Controversy, Criticism, and Social Views
Some people have objected to honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and Christopher Columbus with holidays. In particular, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina opposed the creation of Martin Luther King Day. As a result, Martin Luther King Day took several years to gain national acceptance and is called "Civil Rights Day" in some locations. Some local jurisdictions observe "Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Day" instead of "Columbus Day". Similarly, public schools in the US increasingly refer to the vacation taken near and after Christmas (traditionally, "Christmas Break") as "Winter Holiday" or "Winter Break", avoiding the implication that all students are obligated to observe Christian holidays.
Read more about this topic: Federal Holidays In The United States
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“A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be said to have arrived at self-possession.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Experiences in order to be educative must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter, a subject matter of facts or information and of ideas. This condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)