BOO! SCHOOL IS SCARIER THAN HALLOWEEN

Tuesday, October 17, 1995
Section: Editorial
Page: 6B

As ''fright night'' approaches, it looks like it's the Christian fundamentalist fringe who've got the Los Altos School Board in a sweat. I always found them to be a spooky group, myself, but if Hallow's Eve and the thought of 6-year-olds in Ninja Turtle suits and fairy princess outfits have them worked up, I've got even worse news for them.

Practically every day of the week, the public school system forces children to write the names of the most powerful deities of old religions as they sign and date their homework. There is Monday, or the Moon's day, and we know how the moon is revered by pagans everywhere. There's the Germanic Tiu's day and Woden's day. The school week ends with the Norse Thor's day and Frig's day.

Come to think of it, school can be an eerie place. If you let your child into biology class, he might learn about Charles Darwin. If he goes into a science class, there's homage to the Roman gods in the names of the planets Venus, Mars, Saturn and so on. Better keep them out of history, where they'll learn how bloody holy wars can be. And literature, now that's really scary because a child might learn that people with different beliefs have human feelings too.

It would be easy to say, ''just take your kid away.'' Hide him. Home-school her. It's a shame to see young children caught up so early in a dark web of ignorance and prejudice.

- Ross P. Nelson
Sunnyvale

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