you know, sometimes I just don't get it...
OK, I live near Friendswood, TX (often voted one of the best places to live in the US by those funky magazine lists) and this article just boggles my mind.
Here's the headline and subhead:
Principal has new job after 'Islam 101' controversy
Parents outraged over assembly allowed by Friendswood Junior High leader
Some of the comments are just infuriating, but especially this quote from David Bradley:
David Bradley, a member of the State Board of Education whose district includes Friendswood, said parents have been contacting him to express outrage about the presentation. He said an assembly about Islam was a waste of tax dollars and was not an appropriate response to an attack on a student.
"There's a personal incident between two students and as a result of that we're going to yank everyone out of class?" he said. "I got beat up in junior high. Did my dad go down and force all the kids to sit through sensitivity training in their P.E. class? No, that's absurd. The coach gave us licks and sent us home. That was the end of those incidents."
I have commented in jest before about living in Texas sometimes feels like living among cavemen (The GEICO folks will have my head!), cf. especially our State Constitutional Amendment of Ridiculousness defining marriage as heterosexual. This feels like more of the same - hard-headed, willful blindness about the cultural realities of our city and our society as a whole.
The description of Friendswood as a "faith-based community" that does not want any stinkin' multi-cultural presentations also stuck in my craw. Excuse me, Friendswood, but is this not a public school? What kind of community sets this sort of example to its children, that understanding one another is somehow wrong? I don't want to be a part of that "faith".
At least the Chronicle has managed not to be totally one-sided about it, but the situation itself makes me, as an Interfaith Minister, wonder what it's all for.
Here's the closing of the article. Have some hope after the bitter draught.
Hussein said his organization has done a similiar presentation in the Clear Creek school district and he plans to ask other districts for an opportunity to present because Muslim students often get teased and called "terrorists" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We have to be good to each other and understand each other better," he said. "That's why we offer this program."
Here's the headline and subhead:
Principal has new job after 'Islam 101' controversy
Parents outraged over assembly allowed by Friendswood Junior High leader
Some of the comments are just infuriating, but especially this quote from David Bradley:
David Bradley, a member of the State Board of Education whose district includes Friendswood, said parents have been contacting him to express outrage about the presentation. He said an assembly about Islam was a waste of tax dollars and was not an appropriate response to an attack on a student.
"There's a personal incident between two students and as a result of that we're going to yank everyone out of class?" he said. "I got beat up in junior high. Did my dad go down and force all the kids to sit through sensitivity training in their P.E. class? No, that's absurd. The coach gave us licks and sent us home. That was the end of those incidents."
I have commented in jest before about living in Texas sometimes feels like living among cavemen (The GEICO folks will have my head!), cf. especially our State Constitutional Amendment of Ridiculousness defining marriage as heterosexual. This feels like more of the same - hard-headed, willful blindness about the cultural realities of our city and our society as a whole.
The description of Friendswood as a "faith-based community" that does not want any stinkin' multi-cultural presentations also stuck in my craw. Excuse me, Friendswood, but is this not a public school? What kind of community sets this sort of example to its children, that understanding one another is somehow wrong? I don't want to be a part of that "faith".
At least the Chronicle has managed not to be totally one-sided about it, but the situation itself makes me, as an Interfaith Minister, wonder what it's all for.
Here's the closing of the article. Have some hope after the bitter draught.
Hussein said his organization has done a similiar presentation in the Clear Creek school district and he plans to ask other districts for an opportunity to present because Muslim students often get teased and called "terrorists" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We have to be good to each other and understand each other better," he said. "That's why we offer this program."