Just out of curiosity, how would you want schools to handle art history classes? Would you avoid using religious art in class? Edited to add: I understand a work of art is not per se a statement of faith, but most Western art of the first 1,900 years or so certainly has strong religious themes.
“Did your eyes actually look at the item in question, busdriver? Please tell me how to divide that design into words. I can’t tell. And if I saw that, say, printed, repeated, on a scarf, I wouldn’t know it was writing”
Arabic writing, Chinese writing, Japanese writing, none of it looks like words to me. However, I recognize that they are words, meaningful and recognizable to billions. Merely because I cannot recognize them, doesn’t make them not words. Though I am not religious, it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect other people’s religious beliefs, and it is blatantly obvious to me why some people could be offended.
Doesn’t mean that it is acceptable to yell and threaten people at the school. However, without a specific threat, it makes me wonder if this was a severe overreaction on the part of whomever had the authority to cancel classes. Perhaps in wake of the San Bernadino shooting, and the cancellation of classes in Los Angeles, they were overly paranoid. Seems like they could have dealt with this without making it into a bigger deal than it already was.
@“Cardinal Fang” I am of German heritage and well versed in German Christmas songs…can you please tell me about
. I am completely unfamiliar with that particular tune. Or is that a micro aggression?
"Grsplvz Srmntz
. I am completely unfamiliar with that particular tune. Or is that a micro aggression?"
Hmm, makes you wonder. Oh where are the vowels?
Tell me this, dietz. I was visiting my (rather senile) Grandmother a couple of days ago, and her (rather senile) roommate at the adult family home told me, “Du bist ein dummkopf!” Now, I think I remember enough German to realize what that means…was that a micro aggression, or just an aggression? 
Germans tend to use the passive aggressive approach and there is never any ‘micro’ about it. :))
Uh oh! Well, at least you know exactly where they stand!
Hayden, to me there’s no comparison at all between this assignment and viewing religious art. Viewing or writing about Christian-inspired art is learning. Writing out the precise words of a doctrinally specific assertion is doing.
Granted, there are religions that would have a problem with certain forms of learning as well. In such cases, it can be tough to know exactly how to define “reasonable accommodation.” That isn’t, however, what we’re talking about here. Asking a student in a public school to write out a profession of faith, while probably unobjectionable to many, and by no means evidence of anything sinister on the part of the teacher, is not appropriate.
And of course calligraphy is writing. As someone who has spent some time in Israel, I could immediately have identified the words on the scarf as a form of Arabic. In any case, the assignment sheet tells the students what they’re saying, which gives them the right to view it as meaningful text.
If it didn’t matter what they were writing in the calligraphy, they could have copied out one of the lines of the Koran about ‘killing the infidel’. How would that have gone over?
I’m still wondering what calligraphy has to do with religion. This assignment using the statement of faith has to offend all sides. It reduces the statement to an art exercise which is pretty offensive to Muslims and one can see from news reports how non-Muslims viewed it.
What next? Ask the students to draw the Pieta or crucifix so they can experience the difficulty in drawing figures?
Okay, so let me assuage some of your fears guys:
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Knowing the meaning of the words (whether they were written in Arabic or English or any other language) is not enough for conversion. You can say the Shahada a thousand times while knowing what it means and you still won’t be considered Muslim. Conversion needs intent i.e. you have to say the words with the sincere intent of becoming Muslim for it to be considered a valid conversion. Being tricked into saying it (like what was mentioned in an earlier post), being forced to saying it under duress (torture etc.), or just plain reading it DOES NOT make you Muslim. Else wise every non-muslim historian who studied about Islam and had to write down the words or say them in a lecture or something would be considered a Muslim. That’s just not the way it works.
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For the conversion to be valid, you need to have matured - as in hit puberty. Deeds committed by children, the mentally ill (or certifiably insane), the coerced or the sleeping are not “accounted for” in Islam.
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There are actually many things that are involved in conversion: ablutions, rule explaining etc.
Now, the Shahada is actually the most common found phrase (alongside a few others) found written in calligraphy on the walls of mosques and stuff. But here is the thing : you can write any word in Arabic calligraphy. We once had an exercise years ago in elementary where we had to write our names in calligraphy. I just don’t understand why that phrase, out of all others, was in the book. Why a religious text instead of, say, a verse from a poem or an excerpt from Arabian Nights? Yes, the Shahada is really famous and all, but there are literally an infinite choice of wrods/phrases the author could have chosen. Very poor judgement on his/her part.
And why on earth is it in a Geography book??? What does geography have to do with religions? Maybe a history or “World Religions” class, but geo? That’s plain weird.
And the reaction by the parents… like WTH? Close 12 schools for something that happened in one class in one school? How come they don’t close school districts over the fights that sometimes happen in schoolyards?
Like they all need to take a chill pill - or 400 mg of Vallium.
Like who has time these days to look for conspiracies and things to be offended about? Are they that bored? Netflix is only 7.99$ a month.
So the 10-year-olds being used by ISIS to behead people and the like - their “deeds” are not “accounted for” in Islam? Convenient, I guess.
129 - your post reminded me that in Granada, Spain there were lots of street vendors who would write your name in Arabic calligraphy, a souvenir inspired, I suppose, by the Alhambra.
Yes, they could have written anything in calligraphy.
If they’re coerced/brainwashed and the like, then yeah (like you said, they’re being “used”). You would be hard pressed to find a court that sentences a 10 year old to the chair. And it really isn’t up to me to say. I suppose they would have to be evaluated by a psychiatrist and tried by authorities and such.
And the kids in the classroom were not beheading anybody, the were copying a phrase. It’s like you’re saying that me telling you that the kids have not been in danger of converting is like me saying that those little Daesh kids are not murderers.You seem to have ignored my points 1 and 3 in favor for a part of point two, and linked that to ISIS and murder. Interesting.
My point is that what YOU, or reasonable not radical Muslims, or whomever, say or believe is very much at odds with what ISIS apparently believes. At least we keep being reassured of that. The fact that conversion is supposed to take X, Y, and Z processes does not mean that ISIS holds to those same rules.
@sylvan8798 “Years ago (1986?) I had a teal crop tee with Chinese characters on it. No idea what it said. One day I was at the Hoover Dam and passed an asian woman who looked at my shirt and started laughing. I ran after her and asked if she knew what it meant. She said no, but she thought it was the name of some park or other in China”
OMG, has anyone ever seen “The Kentucky Fried Movie”?
It was always one of my favorites after I saw it during college. Years later I was watching it one night with W. There’s a part that’s a spoof on Enter the Dragon. In one scene the head bad guy is speaking in Chinese and rapidly ordering his henchmen to go search the grounds and find our hero.
W suddenly busted out laughing out loud. I turned to her totally confused. She said the guy was actually speaking Korean, and saying, translated: “I don’t know what to say but the director told me to pretend I’m saying a bunch of important stuff. So you! Kimchee, go there! You, pork bulgogi, hurry up and do something…” (kimchee and bulgogi are Korean foods). Stuff in that general vein. Hilarious easter egg for Korean speakers.
“Grsplvz Srmntz”
For everybody who copy/pasted that, you realize that’s the German statement of faith in beer, right? Congratulations, you’ve just been indoctrinated.
@sylvan8798 Well, I don’t know how this relates to this thread, but I’m guessing that even if those sociopaths at Daesh knew they were breaking the rules, they wouldn’t care. They have adults doing killing as well, so they can’t hide behind the “children not responsible” rule.
I’m sorry if I’m being dense, but again, what does Daesh have to do with anything?
LMAO, @anomander I remember watching American Hustle, and there was this scene where De Niro spoke “Arabic”. It was a bunch of intelligible words and the phrase “do you like chatting” thrown in. Made me laugh so hard :))
And THAT kind of response is why the schools were shut down. ^ (post #133)
I should question more my teen having to play Handel’s Messiah and other Christmas carols in orchestra… next thing I know, she’ll be bombing an abortion clinic.
Yep, that’s a logical conclusion.
“And THAT kind of response is why the schools were shut down. ^ (post #133)”
Iirc from what I read - the majority of threats came from people outraged over the assignment and their belief it was marginalizing Christians and from Islam haters in this country - not from ISIS sympathizers. Most were not even from local citizens or parents but those who heard about it on a talk radio show.
I took BeeDAre as saying school officials thought residents’ overwrought fears of ISIS would lead the residents to violence. ISIS already has whatever excuses and rationalizations it thinks it needs to be violent.