Teacher Got In Trouble Over Santa

A substitute teacher in the United Kingdom got into a whole lot of Christmas trouble when she - gasp! - told kids that Santa doesn't exist:

The female supply teacher told pupils at Blackshaw Lane Primary in Royton, Oldham, that it was parents, not Santa, who left their gifts on Christmas Day.

Several parents complained to the head teacher, who has since accepted an apology from the teacher concerned.

But head Angela McCormick has since told the agency she does not want the teacher to work there again.

Link
- Thanks Phil!


Killjoy's like that need a kicking. Santa is one of the few pieces of magic left in a cynical, cold world. As a parent myself my wife and I have debated long and hard about how to do the Santa thing.

For this bitch to come out and say that is friggin' despicable.
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I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, it's a pretty crappy way to find out that there is no Santa and one of those things that belongs in the domain of the parent. However, it's hard for me to really care simply because if I had kids, they would not be lied to that way in the first place.
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1. Telling children that Santa does not exist is cruel. No one needs that sort of person around young children.

2. A teacher's job is to teach the curriculum, and nothing more. If the curriculum involves moral codes and myth busting, so be it. If not, stay away from those subjects or stay away from the children.
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This happened to my sister when she was in the Fourth Grade, my mother is still angry about it. Atleast my sister had the heart to not tell me the news, instead she she spent the next few Christmases keeping me from learning about 'Santa' before I was ready.
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She just got dumped after buying her boyfriend an expensive gift. But she never gave it to him. SOoooo she took it out on the children.

My science teacher did that in 7th grade. Well not getting dumped. HE just was mean. Funny but MEAN!
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Darnit: How dare you imply that 'insert my favorite god'
doesn't exist! may you burn in wherever it is I assume you're going to burn. May thingy have mercy on your whatever. Death to 'place!'
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When I was little (1st grade) we had a substitute that told us that. The school down the road from us had another teacher - same day - that did the same exact thing. Both were Muslim, so they didn't believe in Christmas at all. They had planned it out to tell the little kids that there wasn't a Santa. But I remember that she read us a story and then she said "There isn't any such thing as Santa Claus, your parents just put all your presents under the tree."

My mom was sooo mad, she called and complained, and got the sub fired (her first day of subbing, too). The other one was fired as well. So, I knew from an early age that there wasn't a Santa, but my parent's still joke around that Santa's going to bring the gifts. (and im 15!)
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I disagree with what this teacher did; but come on, kids know deep down Santa doesn't exist.

It's fun to 'believe' but kids aren't stupid; let's face it if you truly believed a fat man broke into your house/bedroom at night you'd be wide a wake all chuffing night waiting for him, especially in this day of publicised peadaphilia .
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My six year old daughter came out from school the other day. "Santa" had visited, but she wasn't at all impressed.

"It wasn't Santa at all, it was Johnny's dad in a red suit."
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Not the teachers place to dictate how other people celebrate the holidays. Let kids be kids for what little time they have. Plus, I'm 34, and I still get presents in my stocking every year. As for being fired, that's the schools prerogative. If she didn't have a problem disclosing that information to her young pupils, what would she have told someone who had just gotten a baby brother or sister? Again, that really should be a parents place. Not a teachers.
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Ditto here, Scottlass, I'm 44 and my mother still fills a stocking and put presents under the tree marked "Love, Santa". Same handwriting all these years. Childhood is so short, let the kids enjoy the magic as long as they can.
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Agreed Tiny Dancer - my mom does that too :) I think kids need to believe in Santa for as long as possible... instead of getting their little hearts broken suddenly. Once they start to kinda put the pieces together, it's not a huge letdown with they discover the truth.
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If the parents are going to be that upset about ruining Santa's existence for the kids then I wonder what they'll do when their kids bring home an F on a paper.
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If the parents are going to be that upset about ruining Santa’s existence, just tell the kids that it is just a nice but untrue story from early on. And that YOU pay for the gifts ;)

School : isn't that where you supposed to learn true facts?
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You really have to wonder about the teacher's motivation in this. She didn't lose her job; she just won't be working in that school ever again.

Yes, Christophe, you are supposed to learn facts in school. But they don't teach sex education, or calculus, or nuclear physics, to seven-year-olds.
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I would be very angry if this happend to my kids. We've done all we can to take the magic out of their lives can't we just keep one or two things for a while.
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I'm with Richard Dawkins on this one, kids shouldn't be brainwashed with non-existent crap and the state should take kids off parents who abuse their children by raising them on fairy tales - they are evil and damaging.

My mum told both me and my bro there was no such thing as Santa very early. Upset the other parents but so what?
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That's a little harsh, Alex. I don't think the teacher should be canned for it, but I'm WAY on the other side of taking kids from parents who tell their kids about Santa. You can't go off taking someone's kids for their parents' beliefs. I'm no fan of extreme religious views, but you don't often hear even the most hard-line fundamentalists calling for the majority of a population's kids to be rounded up. I'm not even getting into what you'd do with the millions of kids.

tl;dr - Screw Dawkins. Think for yourself.
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I'm with Alex, personally, though I recognize that some people want to hang onto things that they were taught and I feel the teacher was out of line simply because they are not her kids to mess up. Just as religion has no place in public schools, neither does someone deciding what kids should or shouldn't know about religion/Santa/the fairies. None of it belongs.

I am still undecided on whether firing the teacher was right or not, but at the same time, kids these days are treated like little hot house flowers, which is why this made me laugh.

I don't know that I ever believed in Santa. I pretended to for my mother's sake.
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I always told my kids that Santa was just a game people play. My kids, now young adults, have great critical thinking skills and tell me they grew up feeling like they were never lied to. Of course I wouldn't send a dog to a public school; I home schooled my kids, so the teachers can tell your kids anything they want and it won't hurt my feelings. Tell them Santa=Satan.
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If some kid asked about how old the earth is are you going to say "that depends on your religious beliefs" or are you going to say 4.5 billion years? It boils down to the same thing your parents are lying to you. The Easter bunny and the tooth fairy aren't real either, Magic doesn't exist, and Jesus wasn't born in December.
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