NYC School Children and Islamic Culture

One thing I am absolutely certain of is that the opportunity to learn to speak, read, write and converse in foreign languages would be a good thing. We have all heard that the lack of such people has a negative influence on the workings of our government, e.g. in intelligence, diplomacy, and many other areas.

Now at last several such schools have opened in America which teach the Arabic language. A good thing, right? Maybe not for at least some of these schools are not secular. While some of them are charter schools they may get away with flouting separation of church and state, but there's no flouting the requirement that all elementary, middle and high schools must teach the mandated curricula for each grade.

By now many people have learned about the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy and its planned opening in New York City in September of this year.
This school has caused considerable controversy even before opening. One justified (in my opinion) complaint is that the school, named for a Lebanese-American Christian will not be teaching his values.
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil_Gibran

Many have called this school a "madrassa" - but even Wikipedia seems uncertain as to what a madrassa actually is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrassa

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14422

the school's founder stepped down last week after she initially refused to renounce the sale of t-shirts marketed by an organization she was associated with that read "Intifada, NYC." Her attempt to explain the meaning of "infitada" misleadingly angered many and led to her resignation. But criticism of her and the school might have begun earlier if people were aware that it was planned to provide bilingual education. I have given my opinion on bilingual education in posts on 1/22 and 2/27. I thought its weakness and failures so evidents in schools across America had already doomed this expensive and largely ineffective concept. And yet here it is again, raising its uncharming head with claim it will help Arab-American youth to assimilate.

Earlier generations of immigrants went to English-speaking public schools and assimilated. So why does Arabic have to be taught in a school the planning of which was heavily influenced by religious people, imams and rabbis? Why did the former principle wear hijab on the job?

It seems clear that in studying Islamic history culture it will be taught wholly from a partisan point of view. The phrase "brain washing" comes to mind. I don't think we want our children being taught about jihadist ideas by people who think "infitada" is wholly good.

While researching this post I tried to find clear cut answers to my questions, but time and time again got bogged down in contradictory opinions. One interesting thing I came across was that one of the members of the KGIa, Imam Shamsi Ali, was connected to jihadist organizations. This seemed a good place to start but I could find no evidence that this is true, and very little about the man himself, except his insistance that the school will have a wholly secular curriculum. However I found an article on him on this web site:
http://www.islamicthinkers.com/index/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=565&Itemid=74
This seems like a very conservative or even fundamental site dedicated to following the Koran and being "true Muslims" in a "non-violent" way. And they despise Shamsi Ali. The spiteful, highly critical article on the Iman , calling him an "Uncle Sam Muslim" who "wants to lead Muslims toward the American dream" while true Muslims only want Islam.

A fine commendation indeed for Shamsi Ali who may actually be the right person to be on KGIA board after all.

I hope you will read at least a few of the following articles and blogs both for and against this type of school. We need to understand why even the Mayor of NY is so insistent a supporter of it. This is a hugely important issue for America, not just NYC.



http://gothamist.com/2007/08/14/khalil_gibran_a.php

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/khalil_gibran_international_academy/

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4836

http://educationalissues.suite101.com/blog.cfm/arabic_school_tension
Ignores pipes’ concern about teaching Islamic propaganda on grounds Arabic speakers need to be trained, as if they can't be trained in foreign language academies.

http://www.muslimparliament.org.uk/novice.htm

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3769

Community wants answers on KGIA
Those for the school say that all the opposition is proof of need for school which will promote tolerance and understanding. But there is a need to examine which “Arab-American” groups are promoting the school and what their aims and their Islamist views are in their own words.


http://educationalissues.suite101.com/blog.cfm/arabic_school_tension
Middle East Scholar Daniel Pipes, a controversial scholar on the Middle East, wrote, "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage." [Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com, June 1, 2007]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/nyregion/16koran.html?ex=1313380800&en=bfd66b91de7a7870&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=r

Explains how a koran madrassa in NYC flouts law by not teaching regular school subject, just memorization


http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=kgiahamas71807.htm
Brooklyn's young Muslims have been radicalized over the past 20 years, their ideas display hatred and Anti-American opinions, such as 9/11 not being a Muslim plot


http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/758
Re other Islamic schools in USA and backers with jihadist connections

Does Bilingual Education Have Any Value for American Schools?

One of the most important issues in American educational policy is bilingual education. Once the stronghold of mostly well-meaning educators and administrators who fought to maintain the huge and expensive bureaucracy they had created, butut for years it has been under scrutiny by educators and concerned parents and is being replaced or cut back in many areas. A saner educational policy must replace it everywhere.

Bilingual education denies that children learn a second language most naturally and effectively if they begin at an early age, even though there is overwhelming proof in linguistic and cognitive research. Just one quote from neurophysiologist William H. Calvin in How Brains Think (1996) makes the point: "Asian immigrants who learn English as adults succeed with vocabulary and basic-word-order sentences but have greater difficulty with other [language] tasks than those who arrived as children easily master."
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/pop_billing.html
(also discusses what’s good about bilingual ed.)

As former Representative Herman Badillo, America's first Hispanic Member of Congress, remarked last year, "To keep children in classes where their own native language is used in the hope that they will somehow make the transition to English after five or six years is unacceptable to us."

Some Hispanics consider Mr. Badillo a traitor for his criticism of them but if they can avoid taking the criticism personally, and read various sides of this controversy they will recognize that he is a man of courage who ought not be repudiated by the people he still serves by writing his book, "One Nation, One Standard." If you hate what he says, please continue to read negative criticism of him and his book, but also read the links below critically and decide for yourselves whether he disrespects Hispanic Culture in its entirety. Decide for yourselves whether teaching children whose first language is Spanish (or any other language) is a way of disparaging their culture or their intellect.

Perhaps you will decide that enforced and prolonged bilingual education is a disservice to all children of immigrants. Whatever you decide, please comment and voice your opinions.

Paper on failure of bilingual education education in CA and other states:
http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1028.shtml

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-boulet082101.shtml

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01212007/postopinion/postopbooks/one_america_postopbooks_john_fonte.htm

http://www.theamericanvoice.com/

http://vivirlatino.com/2006/12/19/herman-badillo-dises-his-own-kind.php

Out of the Fire, Into the Pot

Have you ever wished that something in American history hadn't turned out the way it did? I wish that someone had told Abraham Lincoln that escorting his wife to the theater to see the play, "Our American Cousin" was a bad idea.

What happened to make me want to change history is that something common in the U.S. more than half a century ago disappeared, e.g. the concept of the Melting Pot, and was replaced by Cultural Diversity. In case you youngsters are not familiar with the term 'melting pot' I'd love to describe it and what it meant in my life. In elementary school textbooks, perhaps on history or civics, could be found a drawing of a huge cauldron, much like my childhood vision of a cannibal pot or witches' cauldron. In the pot was a person in the national dress of another country. On the right side, awaiting their turn to enter the pot, was a line of people, each dressed in a different national costume, and the line led to the pot. On the left of the pot, was a line of people, newly emerged from the pot, walking away from the, each wearing contemporary American clothing. The Melting Pot was what the assimilation proces was called, and the picture was how assimilation of immigrants to the American way of Life was illustrated for elementary school children.

My reaction was not that of many people today. I loved that pot because it meant that newcomers to this country could actually become Americans, look American, and at least learn to speak English even if accented. It also meant that you could speak your native language at home, teach it to your children, and sometimes read newspapers in it, enjoy your marvellous native cuisine. music, dancing, literature, and march proudly in parades celebrating your heritage.

But then progress happened. Political Correctness happened. We began to "celebrate" diversity and multiculturalism. While some people still exercised their right to assimilate, others disdained it. Taking up residence in the United States was scarcely a matter of pride to this latter group, unless it was pride that they now could comfortably support their families. Some immigrants forbade their children to speak English at home, insisted that they marry someone the parents chose, and not socialize with friends of their own choice.

Along the way some immigrants got the idea that "ethnic customs," as well as being superior to "American" customs, were also above the law. Many of these people were unaware that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and on learning that they broke the law, still insisted that their "culture" take precedence over the law.

Such was the case of the Pakistani immigrants who arranged a marriage between their underage daughter and a much older man, which in fact then took place. Although the parents were charged by police for facilitating the marriage of a minor, the courts took note that the married couple by then had several children, the daughter wished to stay where she was, and so the law wisely left this family alone.

But because there are many ways to assimilate, at least enough so that you know that the law, not your native culture, takes precedence, let's talk only about the English language. At one time bilingual education was thought of as an education in immigrants' own language. But like many innovations thought to be solutions (think of the automobile), it soon presented new problems. One mistake in New York City at one time was to ask Hispanic parents of children in such classes whether they would agree to their kids being mainstreamed in all-English classes. A reporter writing a newspaper article on bilingual education asked such a youngster, who had been learning English for several years, why his mother refused to let him drop Spanish language classes. He replied, in English, that his mother did not want him to "lose" his native language.

That is an incredible situation. Shouldn't educators be the ones to determine if the child is ready to be mainstreamed? Shouldn't parents arrange for after school language classes for their kids and pay for it themselves, and not the taxpayers?

My grandparents came here with their family in the early twentieth century. They worked hard, supported their family, but never learned to speak English fluently. Only one of their children was born in the U.S.A., and the others started school not knowing any English, one was as old as twelve years. There was no bilingual education and my aunts and uncle spoke English at home only among themselves, yet they all learned English quickly and grew up speaking unaccented English. I apologize for any offense caused by mentioning accents, as it is the English fluency that concerns me, not the accents.

But speaking of accents, what about the situation a few years ago at a N.Y.C. community college when the faculty and student body took to the streets to protest a ruling that students were required to be tested for their English skills in order to graduate. One faculty member, speaking in front of television cameras, angrily insisted that "'They' think we are stupid because we speak with an accent!" Nice try, making an accusation of an insult which never existed, possibly to avoid admitting that too many students did not have an adequate spoken and written English.

In fact, elementary educators have been discovering the flaws in bilingual education.

But perhaps complaining about the mistakes in bilingual education is like beating a dead horse. Its creators had good intentions, perhaps, and let's not forget the place reserved for such people, but it seems to be on the way out. At least on such a large scale as we've seen in the past. Some educators have been shocked to notice that children who arrived in this country without knowing a word of English, had been placed in a bilingual system which was supposed to be their educational environment for at least three years. Then the "educators" noticed that the kids were happily chattering away in English before the first year was up! Who knew that children could learn a language so fast?

Hellooo. Several generations have arrived on these shores with no knowledge of English, entered public schools and received NO Assistance in learning English. Then they grew up and their speech was exactly like their American-born peers. Was this a secret or just part of some kind of cruel plot to make education more expensive and benefit the bureaucracy which invented it?

Please see the links below for more on this subject. I hope to continue commenting on it and other related issues within the next few days.

htm http://www.edsource.org/pub_bi_edu.cfm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/NYT18.htm



1/22/2007