Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Teaching Islam in Georgia Schools Challenged

Parents paying attention to their kids' school work complained to Campbell Middle School in Cobb County Georgia about a state-approved curriculum that essentially proselytizes Islam including the advantages of oppression of women and polygamy.

UPDATE 9/30/15: Georgia School Says Learn Islam or Take Lower Grade

For background, read Public School Trip to Mosque, Students Pray and also read Florida School Says We Must Protect Muslims from Christianity

-- From "Super: CCSD will take 2nd look at Mideast materials" by Lindsay Field, The Marietta Daily Journal 10/1/11

Cobb County’s superintendent said there might be some changes system-wide to the curriculum after complaints from the community about Middle Eastern study materials, but also agreed the issue has been blown out of proportion.

An unidentified teacher who asked students to outline the pros and cons of school uniforms assigned the homework. The material used for the comparison was a fictitious letter from a woman who is explaining why she is “proud and happy” to be Muslim and a list of seven conditions for women’s dress in Islam.

When asked the appropriateness of the material, [Supt. Dr. Michael] Hinojosa said that the district likes to give teachers autonomy when given supplemental materials approved by the state.

“We feel that if they’re provided by the state, they ought to be pretty legitimate,” he said, adding that he was surprised by Georgia superintendent Dr. John Barge’s statement in Thursday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying that he didn’t agree with the lesson.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "With uproar in Cobb school, Georgia may pull lesson about Islam" by David Ibata, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 9/30/11

“I understand that some Westerners condemn our practice of polygamy, but I also know they are wrong,” the [Muslim] woman writes [in the school lesson].

State school Superintendent John Barge told Channel 2 that the lesson was approved before he took office, and he would not have allowed it to be sent home with students for an assignment on dress codes. Nor, he added, was it appropriate for middle school students.

The superintendent said the state school board at its next meeting would discuss the issue and the process for removing materials that had previously been approved.

In a previous interview with the AJC, Dale Gaddis, Cobb area assistant superintendent, said schools are tasked with teaching Middle Eastern cultures, and doing so requires talking about the religions of those cultures.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Islamizing the Curriculum in Georgia" by Pamela Geller, American Thinker 9/29/11

. . . It is time our children were taught about the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations, and enslavements. And the systematic dehumanization of women: honor killings, clitorectomies, and so much more. Where is the caning? Where is the prohibition of women leaving the house without a male family member? Where is the prohibition of women driving?

This document [referenced in the Campbell Middle School incident] was hosted on a public school district's official website. When we called attention to it, the lesson was quickly pulled and scrubbed from the web. But I have screenshots of everything, because I knew that as soon as I exposed this dawah (Islamic proselytizing), the school official quislings would scrub this material. And they did -- so they know that what they are promoting is wrong.

According to parents, a coach from a nearby [Georgia] high school, a Muslim American, was invited to at least one class to talk about his trip to Mecca. A parent complained to the principal and a school board member with no result. The excuse is "we're studying the culture of the Middle East."

To read the entire opinion column above, CLICK HERE.