galfridus

This CNN story states “A Washington state school district has banned Halloween parties during the school day because it says children dressed up as goblins and witches take time away from learning, officials said Thursday.”

To start with, this overemphasizes where our country’s educational system is off. How does dressing up in a costume hamper learning? I would argue that Halloween is the prefect time of year to encourage learning and creativity! How difficult is it to tie Halloween to a specific course or curriculum? Dress as Puck from The Tempest and do a presentation in English or drama class? For the younger kids you could have them dress up as Hogwarts (the school of magic Harry Potter attends) students and the teachers like Hogwarts professors…

This just isn’t a difficult concept, folks. “Learning” is more than your students staring back at you glassy-eyed. But, then again, it takes some work and creativity on the part of the teachers and administration to pull things like that off. More and more, I see less and less teachers who want to actually teach. Sad.

Where is this country’s imagination going to? Where is our sense of play?