Star Trek

Thought it would be an approprate subject for this time of year.

Halloween banned in some schools in the US for various reasons.
How do you feel about this? Do you even care?

if it's banned at school?  not really.  I don't know where we got this idea that holidays have to be reinforced at school. 

What a pity, do we know why?

Halloween is a holiday that draws on multiple traditions -originally pagan celtic, later christianized, even later transformed in the US, and of course, observed by neo-pagans.  the original holiday - Samhain - was the Celtic New Year and the most important holiday on their calendar.  The Celts gave lesser importance to the quarter days of the calendar - the solstices and equinoxes, and higher importance to the cross-quarter days, now celebrated as Halloween, Ground Hogs Day, May Day (yeah it existed long before the Soviets), and Aug. 1, Lughnasa.

When I read the tripe people write about Halloween's origins , it makes me mad.

schools  need to leave it alone.

Never celebrated it to begin with so not really. Ultimately families can still choose to celebrate holidays like Halloween or Christmas at home if they want to.

I think holidays, either religious or secular, should be respected or fun--as the case may be.  They can be learning experiences and either educational or entertaining, regardless of whether one believes what they are about or not.  They should be a time of exchange and friendship. learning about others and getting better acquainted with different people and cultures.

People take everything so seriously nowadays.  We need to just lighten up.

I Stopped Celebrating Halloween A Long Time Ago.Who Cares(Other Than The Kids)?

I think the reaseon's most people use to not celebrate it are stupid because most kids only care about dressing up in a goofy costumes and getting free candy. But like everything else they make it pout to be something bad when noone really even cares about the origin anymore. Kind of like Valentine's day.

Quite honestly, I don't care if a school wants to "ban" Halloween. Do little kids really need to eat candy all day during class while wearing costumes? It's a learning environment, not a party!

My school never "banned" Halloween when I was a kid, but they never allowed us to eat candy all day and wear costumes to class either. The classrooms were decorated, and the teacher might give each child a little bag of candy, but we didn't really have any big Halloween parties because we were there to learn.

I don't even like it when students wear costumes to my college classes during Halloween. Especially people who wear costumes with pointy bits that stab other people that they walk by.

I'm with you, Fleet Admiral Braxton.  I watch horror movies all year long--and eat treats all year long, too!  But, it is kind of fun when you're a child and you get to go out trick-or-treating.

And, as Jhubelle said, we were never allowed to really celebrate Halloween at school, when I was in school.  Officially banning it seems a bit drastic though.

As Christianity was beginning to spread beyond the region of the mediterranean the Pope encouraged missionaries to adopt local pagan customs that the populace held in affection.  Thus Samhain, a time when Celts felt the veil between this life and the afterlife became thin, became the eve of All Hallows (Halloween).  The Celtic New Year was changed into the Feast of All Saints (All Hallows).  The date of Christmas was selected to be close to the winter solstice;  Imbolc (Feb 1) became St. Brigid's feast, May 1 (Beltane) started a month dedicated to the Blessed Mother etc.

my kids have never been able to wear costumes to school.  Too many safety issues with capes on the playground.  They usually have an orange and black day when kids are encouraged to wear regular clothes in black or orange

I can see capes being dangerous on playgrounds, but I hadn't even thought of that. College age "kids" tend to wear pokey things like fake wings. At least, the ones around here. They also really like super tall hats on Halloween for some reason... which sucks when they sit in front of me. I am short and already can't see!