Our flag is also at half staff. Such a great leader and a great man. Rest in peace President Reagan. Your accomplishments and memory will always soar over America.
I received this in email. It's not new but I don't recall seeing it.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/12/MNGBN3L90R10.DTL
Judge OKs Islamic role-playing in classroom
A federal judge says a Contra Costa County school was merely teaching seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions of a history class that called for students to adopt Muslim names and recite language from prayers.
In a ruling announced Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed a suit by two Christian students and their parents who claimed the use of role-playing at Excelsior School in Byron during the 2001-02 school year amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of Islam.
During the course at the middle school, teacher Brooke Carlin, using an instructional guide, told her students that they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks. She said she stressed that the exercise was only a role- playing game to teach them what Muslims believe.
She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, required students to recite a line from a prayer and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. On the final exam, students were asked for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.
That was all within constitutional bounds, Hamilton said, because the purpose was educational, not religious, and students engaged in no actual religious exercises or demonstrated "any devotional or religious intent.''
She noted that the state requires all seventh-grade world history courses to include a unit on Muslim history, culture and religion.
An attorney for the students, Chase and Samantha Eklund, and their parents, Jonas and Tiffany Eklund, said Thursday he was astonished by Hamilton's ruling and would seek his clients' permission to appeal.
"This is a religious indoctrination where all they talked about was the Islamic faith for three weeks,'' said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. "It shows a double standard, one for the Christians and one for the other religions.''
Tom Meyer, superintendent of the Byron Union School District, said the ruling left teachers free to be creative in classes about religion. "It would be a terrible shame if our teachers were restricted to using methods that put students to sleep,'' he said