Okay, so I have lost control of my life. Totally. What with the move arriving, school starting, test classes in everything from ballet to kung fu for the kids, volunteer opportunities (I have an addiction to volunteering for everything--it comes from having few opportunities to volunteer in Brazil) and getting a foster dog (true story), I am in pieces. Good healthy pieces but wow, I need to get things under control.
So anyway, I still have back posts about my Red Sox game experience and Kung Fu Fit fun as well as all the Cub Scout fun, but I have no time today. The reason I have no time today is that I dropped my iphone while pulling it out to check schedules with one of my neighbors. It looks like it has been bee-bee'd (is that a word, mom?) in the left bottom corner. So I must bear the humiliation of Apple's Genius Bar and have some 12 year old ask me things and tell me things that I don't understand. At least I have BH with me today.
Therefore I am posting a quickie. Here's what it is. Rosh Hashanah. Okay, so that is what it was yesterday, I realize I am a day late. My kids had the day off. Not because we celebrate the holiday (though we are known for celebrating all possible holidays: Brazilian, American, Italian, saints days, Jewish holidays--though nothing that involves fasting). On Tuesday, we had a new parent coffee at the school that was attended by four parents, two of whom were me and BH. I asked 90% of the questions. One was: what is the policy about religious holidays off? As in, do we get Apollo and Ares Day? No?
And the answer was: we get Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off (the latter falls on a Saturday this year). But it was not answered like that by the principal. No, there was a pause and a "we don't call it Rosh Hashanah or Good Friday (good for only a half day off here in Weston--apparently the Catholics are only half-day celebrators--my comment, not the principal's). It is a 'Day of Low Attendance.'" Errrr, what? Yes, instead of calling an apple an apple--in this case, Rosh Hashanah--we call it a day of low attendance as none of our Jewish kids would attend. What is the percentage of the school which is Jewish? I don't know.
In my opinion, I would call that apple an apple. I would use the name of the holiday to teach the kids about different religions. My kids, who follow no religion besides the Greeks--who doesn't love Zeus and his foibles and Apollo and Artemis?-- but I digress--could learn something. Maybe they would decide to check out the Jewish faith. Or the Catholic. Or any other one that we could teach in school. Ah yes, the separation of church and state in public schools...there's that. Yet, the kids still say the pledge of allegiance with the nation "under God".
Here's an "I wish." I wish religion were not so tainted with extremism on all sides. I wish we could teach religion as history. Instead we ignore it. We don't talk about it because of the emotions involved. So we have a Day of Low Attendance and school is canceled for the day. And my kids learn nothing from it. No, that's not true. We all went to the Aquarium and watched large turtles swim around (photo above explained). We learned about starfish, penguins, sharks and rays. So there's that.
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