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Watch: Parents Outraged After Discovering 5 Words Their 7th-Graders Had To Write
Parents in Maury County, Tennessee, are objecting to teachers requiring middle school students to write and remember tenets of Islam as part of a social studies assignment.
Brandee Porterfield, whose seventh-grade daughter participated in a controversial class assignment at Spring Hill Middle School, said in an interview on Fox and Friends that the assignment went too far. She said it is one thing to learn about a world religion, but quite another to endorse it.
“They did this assignment where they wrote out the Five Pillars of Islam, including having the children learn and write the Shahada, which is the Islamic conversion creed,” Porterfield said.
The conversion creed states that “Allah is the only God. Muhammad is his prophet.”
The middle-school mother also said there should be other time devoted to Christianity if the school is spending class time on Islam. Porterfield said school administration officials specified there wouldn’t be any class time devoted to Christianity or Judaism, but there would be lessons on Buddhism and Hinduism. However, students will not have to memorize a creed for those studies, according to Porterfield.
Maury County Director of Schools Chris Marczak said in a statement that Tennessee issues academic standards, and the system’s teachers work to make sure students meet those standards. These are newer standards developed in 2013 and implemented in the 2014-2015 school year, the director said.
“For this last section on the Islamic World this past week, our educators had students complete an assignment that had an emphasis on Islamic Faith. The assignment covered some sensitive topics that are of importance to Islamic religion and caused some confusion around whether we are asking students to believe in or simply understand the religion,” Marczak said.
Marczak said the goal is to help students function in a world of many cultures.
“It is our job as a public school system to educate our students on world history in order to be ready to compete in a global society, not to endorse one religion over another or indoctrinate,” the director said.
Marczak encouraged parents to get more involved in their children’s education. Porterfield said she is involved and is concerned.
“They don’t study any other religions to this extent. … It is the state sponsoring religion in schools. They’re not going over anything else. For the students to have to memorize this prayer, it does seem like it’s indoctrination,” Porterfield said.
The Facebook page listing details of the county school system’s curriculum has been removed. However, the curriculum can be found on the State of Tennessee education webpage.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/watch-parents-outraged-after-discovering-5-words-their-7th-graders-had-to-write/
