Campbell Middle School in Marietta has adjusted its curriculum on the Middle East after a parent complained that material provided for one assignment “positively slants towards Islam.” The creator of the materials, though, said she doesn’t understand the objection.
MDJ Online Hal Medlin said the assignment, sent home with his seventh-grader in late August, was aimed at helping students outline the pros and cons of school uniforms. The material includes a 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.
“I thought this was absurd,” said Medlin, who describes himself conservative. “(The teacher) was trying to compare Islamic rules of dress and how they compared to school uniforms, which I thought was a stretch. The principal and the (superintendent) agreed with me … but they wouldn’t agree with my premise that it put Islam in a positive light because of the (statements).”
Here are excerpts from some of the material Medlin objected to, titled “My Name is Ahlima.”
“My name is Ahlima and I live in Saudi Arabia. … Perhaps two differences Westerners would notice are that women here do not drive cars and they wear abuyah. An abuyah is a loose-fitting black cloth that covers a woman from head to toe. I like wearing the abuyah since it is very comfortable, and I am protected from blowing sand. … I have seen pictures of women in the West and find their dress to be horribly immodest. … Women in the West do not have the protection of the Sharia as we do here. If our marriage has problems, my husband can take another wife rather than divorce me, and I would still be cared for. … I feel very fortunate that we have the Sharia.”
Said Medlin: “If you take these three pieces of paper at face value and stick them out there, how can you not say that it’s positively promoting religion, particularly Islam? I want them to agree that it should not go out.”
But (good little dhimmi), Sharon Coletti, the founder of Roswell-based InspirEd Educators and the creator of the material at issue, said she does not see Medlin’s objection.
“This particular sequence is a two-day social studies lesson. They read this letter and then examine stereotyping. The next lesson is a compare and contrast on the role of women in the middle East. Yes, the Muslim girl stereotypes Western women, but are there ways we stereotype Muslims? I have no idea what the objection is,” she said. (Idiot)
All public middle school students in Georgia spend 12 weeks learning about the Middle East, and that includes religions in that region, including the dominant Islam, she said. “It’s important for kids to have some empathy for other people in the world. Some people think we’re trying to teach their children to be Muslims, and that could not be more ridiculous,” Coletti said. (Why do you spend 12 weeks on the Middle East? Do they teach about Christianity when they learn about European history?)
Medlin also complained that the assignment did not give any differing opinions regarding religion.
“There was … no positive reflection of other religions,” he said. “They haven’t sent home documentation in any other religions. They haven’t sent home any printed material that supports or disputes any of them. It’s a very inappropriate thing to send home with these kids. I’m concerned for people who might not have a foundation from which to reflect from this, no religious training for any standpoint,” Medlin said. “I don’t think any of this was intentional, but I think it was stupid.”
Usually the authors of these types of articles are scholarly inept. Without the quality of education you get from IB schools, you remain closed in a closet for the rest of your life, even if you think you’re being sophisticated by knowing what goes on out there in the Islamic world. It’s good that these children were able to read what goes on there. It is only up to them to decide what is right and wrong. Christian people, or organized religionists in general, would never be able to understand that 1)in America, Christianity is in fact taught in schools more than any other religion (my language arts teacher recommended us to read the Bible if we wanted to understand any of the allusions of many English works), and 1)Christianity is not morally superior. I’m not saying Islam is morally superior either, but y’all need to understand how empathy and cultural understanding works in education. We’re not there to teach what is right or wrong. We’re only there to give sources so these kids can have their own conclusions. I’m a high school student, and I’m not going to shove myself in the narrow mindset that this whole website/article demands.
Ellie I can tell your a high school student because of your I know what is best for me instead of listening to informed information.
I find this to be ridiculous! How does polygamy and dress code have anything to do with each other? I can’t believe the father didn’t even bring that up. Sure he was upset about it, but he didn’t even mention that the two things had nothing to do with each other. You don’t try to justify school uniforms with mentioning Islam dress code and especially with the man’s right to marry more than one woman! That is a load of crap, and the school should be ashamed for even printing it out and passing it around to the students. That whole paper had nothing to do with school uniforms!!! That was just a way of trying to get the students used to the whole idea of Islam!