This is absolutely over-reaction nonsense. I am a World History teacher and am feeling a tad nervous about teaching the Islamic Empires and Golden Age of Islam Unit this year. I teach what the state standards require, I didn’t dream this up to indoctrinate your kid. I do try to make it interesting. (Btw, I am supposed to teach the kids about calligraphy as an art form used widely by the Muslims.) I am careful to respect all students in my classroom, which includes Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Atheists and probably other belief systems I am not aware of. My students are told upfront and out loud that discussion of religious history is just that … history, and not an attempt to convert or indoctrinate them into another way of thinking.
To understand the history of the time period, students need to know about Islam and Christianity. I will also be teaching about the Crusades - a topic tough to understand without some awareness of the development, spread, and influence of these major world religions.
I wish people would think a little bit, instead of having knee-jerk jack leg reactions. Middle school and High school teachers are trying to do their job. Get a grip.
Well, CGHTeach, I hope, in your calligraphy lesson, that you are wise enough not to have the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and other students not write something that renounces their faith and accepts another. And that you actually know what you are having them write. If so, I suspect you will have absolutely no problem.
This is such a ridiculous overreaction that it is hard to believe it actually happened. An entire school district shutting down over this?! Good grief. This is yet another situation where rational minds around the world look at the U.S. in disbelief.
“Doesn’t mean that someone might not try. You’re not talking about the most educated group in some areas of the world.”
Boy, that seems really effective. So now the people behind the conspiracy theory have “converted” a bunch of elementary school kids who haven’t a clue that they’ve converted. This accomplishes … What now?
Tatin, why would you believe it appropriate for a public school to take a trip to see Santa? It’s not educational. It’s not “take a trip to this church/synagogue/mosque to learn about these sets of beliefs.”
Gotta respect Catholics - when they want religion in their schools, they start their own.
“Boy, that seems really effective. So now the people behind the conspiracy theory have “converted” a bunch of elementary school kids who haven’t a clue that they’ve converted. This accomplishes … What now?”
Except I was referring to the men in Afghanistan, trying to harass women, not elementary school teachers. You think those were the uneducated people I was talking about?
@CGHTeach “I am a World History teacher and am feeling a tad nervous about teaching the Islamic Empires and Golden Age of Islam Unit this year.”
I hated world history in college when I took it, but I have to say that in today’s world it really serves to give me insight and background into current events. We covered the history of Islam (among other things) and it’s tremendously helpful to have that background when listening to news about the Middle East and forming opinions about it. People who don’t have that history (I’m guesing the large majority of the American public including most current presidential candidates) are really operating at a disadvantage or end up with only a very shallow view/insight into events.
So kudos to you. Your students may not appreciate the class while they’re in it, but hopefully when they’re a bit older and out in the world they’ll realize how valuable it was like I do.
I am totally opposed to any religious teaching in public schools but I think it is very sad that so many people in this country don’t know the difference between teaching history and teaching religion.
I’m Jewish and S went to a Catholic prep school. He had to take religion classes, had to go to Mass once a month, etc., for four years. At the end he was as Jewish as the day he started there. That there are people who believe that the students by writing the Shahada were converted to Islam is beyond ridiculous.
Many of the emails sent were from people who saw the lesson as marginalizing Christianity. I just find it astonishing that in a country were 70% of people identify as Christian that is what some believe. It’s obvious they don’t know the first thing about being a minority in the US if they think this history lesson is doing that.
My all-girl Catholic high school has, in recent years, accepted Muslim students. They even provide a place in the chapel for the ladies to keep their rugs for mandated daily prayer times.
Teaching students about religion and helping them gain an understanding of religions practiced in various parts of the world is not the same thing as indoctrinating them into religious beliefs.
I don’t see anything amiss about asking students to copy Arabic letters reciting the shahada ---- they are just lines and squiggles to these students. They don’t understand Arabic. When they copy the writing trying to emulate calligraphy, they are not renouncing anything or accepting anything. And the squiggly lines are not putting a spell on them either.
This is another subtopic in the …you can’t do that, it insults/microagresses/makes me uncomfortable/subjects me to psychological damage/requires a safe space and trigger warning insanity.
Frankly, I’m just glad my last one only has another year before they can exit what is becoming a system run by the inmates. The good news…the more this continues the less completion there will be in the ‘real’ world. Those that can’t handle the word ‘master’, a calligraphy project, a discussion which includes ideas contrary to the ‘group think’ of the day, who demand trigger warnings, claim cultural appropriation of their lunch menus and now need to ban mistletoe because of it’s non-inclusive religious nature just aren’t going to function to well outside of their self designed safe spaces.
I just wish Montey Python would do a reunion tour…they have an unlimited amount of source material.
@Pizzagirl - I don’t. It is not educational. I posted the article as another example of how difficult it is for schools to not offend anyone, and that offending one means shutting down activities for all. Going to see Santa is not educational. It was a class party.
I also remember from a few years back that many here thought it appropriate for public school choral concerts to eliminate any religious music, not matter its significance. So once schools go down that road, Muslim calligraphy with explicit religious words should be eliminated also.
This ‘no offense to anyone’ school policy is responsible for no longer teaching Huckleberry Finn in class. It’s going to be very difficult to teach anything anymore because someone is going to be offended by something. As the World History teacher said upthread. It’s not only the content that can be contentious but also the emphasis placed or the time devoted to one thing or another. It’s really become a minefield.
I guess it’s because I grew up in the northeast, it’s just entirely normal to me that duh, there would be Jewish kids in any classroom so why would you invite Santa to the class (or take a field trip to see him) when every mall has a Santa you can take your kid too. Just common sense. That said, I wouldn’t “object” and we did kind of a Santa thing but it’s still just thoughtless and odd to me.
I could agree with that if the assignment had been for the students to copy the shahada out in English. Just as I understand the objection of parents of nonChristian students or atheists to singing hymns praising “our Lord” and “our dear Savior’s birth” in a public school setting. (I would also understand objections to including a Muslim prayer song in a holiday program.)
But assigning students to copy something that looks like graffiti, something they are clearly not being asked to actually profess in a language they understand is simply not the same thing at all.
There’s enough to be outraged about in the world. No need to invent stuff.
Bad comparison, because Silent Night is a well known melody associated with Christmas. Better comparison: would I be OK if the chorus sang a traditional German Christmas song unknown to Americans, in German?
"I could agree with that if the assignment had been for the students to copy the shahada out in English. "
Just want to point out that it does not matter what language it is in if the main objection is religious association. That phrase has the same meaning in Arabic or English or even when it is translated into Ukrainian or Greek.
I still cannot get why it would be considered a meaningful assignment in a Georgraphy class… This is not even remotely analogous to singing Handel or Muslim holiday songs in a choir class…
Do you think that singing Silent Night in German is the same as announcing “This is a German Christmas song” and then singing Grsplvz Srmntz in German? I don’t.