"We knew it was serious," said the teacher, "when they canceled the holiday meal."
Come again? Who? Canceled what holiday meal?
"They." You know, "they" -- that indistinct plurality of people who are responsible for most of the world's idiocy. In this case "they" turned out to be "Greenwood" -- another abstraction. "Greenwood" is the lair of the wily and sinister Stuart Berger, superintendent of Baltimore County public schools.
"They" -- not necessarily Dr. Berger, although probably he, for who else is so malign and cunning? -- "they" put forth the word that no Christmas meal was to be served in school cafeterias.
Let us examine this concept, "Christmas meal."
We are not talking about sacramental bread and wine, or about matzo, or peyote mushrooms, or any food associated with religious practice. In the past, the school cafeterias have interrupted their usual rotation of pizza, hamburgers and fish sticks for a turkey-and-trimmings lunch in mid-December -- not on the day before Christmas vacation, because they want to recapture the leftovers in soups and mystery croquettes. But the meal is a sort of salute to the holiday season, perhaps including something on the order of Christmas-tree cookies.
Not this year, decreed "they."
This year all meals will be strictly non-sectarian pizza, hamburgers and fish sticks.
"They," it seems, had gone into a huddle over this vexing conundrum about "multiculturalism." Not everybody is Christian, "they" had astutely observed, and for that matter, not everyone is Jewish, Muslim, Zoroastrian, atheist or pagan, either.
"They" came up with a solution only a Task Force would have thought of. No real person, not even the serpentine and despotic Stuart Berger, would have permitted his name to be associated with the proposition that, since there is no single culture in Baltimore County, all culture must be expunged from the schools.
No "Christmas meal."
No Christmas parties. No Christmas carols (if a Christmas carol is what "Frosty the Snowman" is).
No dress-up Halloween parties.
No Easter eggs.
And, of course, no celebration of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Passover, Ramadan or Chinese New Year. Fair is fair, and school is about math and spelling, not about learning to live in community.
Fortunately, hotter heads prevailed. When the task-force recommendations went to the county school board, ranting, fist-shaking parents supplied a welcome measure of common sense. The policy was scuttled, leaving individual schools to work out their own arrangements.
Most schools celebrate whatever their kids are celebrating, which usually should mean they will incorporate everyone's tradition. The local-option policy has not worked everywhere, which was why the task force was formed. But those communities need to work out their problems, not force the entire county into an arid uniformity. If minority children are made to feel unwelcome, the just solution is not to make everybody feel unwelcome; it is to bring everybody in.
Moms have been doing this for years. My children have been fortunate enough to have Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu playmates, as well as some of uncertain affiliation. Before every birthday party or den meeting, the mothers clued each other in -- no meat for this one, no pork for that one, no chocolate for the other. Sometimes kids brought treats of their own if they couldn't eat the party food; sometimes they shared their treats, and children learned about other cultures. If the Baltimore County Task Force were running the Cub Scouts, the Blue and Gold dinner would be porridge.
"They" may not appreciate how much children really do respect their cultures. In music class one day, a boy in a school I know of was seen covering his ears with his hands. He is a Gypsy. His grandfather had died, and according to his culture's ritual mourning, he was not to listen to music or paint pictures.
No problem. During music class, he was allowed to go to the library, and during art he sketched in black and white, which was permissible.
Only "they" suppose that multiculturalism means a child must check his culture at the schoolhouse door. Parents who really cannot bear to allow their children to interact with the cultures of other Americans have a remedy -- private, sectarian schools.
D8 Hal Piper edits The Sun's Opinion * Commentary page.