ICSFP
Since Sept. 11, teaching about Islam in public-school classrooms has sparked a variety of reactions around the nation—from academic attempts to help teach Islam "accurately" to parental charges of public-school proselytizing.
In Bangor, Maine, administrators at Old Town High School suspended Stephen Jones, a University of Maine masters-level student teacher. Administrators asked Mr. Jones to stop teaching a social-studies class after his supervisor said parents complained that Mr. Jones's teaching on Islam "had a strong religious angle" and that he was "bashing Christianity," the Bangor Daily News reported.
The University of Texas in Austin invited 210 public-school educators to a conference called "Strategies for Teaching about Islam in the K-12 Classroom." The program, put on by several UT cultural studies departments and funded in part by federal grants, irked at least one Texas middle-school principal who wondered why UT offered teachers training about Islam but not about Christianity or Judaism. UT outreach coordinator Christopher Rose said his department has presented teacher workshops that combine presentations on several world religions, including Christianity and Judaism. But Mr. Rose said that since his program teaches about religion in the context of foreign cultures, federal funding parameters prevent workshop presenters from teaching about "Protestant Christianity as practiced in the United States."
This week a California Court dismissed a suit against Excelsior School that charged it with unconstitutional endorsement of Islam
During a three-week social studies unit on Islam at the school in Contra Costa County, teacher Brooke Carlin, using an instructional guide, told her students that they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks. She said she stressed that the exercise was only a role- playing game to teach them what Muslims believe. She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, required students to recite a line from a prayer and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. On the final exam, students were asked for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.
Two Christian students and their parents claimed the exercise amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of Islam. In a ruling announced Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed a suit saying it was all within constitutional bounds because the purpose was educational, not religious, and students engaged in no actual religious exercises or demonstrated "any devotional or religious intent.''
She noted that the state requires all seventh-grade world history courses to include a unit on Muslim history, culture and religion. In her 22-page ruling announced Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton said Excelsior is not indoctrinating students about Islam when it requires them to adopt Muslim names and pray to Allah as part of a history and geography class, but rather is just teaching them about the Muslim religion.
The World History and Geography class in question is part of a curriculum being taught to seventh-graders all over the state, and is included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. Although the standards outline what subjects should be taught and will be included in state assessment tests, they don't mandate how they're to be taught.
According to Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center which filed the suit, "Although it is constitutional for public schools to have an instructional program about comparative religion or teach about religion and utilize religious books such as the Bible in courses about our history and culture, the Byron Union School District crossed way over the constitutional line when it coerced impressionable 12-year-olds to engage in particular religious rituals and worship, simulated or not."
School officials defended the program adamantly. "Dressing up in costume, role-playing and simulation games are all used to stimulate class discussion and are common teaching practices used in other subjects as well." said Byron Superintendent Peggy Green.
The school principal Nancie Castro added, "At no point do we teach or endorse religion; we teach about religions' impact from a historical context. ... This is the state-approved curriculum, using state-adopted textbooks and has been part of the instructional program in California for over a decade."
The perception is in the approach, said Ari Caprow, a 14-year teacher at Francisco Middle School in North Beach.
"I make it clear to the kids beforehand that we're going to learn about religion, but not participate in it," Caprow said. "We're not going to practice it, but it's important to know what religion teaches.
"The intention is to learn," said Helal Omeira, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's not about conversion."
If the textbook, which was written according to California's guidelines, wasn't balanced, "It wouldn't even get past the school board," Omeira said.
"It's a wonderful book," Caprow said. "If you don't think so, you should see what the state was ramming down our throats 50 years ago."
As for the lack of a negative view of Islam in the text, "Unless you want to paint Islam as an evil religion, that's not the place to bring it up," Omeira said. "You're talking about seventh grade. When you go further in education, you learn more complexities about society. And with mental maturity, you make your own decisions.
"Religion doesn't do bad. People do bad. Let's separate the message from the messenger."
Sources:
San Francisco Examiner
Chron Watch
Islam-Online
