I have come to the conclusion that many people are actively searching for ways to be outraged. This is a tempest in a teapot. The exercise was just to give students an understanding of the complexity of the calligraphy by attempting to copy a phrase. The article linked above shows the assignment.
We covered the history of Islam in my college world history class. Learning about a religion is not the same as being indoctrinated into a religion.
That said, I feel like this assignment was innapropriate on Constitutional grounds but I would absolutely feel the same way if they had to copy the 10 Commandments or anything Christian.
Well, the NY Times has picked up the story. Some interesting statements from Ms. Herndon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/us/lesson-on-islam-shuts-down-virginia-school-district.html
I wonder if different people would be outraged, if the calligraphy assignment was writing a passage from the Torah in Hebrew, swearing allegiance to Judaism, and there were Muslim students.
Or if it was writing a pronouncement in Greek about why blacks should be hung, from the KKK. Or a passage that swore allegiance to the Devil. High school students are smart, they can easily figure out what something means. Google is their friend. It’s not like they had no idea what they were writing, of course they did.
How about a creative writing assignment, “If Mohammed was my boyfriend?” Why would people consider that offensive, it’s just fiction. Context matters. If you’re going to ban prayer and leave religion out of the schools, then leave religion out of the schools.
This week, in the same school district, there was a groundbreaking ceremony for a new elementary. A community member was invited to give the invocation - and she led everyone, including students, in prayer.
The local paper has noted that there has been substantial backlash against those protesting the assignment and a great deal of support for the teacher.
http://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2015/12/17/riverheads-high-school-follow-up/77483594/
I don’t understand how anyone could be upset or offended by teaching about the world’s major religions. To me, that is just part of being an educated person. How can you understand any Western literature without having a basic undertanding of Christianity? Most Western novels are full of Christian symbolism, allegory and references (Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner, anyone? Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky?) How can you understand the current debates about “Muslim” terrorism, without having a rudimentary knowledge of Islam?
My nephew was raised in a secular household, but when he decided to study Russian literature in college, i gave him a Bible. He needed to know the source material.
Isn’t this the end result of the whole trigger warnings, not being exposed to anything that offends, safe space ‘thing’ going around these days? In this case it was a whole school that was offended.
Having said that I don’t see the educational value in a world geography class of merely copying symbols to see what calligraphy is. That is an art project and appropriate for an art class.
Absolutely. If you can’t have them copying bible verses (in ANY language) then you can’t have them copying koran verses, or islamic professions, or what-have-you. It really is as simple as that. Teaching about what various religions believe and don’t believe is fine. Compare and contrast is fine. But it is certainly possible to cross a line here.
"I don’t understand how anyone could be upset or offended by teaching about the world’s major religions. To me, that is just part of being an educated person. How can you understand any Western literature without having a basic undertanding of Christianity? Most Western novels are full of Christian symbolism, allegory and references (Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner, anyone? Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky?) How can you understand the current debates about “Muslim” terrorism, without having a rudimentary knowledge of Islam?
Do you think the main objection was learning about world religions? It sounds to me like the objection is writing out a statement of faith to another religion, and just because it was in another language, still offended people. What if they were to write it out in English, would that be still acceptable? How about if they were to read it out loud (of course, with witnesses, according to Islam, that would be formal conversion).
I don’t understand why people seem unable to comprehend that writing out a statement of allegiance to another religion, even in a different language, could be very offensive to people of other religions. If the statement in Arabic was something non religious, we wouldn’t have heard a word about it.
Well, I guarantee that even if the sentence had been the Arabic version of “The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog” (or whatever that statement is that uses all the letters in the alphabet), you’d hear about it. Everyone is so “outraged” these days about everything. Can’t we save outrage for things that are outrageous?
I’m still mystified over why the school was closed if there were no actual threats.
Personally, I would not be comfortable copying out another religion’s statement of faith. I’ve been to Christian services a number of times over the years, and was always careful not to recite parts of the service that involved assertions that contradicted my religious teachings. I’d be kind of annoyed if I didn’t know what I was writing, and it turned out it was an affirmation of belief in Mohammed’s divinity.
However, the idea that this was part of some kind of school-wide effort at conversion is just silly.
“Well, I guarantee that even if the sentence had been the Arabic version of “The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog” (or whatever that statement is that uses all the letters in the alphabet), you’d hear about it. Everyone is so “outraged” these days about everything. Can’t we save outrage for things that are outrageous?”
I doubt it. There is a huge difference from writing out a statement renouncing your faith and accepting Islam as the one true religion, and writing a verse of nonsense. Even as a non religious person, I can understand that.
However, while there may be cause for some to be outraged, there is no excuse for threats or uncivilized behavior.
Even at my Catholic school we learned about world religions. In order to be a well informed citizen, imo, you should know about the basic tenants of each major world faith. It’s just part of being a citizen in a global world.
I do understand the objection to the declaration of faith sample. It wouldn’t sit right with me but since I think all religions are bogus I wouldn’t have said a word about it. It’s just calligraphy practice.
But when you have kids that are being denied school time because adults have lost their f*ing minds, we have a huge problem.
Oh and it is the adults because it appears that the students overwhelmingly support the teacher based on social media reports.
Anyone who thinks this is religious indoctrination is paranoid. You know what is ACTUALLY religious doctrination? Allowing prayers at government and school meetings. Privileging Christmas and other Christian holidays above others. Writing laws based on the bible. The list goes on. Religious indoctrination absolutely occurs in our public schools and government but it sure as heck ain’t Islam.
“I don’t understand why people seem unable to comprehend that writing out a statement of allegiance to another religion, even in a different language, could be very offensive to people of other religions. If the statement in Arabic was something non religious, we wouldn’t have heard a word about it.”
I agree with that sentiment, but what I find ridiculous is the double-standard and I suspect many people feel the same way. Christianity is widely and officially embraced in public high schools in several states, with continuous efforts by officials to support more Christian influence. And yet people flip out over this. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, as people also flip out over evolution and geology and science in general.
You are assuming that the person who created this assignment even knew, never mind understanding, the meaning of the statement in the calligraphy exercise.
“You are assuming that the person who created this assignment even knew, never mind understanding, the meaning of the statement in the calligraphy exercise.”
It took me 30 seconds to Google what it was, maybe less. It would be a sad commentary if a teacher was so lazy/uniformed, that they couldn’t even do that.
It is bizarre that the schools were closed, with no specific threat. It sounds like a massive overreaction to me, and that they fueled the fire by closing the schools, instead of putting out a rational statement explaining it, and acknowledging that they should have realized that it might be offensive to some, and it will be withdrawn from the curriculum.
Even with my non religious peabrain, I can understand why writing something that renounces your faith and accepts another could be offensive. So many people have died rather than renounce their faith, and many people take their faith seriously. Just acknowledge it was bad judgment, apologize, and move on.
One article I read said that this particular assignment was from a workbook,not something the teacher came up with. I’d certainly expect that in the course of producing a wirkbook, somebody figured out what the phrase meant.
Can this case be an argument against workbooks? I could get behind that
If the assignment is pictured in the photo, then, yes, somebody figured out what it meant:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/12/17/furor-over-arabic-assignment-leads-virginia-school-district-to-close-friday/
The worksheet pictured comes from [this textbook](https://books.google.com/books?id=yvWOeHRBt50C&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=“here+is+the+shahada,+the+islamic+statement+of+faith,+written+in+Arabic.+in+the+space+below”&source=bl&ots=oVQNbbqzPs&sig=MKBDzRgRavR7AeTJOekvFkyqo0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz0cHIxOTJAhWIMSYKHfzDCTQQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=“here%20is%20the%20shahada%2C%20the%20islamic%20statement%20of%20faith%2C%20written%20in%20Arabic.%20in%20the%20space%20below”&f=falsehttps://books.google.com/books?id=yvWOeHRBt50C&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=“here+is+the+shahada,+the+islamic+statement+of+faith,+written+in+Arabic.+in+the+space+below”&source=bl&ots=oVQNbbqzPs&sig=MKBDzRgRavR7AeTJOekvFkyqo0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz0cHIxOTJAhWIMSYKHfzDCTQQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=“here%20is%20the%20shahada%2C%20the%20islamic%20statement%20of%20faith%2C%20written%20in%20Arabic.%20in%20the%20space%20below”&f=false). It indicates it is a “statement of faith”. The students, according to one article, were instructed not to translate it or say it out loud.