Features
Planning holiday celebrations: An ethical
approach to developing policy and practices
by
Katie Campbell, Mary Jamsek, and P.D. Jolley
Continued
Ethical responsibilities to colleagues
Ideal 3A.1: To establish and maintain relationships of respect,
trust, and cooperation with co-workers.
Ideal 3C.1: To promote policies
and working conditions that foster mutual respect, competence,
well-being, and positive self-esteem in staff members.
A
teacher struggled with her decision whether to attend the
annual holiday party. The party would include a gift exchange,
mainstream holiday food, caroling, and festive holiday
attire. At the next staff meeting, the teacher informed
her director and colleagues that she would not attend.
Some caregivers
love holidays and want to share their excitement with the
children by providing holiday experiences. They may do this
by bringing in decorations, preparing traditional holiday
foods, planning parties, or exchanging gifts. Caregivers
may plan activities, particularly crafts, around the current
holiday. Every day it may feel as though the new and different
is replacing the comforting and familiar in the classroom.
 Teachers are a part of the classroom community, and their interests should
play a part in forming policy. But as ethical professionals, we need to consider
the backgrounds, experiences, and developmental levels of children in our classrooms
before adding, or changing, any activities and experiences.
Our ethical standards also guide us to respect and support the well-being and
positive self-esteem of our peers. Teachers working in settings that appear
similar to the culture in which they grew up may assume that the children and
families will celebrate the same holidays in the same ways. A way to explore
the backgrounds and traditions of both the individual classroom and the larger
program community is to conduct a family and staff survey. Ask whether the
holidays being celebrated reflect the lives of all children and families. Ask
whether families celebrate different holidays and if parents would be willing
to share those with the classroom.
While a holiday policy ideally
incorporates the views of all stakeholders—children,
families, and staff—it does not guarantee that everyone will participate.
As in all conflicts, listen to what the parent or teacher wants, and ask why
this is important to them. Refer to the values the program has adopted and
try to help the parent or teacher figure out a way to celebrate within the
framework of the policy.
For parents who do not wish
to follow school policies, consider planning a party outside of school. Your
role could include attending as a guest or facilitating communication between
families. Private, off-campus celebrations are not subject to school policies.
Ethical
responsibilities to community and society
Ideal 4.1: To provide the community with high-quality (age
and individually appropriate, and culturally and socially
sensitive) education/care programs and services.
In a recent
workshop on developing an anti-bias curriculum, a participant
from Mexico shared the cultural differences she experienced
upon moving to Texas. She said that in her community and
family Christmas celebrations, children received only one
gift. When she moved here, after marrying a man from Texas,
she was surprised to see the huge number of gifts bought
and exchanged. She noted that it felt much more commercialized
and more “about the presents” here than it did
in her country, where the celebration had more of a religious
and family focus.
As with everything else that happens in the
classroom, values are being transmitted through all that
we do and say. As we develop holiday policies, we need to
consider what values will be passed on to the children during
holiday activities and celebrations.
The United States as a capitalist country is based on commercial enterprise.
The celebration of dominant-culture holidays reflects this. When we buy and
exchange gifts, we may be passing on the value of generosity along with an
emphasis on things. When we accumulate decorations and trinkets associated
with holidays, we may be passing on the values of creativity and beauty as
well as consumerism. We need to think about which values we want to emphasize.
Positive values that typically
accompany holiday celebrations are togetherness, family, sharing, friendship,
giving to others, and tradition. Negative values include consumerism, greed,
competition, and commercialism. Many holiday activities have been done for
so long that we’re not really sure why we do them
anymore. We get so caught up in the planning and decorating that we can’t
defend the message our celebrations give children.
The tradition and continuity of holiday celebrations are important. In writing
a holiday policy, state how you will evaluate it. A yearly examination of holiday
activities can ensure that the values you want to send are the messages actually
being sent.
Religious celebrations in public institutions
Beyond the ethical considerations of holiday celebrations,
you need to be aware of First Amendment rights under the
U.S. Constitution if you are teaching in a public school
or a publicly funded program, such as Head Start.
Religious
holiday observances, if held under public school auspices,
violate the First Amendment’s mandate for
separation of church and state.
Joint celebrations (Christmas-Hanukkah, for example) do not solve the problem,
because they only serve to introduce religious observances into the schools.
They also tend to put holidays in competition with each other and distort the
significance of each.
Look carefully at traditional
icons used for holiday crafts and be certain that they are not religious symbols.
Recognizing a diverse group of holidays—Easter
and Passover in March; and Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa in December—might
validate the beliefs of children and their families. But bringing religious
observances into a public setting is not appropriate.
Plan carefully before using
religious symbols such as a cross, menorah, crescent, Star of David, crèche, Native-American talismans, the Buddha, and other
symbols that form part of a religious tradition. Use of such symbols is permitted
as a teaching aid, provided they are displayed only as an educational example
of the culture and religious heritage of the holiday, and are temporary in
nature. It’s inappropriate to use these symbols as decorations.
Consider the religious symbols you have seen displayed in early childhood programs.
To guide your use of religious symbols, consider the following questions:
 How
were the symbols handled?
Were
they discussed or merely displayed?
How
do you feel about displaying religious symbols in your classroom?
Would
you display different symbols for different age groups?
How
would you explain the display of religious symbols to a non-religious parent?
Tips
for ethical holiday practices
Celebration is important to a well-rounded life. One way
to transmit this value is to encourage children in a class
or in all classes to create their own reasons to celebrate.
Some classroom ideas that have been successful in other
programs include beach day, snow day, pajama day, stuffed
animal picnic, fall festival, starry night, and first spring
leaf celebrations.
When children, families and staff develop and plan celebrations, we take into
account family and cultural considerations and develop a celebration that includes
everyone. Use these suggestions.
Provide
holiday activities as a free-choice activity, rather than as all-class activities.
Think
of providing opportunities for children to give back to the community rather
than the children or program “taking from” or being passive
recipients of the community’s goodwill.
Instead
of observing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, create a
separate holiday at a different calendar time. Encourage all children to choose
either a family member to celebrate and appreciate—a favorite brother,
sister, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or godparent.
Focus
on seasonal changes instead of dominant-culture holidays.
Move
from holiday-theme-based curriculum planning to emergent planning based on
children’s needs and interests.
Plan
inclusive celebrations. For example, substitute a family spring picnic for
an Easter egg hunt.
In Reflecting
Children’s Lives (Carter and Curtis, 1996) two October
curriculum plans are compared and contrasted. One “centers around the
traditional practice of using commercialized, European-American holidays as
the focus for planning.” The other “reflects the concrete and sensory
aspects of children’s daily experiences” and provides “ways
for them to explore and learn more about what they can see, hear, and smell
all around them.” The first contradicts and the second supports the tenets
of developmentally appropriate practice and conforms to clear, ethical standards
and program policy.
By developing and using a
holiday policy, you will have a guide for choosing, implementing, and evaluating
holiday activities (Bisson 1997). Remember, there is no universal model for
celebrating holidays. Make your program’s holiday
policy vital—not static. Revisit it every year and make sure it reflects
the diversity of your program’s families and staff.
When the world slips
into a classroom
As we know from other areas of early childhood care and education,
the world outside our door slips easily into our classrooms.
Children will be exposed to a nearly non-stop onslaught
of holiday hype for much of the fall and winter with one
holiday being introduced before the previous one has even
occurred.
The media
will focus heavily on the few well-known, dominant-culture
holidays. Acknowledge the children’s awareness of,
and experiences with, the saturation of holiday hoopla.
In developing your holiday policy, decide what the focus will be in your program
and how to counterbalance or integrate the wider media world into it.
Sometimes segments of the
community, in an attempt to be helpful, will provide materials like packets
of green and red construction paper that do not support your policy. How do
you encourage participation in your program in a way that’s
true to the policy without rejecting community interest and support. When community
organizations offer their involvement, welcome the help and thank them for
it. Share your holiday policy and the philosophy behind it. Then together determine
an effort that will meet both your needs.
A teacher in an established center
said, “Thirteen
years ago I started to implement an anti-bias approach in
my classroom and I am still not finished. I know it will
be different every year because each year brings a new group
of children and families, and I keep learning more.”
Change
is rarely easy. Often when changes need to be made, the implicit
message is that what was being done before was wrong all along,
or worse, harmful. It may be helpful to remember that prior
to the change, the staff or parents were doing the best they
could with the information at hand. Now there is new information,
so new decisions can be made. This cycle is continuous: new
information will become available, new decisions will be made
based on the most current information, and then change will
happen again.
Respectfully listening to differing viewpoints is part of the process. But
it may or may not guarantee full participation by everyone. Not all adults
will fully buy in to every modification of policy and philosophy. Authentic
change cannot be forced, so the process usually takes time.
A dynamic holiday policy is an opportunity to share perspectives and bond with
all partners in the care and education of children. A written policy ensures
that staff and teachers can explain why they celebrate the holidays they do.
While nothing is guaranteed, creating a holiday policy will lessen the possibility
of children and families being left out of celebrations. The construction of
a holiday policy can help an early childhood setting examine values and beliefs
and perhaps form a stronger community relationship.
Resources and references
Bisson, J. 1997. Celebrate!
An Anti-bias Guide to Enjoying Holidays in Early Childhood
Programs. St. Paul, Minn.:
Redleaf Press.
Bredekamp, S. and C. Copple, eds. 1997. Developmentally
Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs, revised
edition. Washington,
D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Copple, Carol, ed. 2003. A
World of Difference. Washington,
D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Derman-Sparks, L., and the A.B.C. Task Force. 1989. Anti-bias
Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children. Washington,
D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Feeney, Stephanie and Nancy Freeman. 1999. Ethics
and the Early Childhood Educator: Using the NAEYC Code. Washington,
D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
The Brown School. Holiday
Policy. http://thebrownschool.com/AboutBrown/holiday_policy.htm.
Mountain Brook Schools. Holiday
Policy. www.mtnbrook.k12.al.us/Policies/k7.htm.
Mayesky, Mary. Online
Companion: Creative Activities for Young Children, 7th Edition “Think about it—constitutional
concerns and celebrations.” www.delmarlearning.com/companions/content/0766825213/critical/concerns_ch07.asp.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. Position
Statement—Code of Ethical Conduct. www.naeyc.org/resources/position_
statements/pseth98.htm.
National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Position Statement—Developmentally Appropriate Practice
in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through
Age 8. www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements/
daptoc.htm.
Pistone, Roy. The
Recurring Myth of Sugar and Hyperactivity. www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/sfs/
articles/sugarmyth.pdf.
York, Stacy. 1991. Roots
and Wings: Affirming Culture in Early Childhood Programs. St. Paul, Minn.: Redleaf Press.
About the authors
Katie Campbell has been employed in the field of child development
and early childhood education since 1984. She has been
a center director in programs serving culturally and economically
diverse groups, and a training specialist since 1991. She
is currently an adjunct faculty member in the Child Care
and Development Department at Austin Community College,
teaching CDA classes.
Mary Jamsek has taught young children in a variety of settings including private
and for-profit preschool, public school, and laboratory school classrooms since
1988. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Austin Community College in
the Child Care and Development Department, as well as a trainer and consultant
in early childhood care and education.
P.D. Jolley has been teaching
young children since 1985 and college classes since 1988. Currently she is
a master teacher working with 4- and 5-year-olds at the University of Texas
Priscilla Pond Flawn Child and Family Laboratory and an adjunct faculty member
in Child Care and Development at Austin Community College. She conducted her
first anti-bias training in 1992.
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