The Thanksgiving holiday provides a natural place in the curriculum to teach about gratefulness. There is no need, however, to wait until the week before the holiday to teach about the subject of gratitude. Instead, the holiday can become the culminating experience after numerous lessons on gratitude during the entire month of November.

Thanksgiving Day is inherently religious, and this, of course, makes it a ticklish subject for public schools. Some educators have responded by remaking the holiday into a lesson about Native American peoples.

However, while schools cannot endorse a particular religious belief, educators need not shy away from teaching about Thanksgiving Day. The President every year encourages all citizens (including children) to thank God for their blessings. Educators can inform students of the President's proclamation and discuss how they and their families might respond. (To find the proclamations from previous years, visit www.whitehouse.gov and do a search on the word "thanksgiving".)

The Supreme Court in Lynch v. Donnelly remarked, "Our history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance in deliberations and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders. President Washington and his successors proclaimed Thanksgiving, with all its religious overtones, a day of national celebration, and Congress made it a national holiday more than a century ago. That has not lost its theme of expressing thanks for Divine aid any more than Christmas has lost its religious significance."

As the Supreme Court acknowledged, Thanksgiving is associated with prayer. While it is unconstitutional for teachers to lead students in prayer, it would be educationally appropriate for educators to teach students about prayer around the time of Thanksgiving. There is no denying its cultural and multicultural role in society.

The U.S. Department of Education recommends that schools inform students of their right to pray at school. To access a copy of the U.S. Department of Education's "Religious Expression in Public Schools," see www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/religionandschools/prayer_guidance.html.

Educators could use Thanksgiving to inform students of their rights. Such an acknowledgment by the school is not promoting religion; it is promoting students' rights. It will foster a climate of tolerance and gratitude among students, and create a greater understanding of the holiday.

Prudent and Objective

In the Federal Court case of Florey v. Sioux Falls School District, the ACLU sued the district claiming its religious holidays policy was unconstitutional. However, the Court held that observing a religious holiday such as Thanksgiving in a public school is constitutionally acceptable as long as it is "presented in a prudent and objective manner and as a traditional part of the cultural and religious heritage of the particular holiday."

It stated, "We view the thrust of these rules to be the advancement of the student's knowledge of society's cultural and religious heritage."  It further stated, "School officials should, of course, be sensitive to the religious beliefs or disbeliefs of their constituents and should attempt to avoid conflict, but they need not and should not sacrifice the quality of the students' education."

In summary, Thanksgiving is a national holiday established by our government to encourage its citizens to express gratitude toward their Creator. Each year, the President gives a Thanksgiving Proclamation urging Americans to that end. To teach students about the meaning of Thanksgiving is constitutionally acceptable, socially uplifting, and educationally sound. With its placement at the end of November, it can become a culminating experience for a month-long focus on the character quality of gratitude.

Thanksgiving Lesson Plan Ideas

Getting beyond Pilgrims and pumpkin pie

1. Have students read various Presidential proclamations. You can find them at the library in The Public Papers of Presidents published by the Government Printing Office. Gateways also has a document containing various proclamations at www.gtbe.org/news/index.php/1/24/21.html. Have the students create a Thanksgiving poster incorporating a quote from a proclamation of their choosing.

2. Help students brainstorm on synonyms for thankful, such as grateful and appreciative. Have them use dictionaries to create a vocabulary list, then write sentences using the various words to express thankfulness for the blessings they have received recently.

3. Have students create a Thanksgiving survey to find out specifically what their friends and relatives are thankful for. After the surveys are completed, have students discuss their findings and categorize the answers according to their similarities (e.g., possessions, family, health, experiences, etc.). Conclude by having students write a summary of their findings. (e.g., Were people more thankful for possessions or health? Were more people thankful for something that happened within the last three months or did they list something that happened earlier? To whom were they thankful?)

4. Have students search through newspapers and magazines to find only stories that could be considered good news. Have them then create a bulletin board display of all the good news for which they can be thankful.

5. Invite a parent to tell the class how his or her family will celebrate Thanksgiving.

6. Since many people in American culture express thankfulness to their Creator by praying, discuss the topic with students as it relates to the holiday and inform them of their rights regarding doing it at school. Be sure to only teach about it.

7. Have students list to whom they owe thankfulness. We commonly say we owe someone a debt of gratitude. Students can ask themselves, "What do I have (things, experiences, special events, opportunities given) and who gave them to me?"

8. Discuss Cicero's statement, "A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues." What do students think he meant? Why is it the basis for other virtues? Can they give examples?

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