Unlike ordinary families in Minnesota, Muslim families are allowed to reject LGBT curriculum in schools

Here's another example of how, in far-left states like Minnesota, Muslim families are allowed to opt out of lessons about LGBT ideology, in contrast to non-Muslims:

A Minneapolis area school district says it will let families opt out of LGBT curriculum materials after several Muslim families threatened to sue.

[...] Somali Muslim families had threatened to sue the district, alleging that not allowing families to opt out potentially violates the Constitution and state law.

On November 2, the families’ attorneys sent the district a letter explaining Islamic teachings around gender and sexuality and outlining the timeline of parents’ complaints about the LGBT books.

Some of the families’ elementary school children had been exposed to LGBT characters in picture books, which caused “significant confusion and distress,” the families’ letter said.

All concerned about LGBT ideology indoctrination would do well to consider that this is really only a win for Islamists, not for Judeo-Christians, who can find it much harder to oppose this horrific stuff. Both Islam and LGBT ideologies are hurtful to women, and that surely has something to do with how this was all approached by the left. And no doubt, after the October 7, 2023 Hamas bloodbath in Israel, a lot of the pro-LGBT ideologues who may have wanted Islamists to accept their trash have now changed course completely, since the Religion of Peace truly is a favored ideology of theirs too in the long run.

DEADLY DUMBING DOWN

The result of abandoning the proper teaching of geography?

With a hat tip to Barnhardt:

“He said he was from Liberia, not Africa…”

From this thread over at Lucianne.com. Emphases mine.

Reply 29 – Posted by: gone2pot, 10/3/2014 5:50:33 PM (No. 10030644)
It´s us. We are the reason for the panic. We vote for it, educate our kids with it, watch it on TV, “like” and “follow” it, and listen to its music. Here´s anecdotal evidence; my wife´s hospital is caddy corner to Dallas Presby, home of the ebola incident. The docs at her hospital left Presby to start a new, less screwed up system. So, they know Presby and keep in contact with former colleagues. Well, according to the old Presby docs, the thirty-something Dallas Presby nurse´s answer to the CDC was, “He said he was from Liberia, not Africa.” So, next time you want to believe the tin foil hat conspiracy theory answer, remember instead that we ARE that stupid and our stupidity is why we create the cases for panic.

Is the above anecdote true? I don't know, but it could be.  And I don't mean only with regard to the aforementioned nurse!  It's not out of the question that a doctor wouldn't know that Liberia is in Africa.

I myself so often see the dumbing-down — and not only among the middle-school and high-school students I teach: here we are in the Information Age with many people lacking enough sense or intellectual curiosity to look up something when the information is at their fingertips via Google search; at the same time, these same people are keen to update their Facebook status or check their email at every possible opportunity.

Now, about that triage nurse in the emergency department....

I do not blame her for not recognizing that Mr. Duncan had Ebola Virus on his first visit to the hospital.  His temperature wasn't high enough according to the protocol then in effect, and he lied to her and said that he had not been around anyone who was sick.  Let us keep in mind that Mr. Duncan lied on those forms in Liberia, too.

MIND-BOGGLING IGNORANCE

According to this source:

The Answers College Students Gave When Asked About The Holocaust Are Truly Depressing

Rhonda Fink-Whitman visited several college campuses to conduct her interviews and found that even some students at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania were completely clueless as to the world-changing events that took place just over sixty years ago.

Some students didn’t know where Normandy was, why the U.S. entered the war and who the president was at the time (Wilson, Eisenhower and even JFK were among the guesses).

One student reportedly thought that African Americans were the primary target in the Holocaust.

Fink-Whitman started her interviews with “What was the Holocaust?”

Here are some of the answers she received:

“Uh, I’m on the spot now.”

“It was a, uh, I don’t know how to say it like. It was something that happened in. Oh my God, I know the answer but I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I have no idea.”

“I have no idea … is it Europe? I don’t think so.”

She also asked which country Adolf Hitler had been the leader of:

“Amsterdam?”

“I forget.”

When she got to the University of Pennsylvania, Fink-Whitman asked students how many years ago the Holocaust occurred. One female student guessed around 1800 and then 300 years ago.Another UPenn student even thought that Winston Churchill was an American leader....

Video:


The words "dumbing down" don't even begin to describe the above travesty wrought by our educational system.

9/11 In My Classroom

On September 10 in my American Government/Current Events class, I presented a very effective lesson on 9/11. I made the day “come alive” for my students and the parents who were sitting in on the class. Not a dry eye in the room by the time I was done.

I personalized the lesson with details that my students will never read in history books: the days-long chirping of those cell phones at Ground Zero, the very small body parts, the pink mist in the air, the several hours I spent as I awaited word of the fate of one of my friends in the Pentagon (He, a wonderful man with several kids and a disabled wife, was called out of the building, out of the very room that was destroyed, a few minutes before the plane struck), the children who perished in the day care center at the Pentagon, tales of recovery personnel and what they went through in those weeks following 9/11, the anthrax attacks (the devil in the mail box), the many lost freedoms and the many resulting inconveniences, how this generation will never be as free as my generation, the travesty of the Flight 93 Memorial, and more — including the whitewash of Islam and my anger at today’s dhimmitude and political correctness.

I spoke without notes.

I spoke from the heart.

The last segment of my lesson plan consisted of playing Bruce Springsteen’s “You’re Missing” on the classroom's excellent sound system:

CAMPUS CENSORSHIP

With a hat tip to Joe Conservative of Political Tea Leaves:


YouTube blurb:

For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America's colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. This video explains how higher education fails to teach its students to become critical thinkers by supercharging ideological divisions, promoting groupthink, and encouraging an unscholarly certainty about complex issues.

This poisoning of minds is not limited to college campuses. Indeed, the poisoning pervades K-12, too.

THE LORAX? REALLY?

Last week, I conversed with a parent concerned about the education that her seventh-grade daughter is receiving in one of the "finest" public schools in one of the "finest" school districts in the United States.

The account I received was beyond disconcerting.

It was dismaying!

The student, dedicated to learning and enrolled in the gifted and talented program, returned from a week's absence due to illness and inquired of the teacher as to what work needed to be completed.  The teacher chirped, "Oh, there's nothing to make up.  The class spent all last week watching The Lorax."

The film The Lorax, based on the book of the same title, is eighty-six minutes long.  Apparently, the class discussed the film in class, but no written work was assigned.

The situation did not involve a flu epidemic with too many absences for the teacher to forge ahead, nor die  the situation involve a substitute in charge of the class for the week.  Therefore, I have to wonder if spending an entire week on this film was part of county-approved program of studies.

These two bits of information (HERE and HERE) may provide clues as to why an "advanced" seventh-grade class spent an entire week on The Lorax.

America is turning into an idiocracy, and public education is one means to attaining that particular type of dystopia, defined as a society characterized by human misery — in this case, a dystopia characterized by miserable mindlessness.

Additional reading of possible interest: Marxism in Education: Infiltration of Our School Systems by the Common Core Standards.

LANGUAGE AS BELLWETHER?

As a teacher for over forty years, I have taught many English-as-second-language students from all regions of the world.  Most of these students work very hard.  But one has more than 10% of the class with limited English, the native-English speakers in the class get shorter shrift.   Therefore, this February 24, 2013 article in the Daily Mail (UK) gave me pause:

Gladstone Primary is believed to be the first in Britain where every single one of its pupils does not speak English as a first language, but more and more pupils across the country are now from foreign backgrounds.

In a 2012 census of 1,600 schools, it was found English-speaking children are now in a minority, with the figures particularly startling in the 14 inner London boroughs, where there were 98,000 non-native English speakers compared to 78,000 who could list the language as their number one.

Nationwide, there were 97 schools where the number of pupils speaking English as a mother tongue was fewer than one in 20 of the school population.

After London, Birmingham had the highest concentration of 'foreign' pupils, followed by Bradford and then Leicester.

Punjabi was the most widely-spoken first language.

Punjabi is one of the primary languages of Pakistan.

Also from the article:

Peterborough is one of Britain's prime immigration hotspots and just down the road, another school, Beeches Primary, can tell a similar multi-cultural story.

Of its 592 pupils, there are 23 different native languages, with only 24 having English as a primary tongue.

Tim Smith, the headteacher, said Britain's ever-changing society meant more than 150 pupils leave and join every year, as families, especially from eastern Europe, move away from the school's catchment area as and when they get offered bigger accommodation.

The Tory MP for the city, Stewart Jackson, said Peterborough would not be able to cope with a fresh influx of people and urged the city council to reconsider proposals to accept large numbers of families being moved from London due to the government's housing benefits cap.

But Mr Parker said: 'Britain has always been a country of immigration. You only have to watch Who Do You Think You Are on TV to see how many famous people have their origins away from the British Isles.

'Our pupils will grow up wanting to play cricket for England...and support England and Pakistan.'

The UK is undergoing a major shift in demographics, and Muslims are a huge factor therein. What will the UK be like in ten years?

WISDOM FROM DR. BENJAMIN CARSON

World-famous neurosurgeon at the Fellowship Foundation National Prayer Breakfast on February 7, 2013:


And the Obamas had to sit and listen.

A REVEALING MEETING

On October 8, I met with R, a former student of many years ago.  She hunted me down on the Internet and asked if I would advise her. This young lady, who did not go into teaching directly from college but rather pursued another career for a few years, thought that teaching would be relatively easy.  She actually said to me, "When you were teaching me, I thought that teaching looked so easy!"

This first year as a classroom teacher, R is finding out the hard way that effective teaching is anything but easy, particularly during those first years.

R's lack of experience, however, is only the beginning of her woes as a first-year teacher....

Read the rest at Always On Watch to learn more about some of the serious flaws with our education system. 

To flourish, our republic needs an educated citizenry.

OBAMA'S RACISM

Yes, it IS racism and a return to definition three of the quota system.

According to the Daily Caller (hat tip to Freedom By the Way):

President Barack Obama is backing a controversial campaign by progressives to regulate schools’ disciplinary actions so that members of major racial and ethnic groups are penalized at equal rates, regardless of individuals’ behavior.

His July 26 executive order established a government panel to promote “a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools.”

[...]

“What this means is that whites and Asians will get suspended for things that blacks don’t get suspended for,” because school officials will try to level punishments despite groups’ different infraction rates, predicted Hans Bader, a counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bader is a former official in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, and has sued and represented school districts and colleges in civil-rights cases.

“It is too bad that the president has chosen to set up a new bureaucracy with a focus on one particular racial group, to the exclusion of all others,” said Roger Clegg, the president of the Center for Equal Opportunity....

The rest is HERE.

I now speak as a teacher and school administrator with over forty years' experience....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

BEWARE OF THOSE COLLEGE LOANS

In all the uproar yesterday with the SCOTUS decision on ObamaCare, many interested and affected parties may have missed THIS:

...Starting Sunday [July 1], students hoping to earn the graduate degrees that have become mandatory for many white-collar jobs will become responsible for paying the interest on their federal loans while they are in school and immediately after they graduate. That means they’ll have to pay an extra $18 billion out of pocket over the next decade.

Meanwhile, the government will no longer cover the interest on undergraduate loans during the six months after students finish school. That’s expected to cost them more than $2 billion.

These changes have received little attention as lawmakers instead focus on preventing a spike in interest rates on federal student loans.

[...]

Students who take out these loans over the next year will receive the lower interest rate — but that amount will be charged to their bill as soon as they throw their graduation caps in the air. Students who apply for federal loans next year will be hit with a double whammy: a higher interest rate that begins after graduation.

[...]

As of Sunday [July 1], Uncle Sam will no longer pay the interest on new graduate loans while students are in school and for six months after they finish. The change comes as government data show that the average annual cost of a master’s degree and professional programs in law and medicine has jumped by double digits. Enrollment in graduate programs has risen by 33 percent since 2000, to 2.8 million students. ...

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME?

Not a good sign for the future of an America which is not The Nanny State:

AMERICA FUNDS EDUCATION IN CHINA

From CNS News:

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) is asking President Obama to immediately suspend the U.S. Peace Corps program in China, where American volunteers are restricted to teaching English in Chinese universities.

Coffman said he was “shocked” to learn on a recent trip to China that millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to defray China’s higher-education costs, at a time when the U.S. government is short of money to fund its own higher education system.

“Education in China is under a state-run system; our contribution of teachers to the university systems means we are subsidizing the cost of the system for the Chinese government and borrowing the money from them to do it,” Coffman wrote in a recent letter to his colleagues, urging them to join him in cutting unnecessary and wasteful government spending.

Coffman says the Obama administration is spending $2.9 million in fiscal year 2011 to fund the Peace Corps program in China, and it has requested an increase to $4.7 million to fund Peace Corps operations in China for FY 2012....

The 2011-2012 school term has begun or will begin shortly in the United States, with many school budgets "under water," resulting in increased pupil-to-teacher ratios, cutbacks on materials, etc.

But we are paying to educate children in China and Obama wants even more funding to do so?

If more Americans knew what was really going on under the Obama administration, people would be out in the streets and calling for his impeachment - or, at the least, working very hard to make sure that Obama doesn't get re-elected in 2012.

OUR LEFTIST-PERVADED EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

A musical presentation satirizing the tripe our children are being taught (found at Conservative Hideout 2.0):

IMPRINTING YOUNG MINDS WITH "THE TOLERANCE OF THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM"

(Spotted at Right Truth)

The words in quotation marks are the words of Obama, as he once again shills for Islam - this time promoting Islamophilic material for children:



Read HERE about using Muslim superheroes to indoctrinate the minds of America's children. Excerpt below, but read the whole thing:

Muslims comprise only one and a half percent of the American population, but be prepared for the latest exercise in Muslim propaganda and toy promotion – “The Ninety-Nine”. This began life as a series of printed comic “super-hero” characters, each one representing one of the Ninety-Nine names of Allah.

The Ninety-Nine featured in printed monthly comic books, originally produced by Teshkeel Comics in Kuwait. This company had deals to publish Arabic versions of Marvel, DC and Archie comics. Now, the Ninety-Nine is on sale in North America, distributed by Diamond.

The Ninety-Nine is the brainchild of a Kuwaiti psychologist and entrepreneur, Dr Naif Al-Mutawa....

Softening up our children to view Islam in the most favorable light and imprinting their brains! Such imprints are very difficult to undo later down the line. Indeed, the undoing can be well nigh impossible - without an earth-moving event such as 9/11 or something much worse.

Parents, guard your children. These comic books are slick and appealing. And you can bet that schools will be promoting them in the name of cultural diversity.

UPDATE (Reliapundit): IT GETS WORSE:

NYTIMES/AP: New Muslim Comic Book Superhero on the Way

Filed at 9:43 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) — Comic book fans will soon be getting their first glimpse at an unlikely new superhero - a Muslim boy in a wheelchair with superpowers.

U.S. philanthropist and businessman Jay T. Snyder says he was inspired by President Barack Obama's effort to reach out to the Muslim world in his inaugural address.

Last month, Snyder flew 12 disabled Americans to Damascus to meet a group of disabled young Syrians. One of their main goals was to come up with ideas for the new superhero.

The superhero's appearance hasn't been finalized, but he definitely will be a Muslim boy in a wheelchair. An early sketch shows a boy who lost his legs in a landmine accident and later becomes the Silver Scorpion with the power to control metal with his mind.

A MUSLIM BOY IN A WHEELCHAIR DUE TO A LANDMINE - NO DOUBT A VICTIM OF ZIONAZI NEOCON RETHUGLCAN PALINISTAS.

THIS COMICBOOK AND "THE 99" ALSO COMING OUT NOW - WELL, IT'S NO COINCIDENCE.

THIS IS A CONCERTED EFFORT BY THE LEFTIST-JIHADIST AXIS TO BRAINWASH AMERICAN KIDS INTO BELIEVING ISLAM IS "COOL" - A "RELIGION OF PEACE".

WE CAN STOP THIS INSIDIOUS ATTACK ON OUR CIVILIZATION THIS NOVEMBER: VOTE GOP.

TEXTBOOK CHANGES IN THE UK

Changes being made to reflect the "Muslim heritage."

From the Jerusalem Post, with a hat tip to A New Dark Age Is Dawning:

An educational foundation in the UK has announced plans to distribute to high schools a free book that highlights the scientific and cultural legacies of Muslim civilization.

1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World is the creation of the Foundation for Science Technology and Civilization (FSTC), a Manchester-based organization set up to raise awareness of the contributions of the Muslim world to modern civilization.

FSTC said the contribution that Muslim and other civilizations have made to the modern world has been widely overlooked and that its team of academics has focused on debunking the myth of the so-called "Dark Ages of Civilization."

"The period between the 7th and 17th centuries - which has been erroneously labeled 'the Dark Ages' - was in fact a time of exceptional scientific and cultural advancement in China, India and the Arab world," Prof. Salim Al-Hassani, chief editor of the book, said.

"This is the period in history that gave us the first manned flight, huge advances in engineering, the development of robotics and the foundations of modern mathematics, chemistry and physics."

The foundation said it hoped to distribute 3,000 copies of the book to UK schools by October and is seeking public support for the campaign through a sponsorship scheme.

Last month, British evolutionary biologist, popular science author and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins announced plans to distribute free DVDs to high schools across the UK....

Of course, similar drivel is already in many of the textbooks being used right now in the United States. Bad as those books are now, they could be propagandized even more. And at the rate the dhimmitude is proceeding amongst the elite leftists here in the States, we will see a similar development here - as a supplement to use in the classrooms.

Also note the echoes of similarity in the words of BHO at the White House dinner celebrating Ramadan:

President Barack Obama highlighted the contributions made by Muslims to American culture and the “dynamism and diversity” of the Islamic community.

“Islam, as we know, is part of America,” Obama said at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan....

The White House dinner celebrating Ramadan was held on the fifth anniversary of the barbarous attack on the school in Beslan. Talk about a disgusting irony!

INSIDE THOSE CLASSROOM WALLS ON SEPTEMBER 8

As long as I'm posting about education today, I call your attention to this information over at Gateway Pundit: "Dear Leader to Address Youth On Community Life & Sharing." Excerpt from that posting:

Dear Leader will address the beloved youth on September 8th.

In an unprecedented move, President Obama will address the nation's youth at their institutions of indoctrination [Grades K-12].

The White House even released a list of questions for the youth members to discuss before, during and after Dear Leader's blessed address...

Please take a look at the suggested list of questions and activities (Click on the "full screen" button at the top right of the embed below):


President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 -

CHECK THE WALLS OF THE CLASSROOMS IN YOUR AREA

As a taxpayer, whether or not you have children, you can enter the classrooms of the public schools. You may have to jump through some hoops to do so, but you can visit.

According to Glenn Beck, the following poster was on the walls of one public-school classroom (with thanks to Brooke):


Early indoctrination in global warming and the concept of the world community.

The second-grade classroom also displayed the newest book about BHO's dog.

By the way, as a taxpayer in any school district, you have the right to review the textbooks being used. Caution: Many materials used in the classroom are not on the official list of curricula. Many of those materials never make their way to the students' bookbags because of school regulations.

WHEN HOMESCHOOLING IS A BAD IDEA

The New York Times (via Hot Air Headlines) writes one of their sugarcoated articles about Islamists, here being how they turn to homeschooling. And here, it looks like a lot of those staying at home for teaching are girls. Just a sign of how the parents clearly don't want them making outsider friends, do they? While as for the boys, we can only guess what they'll learn at home when doing so, eh?

One of them even has the chutzpah to insult western girls:

“I don’t want the behavior,” said Aya Ismael, a Muslim mother home-schooling four children near San Jose. “Little girls are walking around dressing like hoochies, cursing and swearing and showing disrespect toward their elders. In Islam we believe in respect and dignity and honor.”

Classic, classic.

If it weren't for the fact that girls seem to be the biggest victims of this homeschooling problem, I'd say it's better that they go learn at home instead of complaining about US schools not accomodating their needs. However, if girls are the main ones subjected to this, I'm not sure.

Good news!: Islamic Preachers To Teach Koran In Schools

In British state schools (hattip: thereligionofpeace):

STATE schools should be forced to open their doors to Islamic preachers teaching the Koran, the largest classroom union demanded yesterday.

...

The union’s general secretary Steve Sinnott said that allowing Muslim imams to preach in schools would be a way to reunite divided communities.

Choose the Islamic preachers wisely:

Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.

Crossposted