in what we take as a 'celebration'. I used to work in the same school as Vanesa, and when I was told we couldn´t celebrate Halloween I started preparing classes on Halloween instead. In a class on Halloween you can talk about the celebration, watch videos, work on activities related, sing songs and even prepare ornaments to take home. We wouldn't be celebrating really, but I would be dealing with a topic that is relevant to our subject and, at the same time, children would get to do something about Halloween. Because they really want to celebrate Halloween. And that's barely strange. Halloween engages people's imagination in a way that few other celebrations do.
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