Indoctrinating our children

[Soldier4Christ]

This past Wednesday marked the sad anniversary for Mark Crowley and his family as they remembered the death of their son, Kyle, and 11 other Americans in Iraq. Mark Crowley has a story he wants to tell the American people about how his son didn't die in vain. Kyle was an American hero fighting for our freedom and ensuring that terrorism will be fought and defeated in the Middle East so it won't be on our shores again.

On Tuesday was another sad anniversary for anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, as that was the day when her son Casey was murdered in the slums of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq. Despite the fact that Casey fervently believed in the rightness of his military service in Iraq, his mother has used his death as a stepping-stone to become the face of the anti-war movement.

When Lowell High School, one of the best public high schools in America, has its student Assembly on Friday, only Cindy Sheehan will be heard. Mark Crowley will be standing outside, banned from coming on campus, and prevented from letting students hear his very different point of view from Cindy Sheehan.

Any semblance of providing our children with facts, information and the conflicting opinions in our society has been discarded in favor of a leftist jihad on our campuses that tolerate only one point of view. If you do not belong and subscribe to the "Blame America First" crowd, you are not invited to our high schools, colleges and universities.

The left does not see education as you and I do, where young people develop critical thinking skills and learn how to make their own decisions. They see it as a training ground – like al-Qaida sees their training grounds – a place to indoctrinate young people into their own perverted view of the world.

Have you ever wondered what happened to those 1960's longhaired, unkempt hippies who were more interested in demonstrating, free drugs and free sex? Unfortunately, I think we have found them – well ensconced in America's school systems.

That is in no way to discredit the many fine and dedicated teachers and educators who have chosen this magnificent occupation. It describes a ruthless cult of America-haters who want to use our education system against the very system that has provided them the freedom and liberty to strike at all of us.

It's been well documented that America's college campuses have been recruiting grounds for the Left for the past few decades. Professors who are supposed to teach math, science or music have no qualms about instead using their pulpit to spew liberal propaganda and invective upon America's best and brightest.

A few months ago, I wrote about the efforts at the University of California Los Angeles to both silence and shut down a student watchdog group that documented the unrelenting pattern of liberal bias among UCLA's faculty.

In Southern California, elementary and high-school students have been encouraged to serve as street activists to fight for the cause of illegal immigration and anarchy.

Parents at Lowell High School in San Francisco learned this week that Cindy Sheehan had been invited to their children's school to speak to the students about the evils of America's efforts to combat terrorism and to use her to rally students to oppose the fight against terrorism.

Some of those parents contacted my radio program and asked if I could do something to help them. They didn't send their children to school so that they could be subjected to political overtures by the school district and its left-wing heroes.

I offered the school district the assistance of the grassroots pro-troop group, Move America Forward, to provide another Gold Star mother or father (parent who lost their son/daughter in the war on terrorism) who could also address the student body. Thus, students could hear from people with similar experiences, but differing opinions.

The administration at Lowell High School and their superiors at the San Francisco Unified School District have declined to let the students hear a different side.

The Board of Education in San Francisco – which should have its hands full with a lot of failing students and dilapidated schools (in contrast to Lowell, which is a rare bright spot) – is more interested in stopping our war against terrorism. They just recently took a position unanimously against the Iraq War.

Hmmm. As a parent of a school-aged youngster, I am pretty sure that most of the other parents would like the school board to focus on giving our children a better education. I could care less about their opinion on the Iraq War or their recipe for making a tofu sandwich.

The San Francisco Board of Education Commissioner is Daniel Kelley, who has his own history of being an anti-war activist. This would be a good time for you to let him know by e-mail (dpks@pacbell.net) that you don't appreciate his bringing his left-wing ideas into our classrooms.

Schools should be for learning, not indoctrinating.

[Soldier4Christ]

'Islamic indoctrination' taken to Supreme Court
Asked to review case of class that had students 'become Muslims'

A public-interest legal group is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals allowing a California public school to engage in a three-week intensive course for 7th graders on how to "become Muslims."

A California federal trial court and the 9th Circuit, widely considered the nation's most liberal appeals court, determined the class did not violate the Constitution.

As WND reported, the lawsuit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center against the Byron Union School District and various school officials to stop the "Islam simulation" materials and methods used in the Excelsior School in Byron, Calif.

The 2001 course had students take Islamic names and wear identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the Muslim star and crescent moon. They also were handed materials that instructed them to "Remember Allah always so that you may prosper"; complete the Islamic five pillars of faith, including fasting; and memorize and recite the "Bismillah," or "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.

Students also played "jihad games" during the course, which was part of the school's world history and geography program.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said the "case cries out double standard."

"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the same court that held our Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it contained the phrase 'under God,' and yet they allow a three-week intensive course on how to become Muslims, including class memorization of Islamic prayers and participation in Islamic religious rituals," Thompson said.

Edward L. White III, the Law Center's trial counsel handling the case, argued that although a public school may teach about religion, the school district "went far beyond an explanation of the historical or literary significance of Islam and placed these seventh graders into the position of becoming trainees in that religion."

"These young children were indoctrinated in Islam, which the Constitution forbids," White said.

The Supreme Court will decide within the next few months whether to review the case.

The Law Center argues the panel did not address the plaintiff's claims that their free exercise and parental rights had been violated.

White says parents were never told about the Islamic program and didn't know they had the option to remove their children from such an activity.

One of the parents found out by accident, looking through her son's schoolbag after the program had finished.

In December 2003, the San Francisco court determined the school district had not violated the Constitution.

In her 22-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton determined Excelsior was not indoctrinating students about Islam when it required them to adopt Muslim names and pray to Allah, but rather was just teaching them about the Muslim religion.

But White insists a line was crossed, placing the students in the "position of being trainees in Islam, which is impermissible in a public school."

When WorldNetDaily first reported the story in January 2002 – shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks committed by 19 Islamist terrorists – major controversy ensued nationwide.

The course was part of a curriculum taught to seventh-graders all over the state, included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. Although the standards outline what subjects should be taught and included in state assessment tests, they didn't mandate how they're to be taught.

At the end of the three-week course, Excelsior teacher Brooke Carlin presented a final test requiring students to critique Muslim culture.

The Islam simulations at Excelsior are outlined in the state-adopted textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage.

The lawsuit also alleges students were encouraged to use such phrases in their speech as "Allahu Akbar," which is Arabic for "God is greatest," and were required to fast during lunch period to simulate fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Nevertheless, Judge Hamilton ruled the program was devoid of "any devotional or religious intent" and was, therefore, educational, not religious in nature.

[Pizza_Mahal]

By Joel Turtel

November 18, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

One reason public schools get away with educational failure, year after year, is because they are run by left-leaning politicians and school officials who passionately believe that government should control your children's mind, values, and future. As the great English writer C. S. Lewis wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Public-school socialist true-believers often fall into this category --- for over a 150 years, education "progressive" so-called experts have been tormenting our children with public schools, allegedly for our children's benefit. Like all fascist, socialist, or communist true-believers, these people absolutely believe that they know what is best for your children, and seek to ram their beliefs down parents' throats.

From the 1840s to the 1930s, public-school "progressive" activists like Horace Mann and John Dewey worked to create a public-school system like the one they admired in Prussia (Germany). Mann and Dewey considered public education a religion, with a holy mission to mold children and society. Simply teaching children to read, write, and do math was too commonplace a goal for them. Mann and Dewey wanted the schools to have total control over children's lives. This meant removing parents' influence over their children. Mann put it this way: "We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."

Dewey had a socialist utopian vision for America and he wanted the common schools to achieve his vision. To create a government-dominated socialist America, public schools had to mold generations of children into the habit of obedience. In his "Pedagogic Creed" of 1897, Dewey wrote, "Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. . ."

By the early twentieth century, public schools had expanded their functions into areas undreamed of in the 1850s. Schools took on the role of social agencies, with nurses, social centers, playgrounds, school showers, kindergartens, and "Americanization" programs for immigrants. Public schools became a major agency for social control.

Unfortunately, today's public schools are fulfilling Mann's and Dewey's "government- knows-best" vision with a vengeance. There is hardly any area of children's lives that school authorities now don't push to control. Politicians and public-school apologists in many states are now pushing programs that would make kindergarten compulsory. Yes, they now want to literally take 3 and 4-year old children from their mother's arms and stick them in public-school nursery-classrooms.

Public schools also now spend billions of dollars for psychological counseling, school-lunch programs, mandatory drug-testing, parent welfare-outreach programs, special-education classes, bilingual classes, early-childhood programs, drug and sex education classes, as well as programs for millions of "at-risk" or "special-needs" children.

This government-knows-best philosophy is the deepest reason why public schools get away with educational murder and can never be fixed. Public-school apologists believe that government bureaucrats and school authorities should dictate your children's education and the values they are taught. By implication, they believe that parents are an annoyance at best. More often, they believe that parents are a danger to their children's "proper" education and the values children "ought" to be taught by government employees.

To turn your children into dumbed-down, obedient little citizens and multiculturalist "citizens of the world," public-school authorities have to keep an iron grip on your children's minds and values. That is why public-school true believers will never voluntarily give up control over our children. They see themselves as noble idealists who know what is "best" for your children. That is why these socialist-fascist-minded "idealists" have contempt for your parental rights.

In the recent Congressional elections, the police-state chickens are coming home to roost. The majority of 18 to 25 year-olds, graduates of our socialist-indoctrinating public schools, voted for Democrats. These are the children who spent 12 years in public schools that systematically insult traditional American ideals and values. These are the schools that preach the multicultural trash that all cultures' values are "equal," and that American values of individual rights, economic liberty, and limited government are "selfish" or arrogant.


Well, our public-school "graduates" are now voters, and their socialist-indoctrinated mind-set now attracts them to Democrats like moths to a flame. God help this country, because public schools turn out millions of these child-adults who haven't the faintest conception about the values this country was founded on, or have little respect or contempt for those values.


Parents, for your children's sake, walk away from the public schools. Also, don't depend on vouchers or charter schools, which are few and far between. Take control of your children's education and the values you teach them by homeschooling your kids or enrolling them in a low-cost Internet private school of your choice. Your children's future is at stake, and so is, by the way, the future of our Republic and our liberties.


Link:http://www.newswithviews.com/Turtel/joel28.htm

[Soldier4Christ]

U.S. kids taught Islamic 'jihad' means doing good works

An Islamic "jihad" is an effort by Muslims to convince "others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research," according to a textbook that is being used for junior high age students in California and other states.

And even at its most violent, "jihad" simply is Muslims fighting "to protect themselves from those who would do them harm," says the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" book published by Teachers' Curriculum Institute.

But a parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district is accusing the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.

"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.

"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."

She said the book's one page referencing Jews "is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to 'Christianity.' (It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab Muslims). It gives four other one-liner references to the Jews being blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. It does not talk about the Jews as making a significant impact on the culture at large."

"How can the writers of this text get away with this?" she asked.

Bert Bower, founder of TCI, said not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California also reviewed it, and has approved it for use in public schools.

He said the company tries to move history out from between the covers of a textbook and into students' minds, and that is how the book was developed.

"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California (reviewed it)," he said. "We have our own scholars who created the program, California scholars look at the program and makes sure [it] is accurate."

One of those experts who contributed to the text, according to the American Textbook Council, which released a scathing indictment of the project, is Ayad Al-Qazzaz.

"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools."

The textbook council, an independent national research group set up in 1989 to review history and social studies texts in public schools, quoted directly from the book to provide evidence of its bias.

    The word jihad means "to strive." Jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that would be pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to become better people, reform society, or correct injustice.

    Jihad has always been an important Islamic concept. One hadith, or account of Muhammad, tells about the prophet's return from a battle. He declared that he and his men had carried out the "lesser jihad," the external struggle against oppression. The "greater jihad," he said, was the fight against evil within oneself. Examples of the greater jihad include working hard for a goal, giving up a bad habit, getting an education, or obeying your parents when you may not want to.

    Another hadith says that Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue, and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil. The tongue may convince others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research. Hands may perform good works and correct wrongs.

    Sometimes, however, jihad becomes a physical struggle. The Quran tells Muslims to fight to protect themselves from those who would do them harm or to right a terrible wrong. Early Muslims considered their efforts to protect their territory and extend their rule over other regions to be a form of jihad. However, the Quran forbade Muslims to force others to convert to Islam. So, non-Muslims who came under Muslim rule were allowed to practice their faiths."

The council, in describing the text as a book written by "dictation from Islamic sources," said such passages "should put speculation to rest about what California's seventh-grade students may learn about Islam. At the very least, the passages are incomplete. More precisely, they are dishonest."

Such passages fail to explain "the essentially religious nature of the subject," the council said. "It ignores any challenge to international security and western-style law. The treatment is lyrical and loaded, echoing the language recommended by Islamist consultants."

The Sacramento parent said she became suspicious because of the school's decision to send a copy of the book home with her son and he started describing how it would teach students to write in Arabic.

A review left her even more worried. "I was disturbed probably the greatest portion of this book is about Islam. It goes into the doctrine of Islam in detail," she said. "There are 35 chapters. Out of those, I counted at least seven [that focus] on Islam."

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

She said she looked at the publication's list of contributors, and found the name of Ayad Al-Qazzaz, whom she'd had herself for a class on Middle Eastern studies.

"That was a big flag for me," she said.

WND previously has reported on the influence of Islamic "consultants" on public school texts in the United States, as well as how other schools have included the "Five Pillars of Islam" among their required courses.

The parent said she just wanted people to know of the agenda being taught.

"After seeing Al-Qazzaz as one of the main contributors I began to put two and two together … about the extra book coming home only in this class and I questioned where this book's money source came from – I still do not know," she said.

"I am very troubled that in the name of tolerance and educating American children about the Muslim empire in history they get away with giving beginning Islamic teaching which may cause many to perhaps one day become Muslims," she said. "My son tells me that the students will even be using calligraphy to copy parts of the Quran in Arabic as an enrichment activity."

The ATC's second excerpt from the book dealt with the definition of sharia law.

"For example, the Quran tells women to 'not display their beauty.' For this reason, Muslim women usually wear different forms of modest dress. Most women cover their arms and legs. Many also wear scarves over the hair," the book said.

Bower said Christianity is addressed in chapters 3, 6, 31 and 32 of the book, including descriptions of the Crusades, while the company's website shows an entire unit called, "The Rise of Islam," including chapters on the Arabian peninsula, "The Prophet Muhammad," "The Teachings of Islam," "Contributions of Muslims to World Civilizations," and "From the Crusades to the Rise of New Muslim Empires."

The recommendations included that "students learn about the beliefs and practices of Islam" and "learn about the life of Muhammad and the rise and expansion of Muslim rule."

Bower said the textbook is the answer to the demands in today's society for a "multicultural" education, and he said whenever some historical subjects are taught, there's always controversy. He cited the internment of Japanese people in the United States during World War II as an example.

His company's book, he said, "really gives students multiple perspectives."

But he also said he wasn't aware of any agenda held by any contributors to the book, including Al-Qazzaz. "I'll have to look into that," he said.

He said about one-third of California's districts use the book, and so do thousands of other districts across the country.

If a parent objects to the agenda in the book, he said, "it's up to them to make a decision, do they want to have the kids opt out of this part. It's their local decision to do so. But in this age isn't it important for us, for our students to know as much about as many different religions as possible?"

Others may agree that students need to know about the world in which they live, but the TCI book is not the right one to teach them.

According to a report from William J. Bennetta at the Textbook League, officials in Scottsdale, Ariz., tested the book, and ultimately rejected it after parents rallied to complain.

"Students who took a 7th-grade social students course … were subject to gross, prolonged indoctrination in Islam," he wrote.

"Much of the indoctrination was delivered in a corrupt school book titled 'History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond,' produced by [TCI]," he said. "The writers of [the book], by relentlessly presenting Muslim religious tales and religious beliefs as matters of historical fact, have striven hard to induce students to embrace Islam."

He wrote that the indoctrination is "concentrated in chapters 8 and 9. This material consists overwhelmingly of Islamic religious propaganda. It includes blatant preaching as well as deceptive claims and extensive fraudulent narratives dealing with the beginnings of Islam, the life of Muhammad, and the inception of the Quran. These claims and narratives are disguised as accounts of history. They actually are restatements of Muslim fables and superstitions."

Bennetta also noted that the book exhibits contempt for Judaism and Christianity. "For example, In a passage in chapter 9, the TCI writers convey the lesson that a religious view held by Muslims is important, but views held by Jews and Christians are unworthy of consideration."

Even the level of scholarly work is deficient, he continued. "They teach, in chapter 9, that if someone encounters some antiquated hearsay and jots it down, the hearsay becomes 'written evidence' of historical happenings."

In an Internet posting about the Scottsdale use of the text, Janie White, a parent in the district, reported the book included "fake history" along with "Islamic religious proselytizing and indoctrination techniques."

Officials with the Sacramento school district declined to respond to WND requests for comment about the book and its use.

Al-Qazzaz, who teaches at Cal State-Sacramento, has explained in other Internet postings "greater jihad" is to become better Muslims and "lesser jihad" is to fight against Islam's enemies.

[nChrist]

I'll just say that I'm sickened and disgusted. The bottom lines are very simple:

1 - The devil is trying to isolate our children in a controlled environment and brainwash them for his evil purposes.

2 - We already know that the real teaching of the Quran will be hidden. Instead, a sanitized and twisted version that sounds better on the surface will be taught. The amazing thing is that the real Quran is easily available for any parent to read, and the violence and killing is just the beginning of the actual REALITY of what the Quran contains and teaches. Nobody can deny this because it's there in print in every copy of the Quran. Further, it's very plain and can't be misrepresented. So, if Islam uses the Quran as their holy book, their holy book teaches violence, killing, empire building, and a variety of barbaric concepts. Whoever reads the Quran even once MUST be aware of these FACTS! There is NO QUESTION about what the FACTS of the Quran are! The only question is:  "How do these facts effect and manipulate those practicing this FALSE RELIGION?" In fact, what is being done by practicing Islamists around the world already? Can you guess, or do we need to go back to the Quran for the answers? How about:

VIOLENCE

KILLING

EMPIRE BUILDING

AND A VARIETY OF BARBARIC ACTS

These are the facts and nothing but the FACTS! Anyone can spend minutes with the Quran and find out for themselves that these are the absolute FACTS! I'm not misrepresenting a single thing, and it makes me very sad that such a mixture of VILE things has been concocted into something called a religion. I don't hate them at all, rather I'm sad that they have been snared by the devil and are LOST! It is very cruel to associate this evil with GOD, love, and peace. It is the OPPOSITE and being politically correct about this evil is extremely UNKIND!

DON'T BE DECEIVED!

I'VE TOLD THE TRUTH!

NOBODY CAN DENY IT!