Last Updated on: 14th August 2020, 09:04 am
This right here boggles my mind, so please, everybody on the bus as we travel down the road to absurdity.
Ottawa’s Elmdale Public School created controversy recently when it was learned that teachers had decided to change the lyrics to one of the songs that was to be sung during a holiday singalong assembly. the song in question was Silver Bells, and the reason for the changes was to remove any and all references to Christmas.
That by itself is ridiculous, but as you will soon see, it doesn’t come close to being the stupidest part of the story. Observe.
Lynn Scott, chairwoman of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, said the song was chosen by teachers as only one of many at the concert that represent a variety of seasonal traditions, including Christmas and Hanukkah.
“Just to make sure everyone was comfortable looking at their own children in their own classes, they made the judgment call to change the word in that one song,” she said.
She said it might have been more appropriate to choose a non-Christmas song instead of changing one that included a reference to the Christian holiday.
But, she added, “Teachers did something out of the best of intentions. Do we always get it right when we try to do things for good reason? No, we don’t always get it right.”
I’ll pause while you all read that passage again and take appropriate time to marvel at the logic contained therein.
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Ok, now that you’ve had a chance to recover, let’s examine this step by step in a rational fashion. Hey, somebody has to, so why not us?
The idea was to present songs that represent a variety of traditions. This is good. Any time you can educate people about the differing beliefs of those around them, I’m all for it. What I’m not all for is making sure that everybody is “comfortable looking at their own children in their own classes”, and monkeying with the very purpose of the whole thing to ensure that they are. You either talk about everybody’s celebrations or you don’t, and if that makes people uncomfortable, it’s not your problem, it’s theirs. Using her reasoning, the lyrics to each and every song performed on that show would have had to be changed so that nobody would accidentally learn anything, and if that was the point, which logically it has to be, why not just call off the whole damn concert and save yourselves the trouble? What her quote should have said was something more along the lines of minorities get kind of pissed off when we talk about Christmas, and nobody around here has the balls to tell them to cram it, or better yet to tell them to take it upon themselves to make sure that they’re better represented during the singing next time.
And what exactly is a non-Christmas Christmas song? Something is either a Christmas song or it isn’t. But just for fun, let’s humour them and see if maybe we might be able to help out a little.
Given what we know, a non-Christmas song needs to be a song traditionally sung at Christmas time that does not have the word Christmas in it, but for some reason, Christmas related symbols are ok. I feel confident in this assumption because they weren’t changing the name of the song to Silver Noise-Making Spherical Objects, they were only whitewashing the purpose out of it. So bells good, Christmas Bad.
And if Christmas is bad, Christ is likely a no no too. I mean just look at his name. Bells 2, the Lord 0.
If the religious folks can’t have Jesus, Santa’s probably a goner too. He, much like Jesus, is considered a fictional character by some, and besides, it’s been decided by whoever decides these things that him and his lard ass are setting a bad example for the children. Bells 3, everybody else 0.
Oh Christmas Tree? Not on your life, buddy boy. Those things are holiday trees now. Bells 4, nature 0.
I’m starting to worry about my contention that symbols are fine. This is not good. Whatever shall we do?
But wait, all hope may not be lost after all. Just look at the scoreboard. Something is winning, and I think there’s a song about it. Perhaps you’ve even heard of it. No Santa, no Christ, not even any Christmas. So what is this magical non-Christmas song? You’re gonna kick yourself when I tell you, and you may want to kick a few people from Elmdale Public School if you don’t already. Are you ready? No really, are you ready? Ok, here it comes. The miracle [is it ok to use that word?] song that would solve everyone’s problems is…wait for it…wait for it… Jingle Bells!
That’s right, Jingle Fucking Bells!
And with that, I’ve done with 5 seconds of thought what meetings full of people who’s job it is to shape our future could not accomplish with weeks or perhaps even months of planning. And when I stop and think about it, that realization is far worse than the original point of this entire post, something that should make anyone with children in our public school system very upset, not to mention quite a bit worried.
Lynn Scott was right about one thing though. They don’t always get it right, and that’s fine. Nobody does. the problem isn’t that you didn’t get it right, it’s that you got it so spectacularly wrong when the right answers were staring all of you directly in the face.