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Georgia: Public school lesson included a “letter” from a fictional Muslim woman praising Sharia and polygamy

Sep 25, 2011 12:25 am By Marisol Seibold

It is not just that the lesson “positively slants toward Islam” to the exclusion of other religions, which would be bad enough. The letter excerpted below, along with other components of the lesson, amount to dawah, or Islamic proselytizing, and children in a public school were made a captive audience to a sales pitch for Islam.

More on this story. “School’s curriculum on Mideast adjusted after parent protests,” by Lindsay Field for the Marietta Daily Journal, September 22:

MARIETTA — Campbell Middle School 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.

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.

Neither Medlin nor district officials would identify the teacher.

But he’s… “conservative!” (On cue, lightning flashes, and a horse neighs in the distance.)

“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” and copyright by InspirEd Educators Inc. It is printed here with permission:

“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 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.

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.

The double standard becomes clear if one plugs any other religion into the material being pushed here for the sake of Islam, especially on the level of the contents of that “letter” quoted above.

Her company”s lessons have helped raise test scores in at least one south Georgia district, she said.

“We teach kids to think and to reason. The letters are fictitious, and we present it in different way rather than just a textbook,” she said.

Dale Gaddis, who is the area superintendent over Campbell Middle, acknowledged, “The use of that material could have been served in a better way.”

“The dad was correct in what he was talking about, but since then we”ve decided to select better materials. The issues that we had, we actually took care of. We worked with the teacher. The material would be used but we worked with our curriculum folks to verify the material and how it should be used,” he said….

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