A war on Christmas?

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.

A fifth grade teacher at William Wright Elementary School in Mountain’s Edge gave her students an innocuous assignment, telling them to write about holiday traditions that are not common in America. Little did she know she was walking onto a cultural battleground.

Holly Sweetin, a parent of a boy in that class, objected to the assignment. She said her son told her that he couldn’t use the words American, Christmas or Christ in his report. As Emily Richmond reported in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun, Sweetin met with the teacher and the school’s assistant principal, but received little consolation. She said she was told that the assignment excluded “American Christmas” from the topics.

Sweetin says she sees value in exposing people to other cultures, but she adds, “What I have a problem with is multiculturalism with the exclusion of my particular country.”

But what’s so wrong about assigning students to learn about another culture and its traditions? That seems to us to be a healthy assignment that should broaden students’ understanding of the world. It should not be viewed as a threat to anyone’s culture or traditions.

Looked at in a broader context, some Americans fear that Christmas and their cultural heritage are being cast aside for other traditions. For example, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly has been raising a ruckus for years about what he calls the “war” on Christmas. Those who hold that view say the country has gotten so sensitive and politically correct that references to Christmas are minimized so as not to offend non-Christians, noting retail stores that instruct their employees to say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas.” Or a school assignment that excludes “American Christmas.”

If O’Reilly is correct about anything, it is that many people have become hypersensitive to cultural issues.

There is a fear among many Americans that the public schools will be used to indoctrinate impressionable children into certain religious or cultural beliefs, and as a result, there has been a vigilant battle over what is taught in the classroom. But have Americans grown so sensitive that they feel a mandate to object just because someone teaches about a different culture?

We hope not. Education is supposed to be about expanding students’ horizons. Teachers should be allowed to teach without being dragged into irrelevant cultural battles.