SOS: Save Our Schools

Two stories about what’s going on in our schools these day might make your heads explode. First up, indoctrination into the Muslim religion in Tennessee:

Middle school parents in Tennessee are up in arms upon learning that their children were being forced to recite and write the Islamic Shahada conversion creed: “Allah is the only god and Muhammad is his prophet,” as part of an alleged ‘world history’ project.

Other schools have taken children on field trips to mosques, where they acted out bowing towards Mecca to pray and, in some instances, females had to veil themselves.

While the field trips were allegedly voluntary, the indoctrination that happened in Tennessee was not.

The students had to recite and memorize the Shahada as well as all five of the “Pillars of Islam” and were tested on them later.  Parents pointed out that similar teachings were not included for other religions, especially Christianity, although the school tried to explain that they were merely teaching about Islam in the context of world history and that Christianity would be addressed later in the course.

Apparently, their discussion of Christianity is being saved for when the students cover the Middle Ages. It would behoove these parents to pay special attention to how Christianity is portrayed when the subject of the Crusades is covered.

Surely that’s why Christianity is being saved for the Middle Ages, don’t you suspect?  The Crusades is another subject about which schools are becoming increasingly “politically correct”, in other words, painting Muslims as innocent victims of evil Christians bent on mayhem.

It would also behoove parents to observe closely exactly how the Muslim conquest of Spain is portrayed as well as how the reconquest of Spain by Christians is portrayed. Will students be taught truth or rewritten, false “history”, such as the lie that Muslims civilized Spain, instead of brutally conquering and oppressing its people?

Imagine Muslim school children being forced to memorize, recite, and be tested upon the Our Father or the Apostle’s Creed.

For that matter, imagine Jewish, Muslim, or Baptist students being forced to learn, recite, and write the Hail Mary. It won’t happen, and rightfully so. So why are Christian children in our schools being taught to pray as if they’re Muslims?

Teaching children prayers is not teaching them about a religion. Forcing children to recite the Shahada is a particularly dangerous and incendiary act, given the role of that prayer in Muslim ideology.

To publicly profess the Muslim faith by reciting the Shahada means that one becomes, forevermore, a Muslim. Maybe these teachers need to go back to school to learn the truth about Muslim ideology.

The second unbelievable story about our schools concerns a test of “critical thinking” skills in a Florida school:

The ‘Lifeboat Test’ presented students with a hypothetical scenario aboard a sinking ship, where there are 15 passengers, but the sixth graders were allowed to only choose 9 who would ‘survive.’

Among the provided choices: a white guy, a black guy, a girl doctor, a guy doctor, a rabbi, a minister, Donald Trump, President Obama and Justin Bieber.

The assignment has stirred some serious controversy in Hillsborough County, with mother Valerie Kennel calling it “racist in every form” …

Ya think so? Nah. Asking sixth graders to select for survival 9 out of 15 people, but specifically delineating sex, race, and religion? (I’m surprised there wasn’t a gay person among the choices. Or was there?)

One brave, ethical student who refused to take this test of “critical thinking skills” was punished!

One can only imagine what will go into the students’ permanent files if they dare to make the “wrong” choices.

Imagine a white child who chooses to let Hispanic and black people die, but saves all the whites. Do you think this will NOT be noted by politically correct teachers and administrators, who may flag the child for further “diversity” training (aka indoctrination in politically correct, liberal think)? No worries, however, if a child of color chooses to save all persons of color while letting the white people die.

Just imagine the conversations that will ensue as the teacher examines the children’s “critical thinking skills” by exploring forcing them to state the reasons why they chose to save whom they saved. Students were required to rank the unfortunates in order of importance, so that as food and water ran out, they would be dumped overboard accordingly.

What is the “correct” choice with regard to a pregnant woman? Do you think the discussion will not evolve into a discussion of the value of a fetus’s life versus the value of a born human being? How long before it morphs into a discussion of “right think” with regard to abortion?

It’s all well and good to have such philosophical discussions, so long as the students are college-aged (adults) and so long as political correctness and censorship doesn’t factor into it, but you know they will.

White privilege? Microagressions? Bullying and racism?

Custom made for singling out certain children, for getting into their minds and rounding them up for reeducation if they don’t choose wisely.

All lives matter. Children who thought so are being taught differently.

Another article informs us that the teacher decided this Lifeboat Test would be a good “team building exercise” for children who had trouble working together. One wonders why these particular students had trouble bonding as a group and how the teacher planned to use the results of this exercise to help them bond. Or should we say submit?

Was the teacher on a quest to find racism or some other “ism”? Was this an exercise in critical thinking and team building or was it really designed to psychoanalyze the children, without the permission of the children or their parents, in order to identify troublemakers in need of reeducation?

Read between the lines of this statement by Stephanie Baxter-Jenkins, executive director of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association:

The purpose of the exercise is to make people think about very hard topics to grapple with. So I understand it makes people feel uncomfortable but that is one of the educational points of doing it.  In a world where we want our kids to gain key critical thinking skills, this is one of the ways in which we do that. … The key piece is to ask kids what things are we valuing, why are we valuing them, it’s not always a comfortable issue.

Do we send our children to school to learn or to be made to feel uncomfortable as they are forced, in a sneaky way, to reveal their innermost, and perhaps subconscious, biases and beliefs?

What was the true goal of this anonymous teacher when  he forced children to take this “test”? Did he want to make students uncomfortable, with no concern for their psychological well-being, with whether or not they were emotionally and intellectually mature enough to deal with what they learned about themselves in the process?

What are the teacher’s own biases? What are the teacher’s choices on the Lifeboat Test? That would be most revealing, wouldn’t it? Did the teacher take the test as well?

The parent who complained most vocally is white. Presumably, her child was among those who were allegedly having trouble working as a team with others in the class. (Why do school children now have to work as teams? Why is there reduced focus upon individual effort and responsibility?)

Fact: The Black Lives Matter movement focuses specifically upon making white people “uncomfortable” and forcing them into having “uncomfortable” experiences and one-way conversations in which they listen but don’t talk, because whites no longer have free speech, nor do they apparently have the right to be in public spaces anymore.

Uncomfortable. Sound familiar? Parents in that district may need to ask teachers and administrators this question:

With regard to the Black Lives Matter movement, which side are you on? Their answers may become very important to the welfare of all the children at that school.

Here’s an example of a Lifeboat Test found online. Note the differences. The scenario is presented for discussion as an “ethical dilemma,” not for team-building or critical thinking. Note the emphasis on debriefing and how students are assigned a perspective from which to analyze the moral system being used to make their choices. In other words, it’s not the student’s own philosophy being examined but it is an exercise in understanding different moral perspectives.

Finally, note the descriptions of the potential survivors:

Woman who thinks she is six weeks pregnant

Lifeguard

Two young adults who recently married

Senior citizen who has fifteen grandchildren

Elementary school teacher

Thirteen year old twins

Veteran nurse

Captain of the ship

No race. No religion. No celebrities. No controversial presidents. No ethnicity. Sex is listed for one person, presumably because they want to introduce the factor of an unborn child. No politics.

Why did the teacher in Florida see fit to introduce race, sex, ethnicity, celebrity and partisan politics into his class in “lifeboat ethics“? Is this an age-appropriate test? What would the American Psychological Association have to say about giving this test to 11-year-olds without parental permission? Is this teacher trained in debriefing his subjects?

What really went on in that class? Why was a student punished for refusing to participate in this psychologically upsetting activity? Isn’t forcing children to take part in a psychologically upsetting “test” unethical bullying and an abuse of authority?

Let’s hope the parents keep on top of both of these issues–both of which involve indoctrination instead of education.

Kudos to the parents for getting the word out about what’s really going on in our schools.

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