I recently read a book written by an American lady who lived in Afghanistan for a time working for a NGO. She noted that she was always extremely careful when speaking to the men in that country because many of them had tried to get her to repeat this exact statement. The muslims in Afghansitan believed that if you said this statement, then you were instantly a convert to Islam. So, this isn’t just any Islamic statement/creed. It is how one converts to Islam.
It seems to me that this assignment could have acheived the same goal with a different statement. It was a poor choice to use this particular statement.
The fact that this particular statement was in any workbook at all is amazingly tonedeaf and ignorant. I don’t think the author of the workbook or the teacher who used it gave any forethought about the meaning and weight behind the statement. Is the teacher lazy? Maybe. The teacher is definitely obtuse and careless.
That said, I am stunned that the superintendent would close schools because of this one incident from one teacher in a single high school without any threat or hint of any threat. Again, this action shows how reactionary some have become regarding other cultures.
I do not think a publc school should have an outing to see Santa or have students write a Dear Santa letter. Private Christian school - fine. But not a public school. It is not appropriate and puts the families of non-Christian children in an awkward position.
As a Jewish parent, I probably would have just kept my child home that day - rather than be the parent who ruined it for everyone else. But that’s why these events should not take place in a public school.
Since when is going to see Santa a school field trip? That’s odd. Aren’t field trips supposed to have at least a vague educational component? You know–the zoo, a museum, that kind of thing?
Completely inappropriate in public school as well.
Agree @rockvillemom. And I would have done the same thing.
@TatinG, what time of year? You mean the time of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men? I sincerely hope so! I wish that for us all! “God bless us, everyone”.
This is the darkest time of the year and we all need a little light.
Not as over the top as the reaction of the parents which is what caused the schools to close. The article I read said they were also going to copy Chinese characters. Those don’t seem to have caused the same reaction. Still a silly assignment but not worth threatening violence over. Those parents are clearly showing their racist tendencies.
It irritates the heck out of me when we can teach chemistry to the kids without ever letting them step into the lab (oh, the snowflakes can burn a finger!) but we cannot teach geography without some moronic hands-on exercises…
The calligraphy assignment came from a workbook created by teachers called “World Religions.” It was not an assignment the teacher made up herself. The instructions for the assignment said, “Here is the shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, written in Arabic. In the space below, try copying it by hand. This should give you an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy.”
Schools eliminate from music classes, particularly chorus, anything in which the words are religious. So Handel’s “Messiah” is out, for example, no matter that it is a classic. This is the road school’s have gone down so it isn’t a surprise to me that the Islamic statement of faith brought this reaction.
In case someone is worried about whether you can accidentally convert to Islam, or be tricked into converting to Islam, by saying the shahada in Arabic thinking you are saying something else, you’ll be relieved to know you can’t. That’s not how it works, despite what someone told you about a friend of a friend.
A person converts to Islam by asserting there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet sincerely, while understanding what it means. Saying the shahada because someone told you that’s the way to order ice cream in Arabic doesn’t count.
So what if they try? It would be inconvenient for me if I accidentally said the shahada when I actually wanted ice cream, because I wouldn’t get the ice cream, but I also wouldn’t turn into a Muslim.
Just to keep everything in perspective, this was not one school that shut down. It was a whole county. I looked it up and there’s well over a dozen schools.