|
California School's World History Course Sparks Hate Mail
By IslamOnline correspondent, Ayub Khan
BENTWOOD, CA, Jan.18 (IslamOnline) - A California school has been flooded with threatening phone calls and hate e-mails after an obscure Christian news agency carried an inaccurate report claiming that the school is teaching an intensive three-week course on Islam.
Assist News Service, affiliated with Garden Grove, California, based Assist Ministries, in a January 8th report claimed that 7th graders in a number of public schools in Byron, California, are being required to attend an intensive three week course on Islam.
The report claimed the students attending the course are mandated to learn the tenets of Islam, study important Islam personalities, wear a robe, and adopt a Muslim name. The report soon spread quickly after being picked up by conservative websites, talk shows and even mainstream newspapers like the Washington Times.
The reports especially targeted Excelsior School in Byron, California, where it claimed "students are to pretend that they are Muslims, wear Muslim clothing to school, stage their own jihad via a dice game and pick out a Muslim name [to replace their own] from a list of 30."
ANS quoted an "outraged" teacher at Excelsior and parent of a seventh-grader as saying: "We can't even mention the name of Jesus in the public schools, but ... they teach Islam as the true religion, and students are taught about Islam and how to pray to Allah."
Soon thereafter, the offices of the superintendent of Byron Union School District were flooded by over 500 telephone calls, and Excelsior Principal, Nancie Castro, said that she has received over 200 hate e-mails.
In a letter to parents obtained by IslamOnline, Castro wrote: "The staff of the Byron Union School District, and especially of Excelsior School, have spent the last two days fielding indignant and often threatening phone calls, and hate e-mails - mostly from outside the area - based on an inaccurate, rumor-filled story that appeared in an Internet newsletter and was subsequently picked up by radio talk shows. They unfairly accused the Byron Union School District of instructing our students in an intensive three-week course on Islam."
Speaking to IslamOnline, Castro said that not only Islam, but Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and other major religions are also taught as they apply to the understanding of history and the development of major Western and non-Western civilizations.
In the letter, Castro wrote: "This is the state approved curriculum, using state-adopted textbooks and has been part of the instructional program in California for over a decade. At no point do we teach or endorse religion, we teach about religions’ impact from a historical context."
Regarding the charge that the students were required to adopt a Muslim name and wear Islamic dress, Castro explained: "In order to engage students' interest, teachers often use various activities and games to illustrate aspects of these social structures. 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. At no time did students pray and they were not mandated to dress as a Muslim and adopt a new name as alleged in the article."
When asked if she will consider changing or canceling the class, Castro responded: "No, the outcry is not coming from our community as they know the facts and that the article was not accurate."
|
