Conservative dad threatens ‘****storm’ if daughter’s world history class includes Islam

a reply to: NavyDoc

How would that be any different than memorizing a religious hymn or story from, say, Ancient Egypt? Just ignore it, it's religious based, therefore no need to study it to understand them & their rituals? How would we have an accurate understanding of the culture if none of that was taught? Yeah, I can just see a modified xenophobic world history class right now. "North Africans developed a vast culture with a lot of influence. They built pyramids & did some things. The end."

originally posted by: Nyiah
a reply to: NavyDoc

How would that be any different than memorizing a religious hymn or story from, say, Ancient Egypt? Just ignore it, it's religious based, therefore no need to study it to understand them & their rituals? How would we have an accurate understanding of the culture if none of that was taught? Yeah, I can just see a modified xenophobic world history class right now. "North Africans developed a vast culture with a lot of influence. They built pyramids & did some things. The end."

Religion does not belong in the public schools. If you can't memorize the Christian Lord's Prayer, you shouldn't memorize other prayers.

I've taken several courses on history over the years and not once was memorizing a spiritual text necessary to understand the history, be they Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Christian.

The context of the class and how it was presented is important. Too often people fall over themselves to be "tolerant" and "PC" that they end up overly biased for something.

a reply to: Chrisfishenstein

I am on his side here....Kid's can't even learn Christianity anymore but they cover Islam religions??

Yes you too should go back to school,

Islam religions?

Is that a typo?

No I think not as you say it again in this post

Not to mention it is kind of hard not to teach a little Christianity, being that when you look at the calendar it is based on Jesus...How do you explain that to kids without "teaching" something about Christianity? I am talking about being ABLE to teach kids about Christianity...Schools can't anymore, so being that everything we base time off of was from "Christianity" and we can't teach it, but the school can cover Islam religions because it is "world history class"? No, I don't buy it....Nor do I like it

WTF did I just read?

Islam is one religion, it might have a few sects and offshoot religions based on it but its one religion.

How is Calender based on Jesus?

Are you saying Jesus is the sun, sun not son as I thought the calendar the 365 day calender was based on our orbit around our star.

a reply to: olaru12

My sympathies are with the children of such open minded and highly educated parents.

It just seems our modern educational system has fallen short on so many fronts. maybe we should get people like this to write our schools text books.

a reply to: Adaluncatif

What's wrong with Islam - are you blind? Who are the people currently blowing up cafe's, hotels, innocent people going about their lives? Muslims! I won't touch Judaism because they have blood on their hands with the palestinians. However, what christian goes about trying to behead a soldier on british streets, blows up peoples houses and makes X million Syrians homeless - guess who - you know perfectly well - that's whats wrong with islam it thinks its good enough to be the religion of the world when all it does is pervert the world. IM HO. Who hates the Iraqian people with the blond hair and green eyes and is trying to force married and rape on their women to breed out their genetics? isis another group of hard-line rapists, murders and destroyers of people. As you can see I am not a fan and don't believe in humbug politeness when talking about certain indefensible subjects.

God... do people even know the difference between Indoctrination and Leanring about religion?

American, you should keep these morons out of public spotlight.. they just further your stereotype.



Learning abour religion actually helps look at its behaviour.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: Adaluncatif

What's wrong with Islam - are you blind? Who are the people currently blowing up cafe's, hotels, innocent people going about their lives? Muslims! I won't touch Judaism because they have blood on their hands with the palestinians. However, what christian goes about trying to behead a soldier on british streets,

Christians have learned to be a bit more subtle and legal with pushing their intolerances. They've learned that they can get more accomplished this way rather than through violence. Hence the religious right pushing fake science like Creationism or climate change denial. Churches like Westboro come to mind. Oh and let's not forget that Christians have been known to firebomb abortion clinics.

blows up peoples houses and makes X million Syrians homeless - guess who - you know perfectly well - that's whats wrong with islam it thinks its good enough to be the religion of the world when all it does is pervert the world. IM HO. Who hates the Iraqian people with the blond hair and green eyes and is trying to force married and rape on their women to breed out their genetics? isis another group of hard-line rapists, murders and destroyers of people. As you can see I am not a fan and don't believe in humbug politeness when talking about certain indefensible subjects.

Your post is VERY racist towards Islam. ISIS is to Islam as Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Hmm, local news picked this up - on the sidebarare the pages of homework that the parent objected to:

www.myfoxdfw.com...

Can't make all of the questions out, but here are some:

"What are the 5 pillars of Islam?"
"What does Jihad mean?"
"What is a caliph and who was the first caliph?"
"Describe Muhammed's upbringing"
"What did Muhammed do when he returned to Mecca?"

This isn't what I thought - this is *about* Islam. Which still might not be a bad thing, but I'd have to see the same lesson plan on Christianity, Judaism, etc.

a reply to: squittles

I extracted the four pictures of the assignment from the link:





Looks like standard history fare to me.

"What are the 5 pillars of Islam?"
"What does Jihad mean?"
"What is a caliph and who was the first caliph?"
"Describe Muhammed's upbringing"
"What did Muhammed do when he returned to Mecca?"

Those are all history questions, except maybe the 5 pillars of islam question. But when placed with the other questions, it is clear that it is also just a benign history question as well.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Interesting. The third question asks how Islam is similar/different from Judaism and Christianity. That basically implies that the kids already have a knowledge of those religions.

This is what happens when your a Fox News watcher..if he doesn't like it take his daughter elsewhere.
The Muslims are here and not going away..better to have a basic understanding than dumbfawk ignorance.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: squittles


Looks like standard history fare to me.


Those are all history questions, except maybe the 5 pillars of islam question. But when placed with the other questions, it is clear that it is also just a benign history question as well.

Yeah, I don't disagree, but my original interpretation was that the guy was overreacting because the Islamic world had such a direct affect on world history - much of it quite positive. This assignment is directly about the religion itself, which is still ok in my book.

But when any mention of the roots of other religions seem to be banned from public schools, (do you really think theres a chapter on the roots of Christianity in that book? You know someone would sue) I think I might be able to empathize a little bit with him - of course, his version of events is pretty different from the admins, and he says he has a witness - that he never threatened anyone, etc.

Having had a kid go through the public school system, I guess I can understand the frustration - any complaint is often met by hostility and defensiveness - they quickly circle the bureaucratic wagons.

I recall my kid's AP Chem teacher quit at the beginning of term, and was replaced by someone who not only didn't know Chemistry, (much less college-level) but could barely speak English. My kid was often up until 2, 3 in the morning, trying to teach herself from the book. I complained to the principal, saying this isn't right, she shouldn't have to do that, and he got very angry with me, and trust me, we paid for that down the line in ways large and small.

I went to a private grade school and then public high school in the late 80s to early 90s. I dont recall any religion being taught at all. Would be odd considering the teacher may very well be adherent to a belief system. Would take up weeks of school to teach all the religions.

Am i wrong here about no religion in public school during that time period? I could very well have been staring out the window and i certainly dont recall any assignments on religion. I consider myself agnostic and have been since around fifth grade. Now that i think about it i was agnostic towards school too.

originally posted by: squittles
But when any mention of the roots of other religions seem to be banned from public schools, (do you really think theres a chapter on the roots of Christianity in that book? You know someone would sue) I think I might be able to empathize a little bit with him - of course, his version of events is pretty different from the admins, and he says he has a witness - that he never threatened anyone, etc.

World History class is predominately Western European World History. Western European History is pretty much the history of Christianity. The two are so interrelated that you can't have a world history class and NOT talk about Christianity. So no I don't think your point here is correct, and no, no one would sue if they did talk about the origins of Christianity. Then, even if they did, the lawsuit would be thrown out of court for frivolousness.

Having had a kid go through the public school system, I guess I can understand the frustration - any complaint is often met by hostility and defensiveness - they quickly circle the bureaucratic wagons.

I recall my kid's AP Chem teacher quit at the beginning of term, and was replaced by someone who not only didn't know Chemistry, (much less college-level) but could barely speak English. My kid was often up until 2, 3 in the morning, trying to teach herself from the book. I complained to the principal, saying this isn't right, she shouldn't have to do that, and he got very angry with me, and trust me, we paid for that down the line in ways large and small.

This is just an overall difficulty with dealing with any bureaucracy. I'm 29 and am not so far removed from high school that I don't remember my times with it. I can certainly relate to the frustrations of the bureaucracy, but I can just as easily relate to the frustrations of dealing with the MVA or social security. But unless you have a way to fix needlessly complex and pointless bureaucracy, there isn't much to talk about there.

The Christian religion always seems to be being pushed around school and government, especially in small towns. THis is what you get for not keeping religion separate.

a reply to: babybunnies

Actually Islam is not a religion, is the set of laws that the muslim world abide by in their faith, Islam is a law

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Where I went to school, there was almost no discussion on Christianity - or any other religion that was taught.

You seem like you want to be "right" - but truthfully, neither of us know what else is taught in that classroom. I've said repeatedly I don't have any objection to teaching Islamic culture and its role in world history - in fact, it's influence is rather under-appreciated, as is the Catholic church's. (The only mentions of the Catholic church I recall from class were negative, but that's neither here nor there.)

If you're going to teach religion in a history course, and you should, you should afford equal respect to all religions and their origins. That *is* the law - yet let's not pretend that many schools haven't violated the law, that kids haven't been suspended or removed from class for praying aloud, or reading a Bible, or wearing a cross or a rosary to school.

Is this the dude from Honey Booboo?

Just...wow.

originally posted by: squittles
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Where I went to school, there was almost no discussion on Christianity - or any other religion that was taught.

You seem like you want to be "right" - but truthfully, neither of us know what else is taught in that classroom. I've said repeatedly I don't have any objection to teaching Islamic culture and its role in world history - in fact, it's influence is rather under-appreciated, as is the Catholic church's. (The only mentions of the Catholic church I recall from class were negative, but that's neither here nor there.)

That may be a symptom of it being a High School history class. Since high school history classes like to leave out a lot of the juicy details and just harp on the overarching themes. I took a world history class in college and they went into much better detail of Catholicism's impact on society both positive and negative.

If you're going to teach religion in a history course, and you should, you should afford equal respect to all religions and their origins. That *is* the law - yet let's not pretend that many schools haven't violated the law, that kids haven't been suspended or removed from class for praying aloud, or reading a Bible, or wearing a cross or a rosary to school.

Whoa now! There is a difference between honoring and practicing a religion and teaching its history. Public schools aren't allowed to honor any religions, but they are allowed to teach their history. So kids praying aloud, reading the bible, or wearing a cross (actually I'm not aware of any cases where someone was suspended for wearing a cross or rosary) isn't the same thing as learning about the history of the religion.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: babybunnies

Actually Islam is not a religion, is the set of laws that the muslim world abide by in their faith, Islam is a law

Consider fixing this wiki page...

Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion articulated by the Qur'an, a book considered by its adherents to be the verbatim word of God