>So do the spring concerts do "spring music"? My point is that you can do a concert in December and it doesn't have to be "winter music", just good music that allows the teacher to teach the relevant things. FWIW, a couple of the schools in my district don't have their winter concerts until January because December is just too full. I'm sure they're not doing holiday music. (Actually, in general, we don't do holiday music here in the winter concerts. There's plenty of great music to teach kids besides that.)

Spring concerts do have spring music. I'm probably remembering mostly my orchestral concerts, both in junior high and while I played in the Durham Symphony. The elementary schools my kids have gone to have a winter singing concert, and a spring play or dramatic event of some sort. Kelsey's sixth grade band did only one traditional "holiday" piece (Jingle Bells?) for their winter concert -- the rest were "regular" music. (People grumbled that there should have been more holiday music, too. There is NO winning here).

>Doesn't the content of the song matter? When I go to a church service, I don't participate except perhaps in recitation of psalms. I don't generally sing Amazing Grace or Silent Night or other religious Christian songs (which isn't to say that I don't know the words and melodies).
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>Maybe it's because so much of Jewish prayer is sung or chanted, but to me singing a religious song is a little too close to prayer.

OH! I didn't know that much of Jewish prayer is sung or chanted; there's where our differences may lie. To me, singing isn't prayer -- however, it can be if you want it to be. Singing is a celebration. I'll sing to celebrate my beliefs, or to show my respect and support for someone else's beliefs. It's what's in my heart and mind that matter, not words that come out of my mouth. I've heard enough words that come out of mouths of supposedly religious people that are so hypocritical; I've heard people in church sing deeply religious songs only to go out and spend the rest of the day behaving as if they never knew the basic tenants of their religion. So, if I should sing something very religious from a religion that's not my own, I am showing respect and support for those friends or that religion (or I just like the melody or the words). If I sing a religious song from my religion, I may be praying/meditating/reflecting, or I may just be singing because I like the melody or words. To some extent the content matters, but I guess it's the context of where, how, and why I'm singing it. However, if someone else's religion prays by singing or chanting, I can see why they may feel uncomfortable (or even offended by) singing songs from other religions.

>My biggest issue with the thing my high school did is that the _only_ songs we learned in the languages were Christmas carols. If the idea was to provide cross-cultural experiences, why not teach folk songs from those languages? Why not do it at another time of year that wasn't so busy. This was, specifically, a celebration of Christmas in the public school.

You've just defined my son's school's spring International Festival. I think schools are making a lot of progress on this front. When enough people logically and calmly express their views, they'll make good changes. When one person rants, they'll drop whatever was complained about like a hot potato simply to avoid lawsuits. I've seen it happen. However, when we were in high school, the world was a very different place. If the majority of people agreed (or at least didn't complain), the show went on. Now, one bizarre person can single-handedly stop a song or even a whole event.

I've sat through too many school volunteer sessions where we made huge changes in the program. Like when we were teaching the kids about the cave paintings, and the kids were going to do their own. They could choose any animal that existed at the time of the cave paintings, or they could choose any animal that they might see today (because the cave people drew what they saw). No plants, weapons, people or buildings--they didn't draw those. Also, no dinosaurs. One woman was nearly hysterical, because her beliefs are that man and dinosaurs shared the world at some point in time. After 30 minutes of crazed dialog (NOTHING was rational), the curriculum was changed to let 'em draw anything they want. Pokemon, aliens, and dinosaurs can be drawn. Forget the *concept* of drawing what you see.

I've steered clear of volunteering for the PTA since I moved to NC, mostly because of experiences like that. Girl Scouts still has 'em, but I can point to the fact that a private organization that acknowledges a girl's acceptance of a higher power, and that organization embraces diversity. Besides, I'm in control of what happens in my troop, so we just don't do holidays, and we avoid anything that could be remotely religious. Saves a lot of wear and tear on me. There's still a lot of fun and exciting stuff to do, so we concentrate on that.

>I think there's a big difference between high school choristers learning Handel's Messiah, and second graders singing Silent Night.

No, not really. They're both in the category of beautiful, religious, Christian holiday music. I think that, today, Silent Night and similar songs have been eliminated from the curriculum. Anything with the words "holy," "God" (with the exception of a few patriotic songs), "Jesus," and similar words are now in the banned category. If we're banning Silent Night from public schools, seems to me that Handel's Messiah should be banned from public schools for the same reasons. Either religious songs are in or they're not. Just because Handel's Messiah is a beautiful work that requires skilled voices doesn't mean it's any less religious than Silent Night.

- della