Paranoid Much?

[weltschmerz]

A Virginia school system has decided to close schools Friday after a high school geography assignment on world religions led to allegations of Islamic indoctrination and a slew of angry emails and phone calls.

A teacher at the district’s Riverheads High near Staunton, Va., gave an assignment asking students to try their hand at calligraphy by copying a statement in Arabic. Kimberly Herndon posted a photo of the worksheet given to her son, a student in the class, to her Facebook page.

Under the heading “practicing calligraphy,” the worksheet says: “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.”

www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/12/17/furor-over-arabic-assignment-leads-virginia-school-district-to-close-friday/

OMG! Shut the schools down! Our students are learning calligraphy!

[Lizard Queen]

Shutting the schools down is over the top, I agree, but copying a statement of faith in a public school? WTF? I don't care if its the Apostles Creed from my own faith, it doesn't belong in a public school. Should students be able to learn ABOUT it? Maybe, if its relevant to a certain lesson.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Shutting down the school is over the top but honestly I can't say I am surprised.

There are hundreds of words in the Arabic language she could have chosen for that assignment.   In today's political climate picking a religious statement, especially one from Islam was bound to get someone's panties in a wad.

[ArchietheDragon]

First it is copying down some Islam, second you are over run with Muslims living off government benefits and having litters of kids. 

[tskeeter]

Dec 18, 2015 16:10:14 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

First it is copying down some Islam, second you are over run with Muslims living off government benefits and having litters of kids. 

Wouldn't that be taxpayer provided benefits?  Let's never lose sight of the fact that all "government" benefits are paid for by you and me, not the government politicians and bureaucrats.

[ArchietheDragon]

Dec 18, 2015 16:26:36 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Dec 18, 2015 16:10:14 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

First it is copying down some Islam, second you are over run with Muslims living off government benefits and having litters of kids. 

Wouldn't that be taxpayer provided benefits?  Let's never lose sight of the fact that all "government" benefits are paid for by you and me, not the government politicians and bureaucrats.

All things belong to Allah.  

[Shooby]

Dec 18, 2015 15:55:55 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

A Virginia school system has decided to close schools Friday after a high school geography assignment on world religions led to allegations of Islamic indoctrination and a slew of angry emails and phone calls.

A teacher at the district’s Riverheads High near Staunton, Va., gave an assignment asking students to try their hand at calligraphy by copying a statement in Arabic. Kimberly Herndon posted a photo of the worksheet given to her son, a student in the class, to her Facebook page.

Under the heading “practicing calligraphy,” the worksheet says: “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.”

www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/12/17/furor-over-arabic-assignment-leads-virginia-school-district-to-close-friday/

OMG! Shut the schools down! Our students are learning calligraphy!

So, you would be OK with schools writing say the Christian and Missionary Alliance Statement of Faith as lesson? Could they write that out in calligraphy?  

www.cmalliance.org/about/beliefs/doctrine

[Artemis Windsong]

An extremely bad choice of a statement to write calligraphy.  The back story of this is the teacher is Muslim.  Said teacher could be part of a sleeper cell.  Overreaction.  Maybe not.

[tskeeter]

Dec 18, 2015 16:44:21 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Dec 18, 2015 16:26:36 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Wouldn't that be taxpayer provided benefits?  Let's never lose sight of the fact that all "government" benefits are paid for by you and me, not the government politicians and bureaucrats.

All things belong to Allah.  

Obviously Allah is doing a lousy job of providing for his followers.  If Allah did better, the standard of living in predominantly Muslim countries would be at least as high as we enjoy.

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2015 17:42:41 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Dec 18, 2015 16:44:21 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

All things belong to Allah.  

Obviously Allah is doing a lousy job of providing for his followers.  If Allah did better, the standard of living in predominantly Muslim countries would be at least as high as we enjoy.

Maybe if we kept our presence out the region it would be...

Seriously? Are you suggesting 'God is on our side' because we have a 'higher standard of living'?

[weltschmerz]

Dec 18, 2015 16:18:00 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

The statement of faith translates to: “There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

From the posted article this is the translation of the 'statement of faith'



I'm surprised those wakadoo religious freedom kooks .... nevermind  looks like they did jump on this. 

Haynes, of the Religious Freedom Center, led the effort to formulate federal guidelines on how to teach about religion in public schools in 2000. He said teachers have to strike a balance between teaching about religious practices without having students mimic them. Many teachers lack the training to teach appropriately about religion, he said.



“As far as the calligraphy, I don’t think it was a good choice to have students write out the shahada,” Haynes said, referring to the Muslim statement of faith. “That’s really not appropriate. That’s like having students learn about Christianity by learning the Lord’s Prayer.”

I find it really odd weltschmerz that you would be okay with religion being taught in a public school.   How is not ramming religion down the throats of students.   

I'm perfectly OK with teaching comparative religion in schools. Different religions are a fact of life.

Learning about them in order to understand the world we live in is quite different than forcing someone to adopt them.

[cktc]

Shutting down the school was a response to the parents' reaction, not the teacher's actions. Considering the nature of responses the school was getting from parents, and the recommendation from police, I wouldn't call it an overreaction on the school's part. Tempers are riled and they need to asses the threat level. It seems reasonable to me.

[Shooby]

Dec 18, 2015 18:33:52 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Dec 18, 2015 16:18:00 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

From the posted article this is the translation of the 'statement of faith'



I'm surprised those wakadoo religious freedom kooks .... nevermind  looks like they did jump on this. 




I find it really odd weltschmerz that you would be okay with religion being taught in a public school.   How is not ramming religion down the throats of students.   

I'm perfectly OK with teaching comparative religion in schools. Different religions are a fact of life.

Learning about them in order to understand the world we live in is quite different than forcing someone to adopt them.

Are you Ok with them writing the Christian statement of faith? Yes or no.

[weltschmerz]

Dec 18, 2015 18:39:59 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Dec 18, 2015 18:33:52 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

I'm perfectly OK with teaching comparative religion in schools. Different religions are a fact of life.

Learning about them in order to understand the world we live in is quite different than forcing someone to adopt them.

Are you Ok with them writing the Christian statement of faith? Yes or no.

In a comparative religion class? Yes.

[weltschmerz]

Just like I'd be OK with a Buddhist statement of faith, a Jewish statement of faith, or a Hindu statement of faith.

It's important to understand the eclectic world we live in. Understanding others builds bridges.

[Tennesseer]

Dec 18, 2015 18:39:59 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Dec 18, 2015 18:33:52 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

I'm perfectly OK with teaching comparative religion in schools. Different religions are a fact of life.

Learning about them in order to understand the world we live in is quite different than forcing someone to adopt them.

Are you Ok with them writing the Christian statement of faith? Yes or no.

In Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic to make it an equivalent as the books of the bible were originally written in those languages..

[quince]

Whelp, I wouldn't be OK with the contents of any religion being part of a mandatory class in public school, other than the very shallow, necessary bits for history classes. Fine for an optional comparative religion course, but this was ....geography. 

[Tennesseer]

Not the best decision of the teacher to use those Arabic words for a calligraphy exercise. The teacher could have/should have used a short passage from 'The Thousand Nights', later titled 'The Thousand and One Nights', written between the 8th and 13th century in Arabic calligraphic form.

[weltschmerz]

Dec 18, 2015 19:17:13 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Dec 18, 2015 18:57:13 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

In a comparative religion class? Yes.

How about a Geography class?

If the class involves demographics, imports and exports, topography, population and major religion?

Why not?

[mroped]

This was an exercise of calligraphy so pretty much any sentence/phrase would've been put up would've been fine. All they had to do is practice writing coursive.
It just happen to be a statement of the Islamic faith. It could also be working for all faiths. What's the difference? It is for practice purposes.
What if the statement were "we the students and our parents are hypocrites and morons"?
At least they would've had a reason to be upset!

"You shall have no other Gods before me!"
"there is only one God and his name is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet!"

Those are statements of Christianity and Islam. I see no reason to get upset over either but then again, a few years back I managed to pull my head out of sand(?) and seen life for what it is.

[tskeeter]

Dec 18, 2015 18:15:12 GMT -5 oped said:

Dec 18, 2015 17:42:41 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Obviously Allah is doing a lousy job of providing for his followers.  If Allah did better, the standard of living in predominantly Muslim countries would be at least as high as we enjoy.

Maybe if we kept our presence out the region it would be...

Seriously? Are you suggesting 'God is on our side' because we have a 'higher standard of living'?

No.  I'm just giving Archie grief.  To infer any religious beliefs from my comments would be far beyond my intent.

[weltschmerz]

Dec 18, 2015 19:42:58 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Dec 18, 2015 19:26:26 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

If the class involves demographics, imports and exports, topography, population and major religion?

Why not?

Ok, so they should also teach about a woman's proper place too?  I mean that's covered under the Islamic religion. Women's modesty should be taught along with exports and topography. 

Big difference between a woman's "proper" place and how a country treats women.

If you're teaching about FGM in Africa, it doesn't mean you endorse the practice.

[Lizard Queen]

Dec 18, 2015 19:40:20 GMT -5 mroped said:

This was an exercise of calligraphy so pretty much any sentence/phrase would've been put up would've been fine. All they had to do is practice writing coursive.
It just happen to be a statement of the Islamic faith. It could also be working for all faiths. What's the difference? It is for practice purposes.
What if the statement were "we the students and our parents are hypocrites and morons"?
At least they would've had a reason to be upset!

"You shall have no other Gods before me!"
"there is only one God and his name is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet!"

Those are statements of Christianity and Islam. I see no reason to get upset over either but then again, a few years back I managed to pull my head out of sand(?) and seen life for what it is.

When you state a profession of faith, it means that this is what you believe. In the sense that we sometimes speak through our writing, it could be somewhat similar with writing a profession of faith. It is supposed to mean something to profess something. (And "you shall have no gods before me" is a commandment, not a profession of faith.)

[busymom]

It's hitting the fan in a community near us. Apparently during the high school's musical holiday program, they had the students signing a song that includes the words "allahu Akbar".  So, did all of these teachers message each other, & decide to do something stupid the same week?

[zibazinski]

That is one teacher the union should not protect

[mroped]

No LL, the "there is only one God...." Is not a statement of faith but the first commandment in the Quran

[Lizard Queen]

Dec 18, 2015 20:38:36 GMT -5 mroped said:

No LL, the "there is only one God...." Is not a statement of faith but the first commandment in the Quran

I read that it is a statement of faith,and another place says its a profession of faith, but I don't see how its a commandment. Its similar to a Judeo-Christian commandment for sure, but it says neither to do something or not to do something.

This may seem like I'm splitting hairs here, but the Apostles Creed is said at every mass as a reaffirmation of faith. For believers, it means something to say it. To have to say something different as an assignment, clashes against those beliefs. To some believers, at least, it's important to mean what you say and say what you mean--especially in regards to faith.

(Sorry, I'm not sure how well I can explain this while hen-pecking on my phone. ;-)

[Deleted]

Geography generally extends to cultures. I would have chosen a different passage. It depends on whether or not the teacher taught the importance of this phrase to that culture if I would be ''upset' I have no issue with a song containing Abdul Akbar, particularly if holiday songs with Christmas religious phrases were included.

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2015 20:55:18 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Dec 18, 2015 20:38:36 GMT -5 mroped said:

No LL, the "there is only one God...." Is not a statement of faith but the first commandment in the Quran

I read that it is a statement of faith,and another place says its a profession of faith, but I don't see how its a commandment. Its similar to a Judeo-Christian commandment for sure, but it says neither to do something or not to do something.

This may seem like I'm splitting hairs here, but the Apostles Creed is said at every mass as a reaffirmation of faith. For believers, it means something to say it. To have to say something different as an assignment, clashes against those beliefs. To some believers, at least, it's important to mean what you say and say what you mean--especially in regards to faith.

(Sorry, I'm not sure how well I can explain this while hen-pecking on my phone. ;-)

I can recite the Lord's Prayer. I understand its importance to many. It doesn't hold that meaning for me, but I can understand and respect the sentiment.

[Lizard Queen]

It's different from a prayer though. Its a statement that basically says, "this is my Truth", with a big T. ;-)

DH and I watch the show "Bones". I imagine it's like Brennan saying that she believes in magical unicorns. She wouldn't be able to say that without immediately refuting it. It would go against everything that she knows to be the Truth.