Deference to Islam completely run amok in British school

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What amazes me most about this story is not so much the extremely poor lack of judgement on the teacher's part, but rather the apparent complete disinterest of the deputy headmaster to do anything about it.

Unless she's really stupid, I doubt that this same teacher would ever have considered teaching the kids about Christianity by holding Communion in the class. In any event, the headmaster needs to dismiss her, either for stupidity or total lack of judgement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2247388/Schoolboys-disciplined-for-%27refusing-to-pray-to-Allah%27.html

UK Telegraph wrote:

Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.

A spokesman for Cheshire County Council said 'Educating children in the beliefs of different faiths is part of Cheshire's diversity curriculum'
It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

Yesterday parents accused the school of breaching their human rights by forcing them to take part in the exercise.

One, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.

"Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."

<<Snip>>>>

Her husband Keith, 44, a painter and decorator, said: "The school is wonderful but this one teacher has made a major mistake. It seems to be happening throughout society. People think they can ride roughshod over our beliefs and the way we live."

The alleged incident, at the Alsager school, one of Cheshire's top performing schools, happened on Tuesday afternoon. The teacher, Alison Phillips, the school's subject leader in RE, is understood to be staying away from the school until the furore dies down, although she has not been suspended.

She is said to have got prayer mats out of the cupboard and also asked children to wear Islamic headdresses.

Deputy headmaster Keith Plant said: "I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events."

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My impression is that people are being coerced into "right-thinking" in many places around Europe, as, for example, with various anti-defamation laws that criminalize non-libelous/non-slanderous expressions of subjective opinion. Certainly, in the US, being forced into performing someone else's religious rites would be grounds for a 1st Amendment law suit.

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the Europeans are scared. They allowed a great many muslims into their borders and only belatedly realized that they might be willing to burn the place down if they don't get what they want. Now they must be integrated at all costs (even to principles) and this can't happen unless the rest of the citizens accept them. The citizens are currently being coerced into accepting the Muslims on the Muslims terms. There is no reason to think that this will work, and even if it were to there will be a very high price to pay for allowing the muslim subculture to dictate terms of their participation in the general culture.

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Is this really "amok"?

It sounds like one part of one class on one day. The purpose of the class seems to be to teach kids about the different world religions.

I don't really see the problem since Allah is just another word for God.

If the kids so objected to play praying to God they should have been allowed to sit quietly on the sidelines. If they disrupted the class with their protest then detention was probably the right course of action.

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boomerang wrote:

Is this really "amok"?

It sounds like one part of one class on one day. The purpose of the class seems to be to teach kids about the different world religions.

I don't really see the problem since Allah is just another word for God.

If the kids so objected to play praying to God they should have been allowed to sit quietly on the sidelines. If they disrupted the class with their protest then detention was probably the right course of action.

there has been a pattern of this sort of thing across Europe. The tipping point was the Muslim lead riots in France during 2005. Those riots were motivated mostly by poverty, but the cause of the poverty of second generation immigrants in France is that they have been shunned by the majority and thus are not offered employment opportunities. The political and social leaders across Europe are now in a desperate race to force the inclusion of the Muslim into the culture in order to head off further troubles. Tensions are still high, any flash point could set off widespread rioting across Europe.

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Boomerang,
"Allah" is not just another word for God in the view of many people, to include muslims themselves. Therefore, for this teacher to require her students to mimic worshipping some other god is the height of stupidity.

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boomerang wrote:

Is this really "amok"?

It sounds like one part of one class on one day. The purpose of the class seems to be to teach kids about the different world religions.

I don't really see the problem since Allah is just another word for God.

If the kids so objected to play praying to God they should have been allowed to sit quietly on the sidelines. If they disrupted the class with their protest then detention was probably the right course of action.

Does it sound like they disrupted with anything except refusal to participate?

Quote:

Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.

A spokesman for Cheshire County Council said 'Educating children in the beliefs of different faiths is part of Cheshire's diversity curriculum'
It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part....

Coercing someone into taking part in a religious ceremony for a religion not their own seems okay to you? That whole religious freedom idea sort of passed you by?

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Allah is the arabic word for God.

I have no idea what happened in the class since the article doesn't really go into it. I don't know if they were disruptive or not or if the teacher "coerced" them into taking part of a religious ceremony or was simply executing her lesson plan.

On other days in the class did they study Buddhism? Did they use flags or beads or bring offerings of oranges? Did they study the different Christian sects and how each one prays? Did they study Hindu? Maybe build an altar?

Without knowing more about the class it's impossible to make a judgement on what was going on during their study of Islam.

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boomerang wrote:

Allah is the arabic word for God.

I have no idea what happened in the class since the article doesn't really go into it. I don't know if they were disruptive or not or if the teacher "coerced" them into taking part of a religious ceremony or was simply executing her lesson plan.

On other days in the class did they study Buddhism? Did they use flags or beads or bring offerings of oranges? Did they study the different Christian sects and how each one prays? Did they study Hindu? Maybe build an altar?

Without knowing more about the class it's impossible to make a judgement on what was going on during their study of Islam.

I don't think that you need to know any more to know that this is wrong. It is never OK to force people to participate in cultural traditions that are not their own, even if you think that the goal of the exercise is education. There are other ways to teach other cultures and to indoctrinate students with multicultural theory, so this is totally unwarranted.

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The merging of cultures is inevitable. They will change us, we will change them. The most we can hope for is to retain the best of different worlds.

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This man has some interesting clips
on You Tube. Food for thought.

Click here for clips

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hawkeye10 wrote:

the Europeans are scared. They allowed a great many muslims into their borders and only belatedly realized that they might be willing to burn the place down if they don't get what they want. Now they must be integrated at all costs (even to principles) and this can't happen unless the rest of the citizens accept them. The citizens are currently being coerced into accepting the Muslims on the Muslims terms. There is no reason to think that this will work, and even if it were to there will be a very high price to pay for allowing the muslim subculture to dictate terms of their participation in the general culture.

Appeasing Islam is what it's all about ...

Watch this and decide if this man is right or wrong

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Deference to Islam completely run amok in British school

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