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School Days: Distorted, PC Readings About Muslims and Islam Required in Some U.S. States
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by PEP | June 8, 2008 at 02:43 pm
314 views | 5 Recommendations | 6 comments
This news does not bode well for the future of education. The PC crowd now has education so twisted around the flavor of the day that little education actually happens these days.
A new report issued by the American Textbook Council says books approved for use in local school districts for teaching middle and high school students about Islam caved in to political correctness and dumbed down the topic at a critical moment in its history."Textbook editors try to avoid any subject that could turn into a political grenade," wrote Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, who railed against five popular history texts for "adjust[ing] the definition of jihad or sharia or remov[ing] these words from lessons to avoid inconvenient truths."
Sewall complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation of violence. He cites Houghton Mifflin's popular middle school text, "Across the Centuries," which has been approved for use in Montgomery County Schools. It defines "jihad" as a struggle "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil."
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (6)
at 02:11 on June 9th, 2008
Sometimes PC's other name is tolerance. Bigots and war mongers love targeting the races, nations and religions they hate. No peace loving person supports diatribe against any religion. How one would feel if all the so called negative things among Christians and Jews are highlighted! Bad, is the right answer. So, it must be bad when Islamophobes publish such as the above stories.
The best parameter to judge one's level of tolerance is how far you can allow others to find faults in you. If you can get upset by some thing then the other person could also turn and say hey please don't say that....
at 07:41 on June 9th, 2008
There is, I think, a difference between tolerance and PC. There's also respect for diversity, which is what we're aiming for. But when people shout "you're a racist!" or "you're not tolerant" whenever anyone questions something, or offers a differing viewpoint, that stifles free speech and free discussion. (I'm not saying you're doing that, I'm speaking in general here.)
We would be appalled if say, KKK hate speech and lies were allowed in schools. But for some reason, when it's leftist or Muslim, or race-based, it's A-OK with a segment of the American population.
We are killing our own freedoms by literally suppressing and punishing speech that doesn't meet PC requirements, which are pretty darned free-floating.
at 06:29 on June 9th, 2008
Excuse me. PC? What is that?
at 07:44 on June 9th, 2008
Rene, see the highlight: "politically correct."
I could have written--but not in the headline, which is long anyway-- politically correct (PC) but I decided that it simply wasn't needed with this story--and for NP.
Now Public readers tend to be astute and aware of basic modern terminology. PC is used so often that it's just about become a noun in its own right, in terms of discussion (not grammar).
at 06:38 on June 9th, 2008
PEP, you are absolutely correct "the [politically correct] now has education so twisted around the flavor of the day that little education actually happens these days." Thanks for posting this story! I'd like to see more discussion on this topic - I'm facing time constraints at the moment!(again:))
at 07:48 on June 9th, 2008
Thanks for adding your comments, Rhonda, and wish you could discuss this more. I think that PC demands have pretty well shut down education. We can count on our technology and our infrastructure to go increasingly downhill as hordes of poorly-educated youngsters who believe that first and foremost, they must not hurt someone's feelings, take over. They are going to discover that in the real world, time constraints matter, math matters, physics matter, and that getting a job done without hand-wringing means work and facing reality. There was a great cartoon awhile back about students and being affected by the "Euro-centric" values in math, making it unfair for anyone to demand a correct answer.