Today is Hallowe’en and I’m going to use that as an excuse to digress a wee bit from our main topic of schools although I think I can argue that there is at least a nexus with education…
In the almost ten years I have lived in England, I have seen Hallowe’en go from a mild curiosity to the industry it became long ago in North America. Tesco Extra stores have multiple aisles of costumes, pumpkins and candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters. The tradition has completed its migration across the Atlantic. As I prepare to watch my daughter, aged 20 months, decked out as a pumpkin tonight, it occurred to me that something is missing. One part of the tradition has not been imported. And it’s the part that actually ties in with the usual educational subject matter of this blog.
My Hallowe’en as a child in North America was associated with some key traditions: choosing a costume (which parents dutifully made in the weeks leading up to Hallowe’en; I have clearly failed in that my daughter is wearing a Tesco-made-in-China get-up), carving the pumpkin, organising a bag for the goodies we hoped to gather door-to-door and last but not least, ensuring we’d assembled the iconic orange and black UNICEF boxes distributed through our schools, brownies and cubs or churches. I have yet to see the familiar-from-childhood UNICEF box in England.
I made enquiries locally and no one seemed to have heard of UNICEF boxes. Collecting for UNICEF was as much associated with Hallowe’en as any of the other traditions in North America. For many parents, the consumerist ethos of trick-or-treat culture was softened by its charitable aspects. During World War II, Canadian children collected money for British counterparts who’d lost homes during the Blitz. With the advent of the United Nations and its children’s fund (now UNICEF) in the 1950’s, UNICEF became the iconic charity associated with Hallowe’en trick-or-treaters. As children, we collected with pride and came to understand that we were really quite privileged but that we could help children less fortunate than us through UNICEF, which provides children in developing countries with clean water, food, health care, education (the nexus with our usual topic), and a safe environment in which to grow up. For many of us, it was our first introduction to charitable giving.
So how is it that we in England in the course of less than a decade have taken on board Hallowe’en almost as a job lot…but without the one aspect which infused the tradition with a broader sense of community? Anyone with further insight is welcome to comment.
On a separate note, it seems that some less savoury fringe aspects of Hallowe’en have developed in England. On the radio this morning, there were warnings of gang violence on Hallowe’en in South London (and my own genteel neighbourhood being singled out — wonderful for already plummeting house prices). Tip lines are purportedly provided for teens to grass up peers with knives. I recall stories of pins and razors in candies in the mid-1970’s putting a bit of a damper on Hallowe’en; many in North America thought the 1982 cyanide-laced Tylenol scare (with ensuing Hallowe’en candy copycats) would be the end of Hallowe’en. I haven’t heard of candy tampering in England, and I guess the gang violence is just the 2008 London version of the 1982 alarm of my own childhood.
Have fun tonight, but do be careful. Only take your children to the homes of neighbours you know and inspect all candy before allowing your children to eat it. Be safe.
Snowdon on Schools 