What Did You Learn In School Today?

Breitbart.com posted a story today about 7th grade students in Tennessee who were required to write and recite “Allah is the only god” as part of a world history project. Can you imagine the uproar if they had been required to write “Jesus is Lord“?

The article reports:

Another mother of a seventh-grade girl, Brandee Porterfield, complained to officials at Spring Hill Middle School because of its overemphasis on Islam to the exclusion of Christianity and Judaism.

Porterfield said she has no objections to her daughter learning details of the Islamic religion, but she objects to the fact that the history unit didn’t devote similar time to Christianity or Judaism.

“It really did bother me that they skipped the whole chapter on the rise of Christianity and they spent three weeks just studying Islam,” she said.

Porterfield and other parents were also concerned with the school’s decision to have children write and recite the Islamic creed.

“But what really did bother me,” Porterfield said, “was that 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.”

“I spoke with the teacher and the principal,” she said. “They are not going to learn any other religion, doctrines or creeds and they are not going back over this chapter. Even though they discuss Christianity a little bit during the Middle Ages, they are not ever going to have this basis for Judaism or Christianity later.”

The article includes the explanation of the Maury County Director of Schools:

Maury County Director of Schools, Chris Marczak, defended the curriculum in a statement, saying that the school system is in no way endorsing Islam over other religions or trying to “indoctrinate” students.

“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,” Marczak said.

I hope Mr. Marcazk is an elected official that can be voted out of office. I have no problem with the students studying Islam, but reciting the creed is over the top. Just for the record, there are actually Six Pillars of Islam. The sixth is jihad. Somehow I suspect that was not mentioned.