Posted on 01/08/2003 4:25:40 AM PST by chance33_98
Put off by public schools, more Muslims home-teach
BY DEBORAH HORAN Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO - KRT NEWSFEATURES
(KRT) - Ibrahim Imam, 9, starts his school day at 8:30 a.m. sharp. Like other fourth graders, he studies math, science, reading and cursive writing. He also practices Arabic and recites the Koran.
And, like a small but growing number of Muslim pupils nationwide, he learns each subject in his living room seated across a desk from his mother.
Seema Imam started home-schooling her son two years ago, after she decided that Ibrahim was doomed to the margins of public school life in Hickory Hills, Ill., and in danger of internalizing negative ideas about his religion.
She cites one illuminating incident. Teachers at her son's elementary school trying their best to include Muslim culture in the curriculum celebrated Ramadan by bringing ice cream sundaes to her son's class. Muslim children observing the monthlong fast couldn't eat the treat.
"Though they try to understand our kids, they just don't," said Imam, a devout convert to Islam who wears the head-to-toe hijab. "Our kids are involved in other people's holidays, then our holiday is misunderstood or left out."
Like their Christian counterparts, Muslims who choose home schooling often do so to escape exposure to sex, drugs and violence. They want to instruct their children in Islam, Arabic and Islamic civilization, subjects left out of ordinary public curricula.
They worry that their kids will feel excluded in classrooms where pupils draw reindeer and color Easter eggs but have never heard of qataif, a Muslim pastry eaten during the holy month of Ramadan, when the daily fast is broken after sundown with a family meal. Since Sept. 11, parents are anxious their children will be exposed to slurs and harassment.
"Drugs, gangs in schools, and now we have something additional," said Cynthia Sulaiman, a home-school advocate from Massachusetts who runs an organization called the Muslim Homeschool Network and Resource.
"With 9/11, the fears that parents have. ... I think it's growing even more," she said.
There are no reliable statistics for the number of children in America schooled at home. No law requires registration, so it is impossible to keep accurate tabs, said home-school advocate Dorothy Werner, a member of a Chicago-based home-school organization. Estimates for home-schoolers nationwide range from 1.6 million to 2 million, Werner said.
(Excerpt) Read more at centredaily.com ...
Yes, but will they learn anything about the Pilgrims, George Washington, the Revolutionary War, The Bill of Rights, Abraham Lincoln and other aspects of American history ?
Muslim 10th Grade History: Mohammed Slaughters the Infidels
Muslim 11th Grade Economics: How to Disrupt and Destroy The Israeli Economy
Muslim 12 Grade Phys.Ed.: Infiltrating The U.S. with A Suitcase Nuke
Muslim 11th Grade Sex Ed: Sex and the Burqua; Going Down for Allah
There's an oxymoron...
Yes, but will they learn anything about the Pilgrims, George Washington, the Revolutionary War, The Bill of Rights, Abraham Lincoln and other aspects of American history ?
Sure! They'll learn all they need to know, that we Americans are infidels who must be killed as is commanded by the insane ramblings of the koran.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Homeschool Dad Bump.
Another topic: I know next to nothing about Islam, but I did know that Ramadan included a fast. Setting aside the merit (or lack of merit) in celebrating/recognizing Ramadan in the public school, if I were in charge of such an effort, I would at least have sense enough to ask someone (like a Muslim) who could tip me off that ice cream would be a bad way to recognize the holiday.
OTOH, however, you can see how authorities can be frightened by possibly seeing a generation of misfits...especially when an unfamiliar religion enters the equation. For example, would you want your Little Leaguer's teammate to be learning that your son is an infidal and deserves to be killed in the name of a deity?
Of course my example is extreme, but.....
Then why don't you move to a non-christian nation, there are plenty to choose from!!!
Understood, but then going back to 'the good old' days in the 1700-1800's there was no nationalistic education plan. Freedom in learning/teaching was the norm. So we have to ask ourselves - are such freedoms too much freedom? Can we trust americans to do the right thing? Loads of questions, and only one answer. More coffee! Brb all :)
Please don't equate home schooling with isolation.
Wait now, I resemble that remark
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