Local Muslims celebrate the deadly 9-11 attacks in Pakistan in 2011 as they do every year.
A Swansea school is teaching 12 year-old kids that Islam had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks.
The school wants to emphasize tolerance.
The Belleville News Democrat reported:
Rachel Seger’s daughter “adores” her history teacher and “loves” the class at High Mount School in Swansea, but Seger didn’t like the 12-year-old’s homework of vocabulary words on Thursday night.
“She said, ‘What’s Koran mean?’ and I flipped,” Seger said. “I said, ‘Excuse me?’ and I looked at them, and I said oh my God.”
The vocabulary words included jihad, Islam, Muslim, Arabia, Muhammad, Allah, hegira, mosque, Koran and Baghdad.
“Some of these words, I don’t even know what they are: Ayatollah, caliph,” said Seger, who was shocked that the history class would step so close to teaching religion. “I don’t want her learning other faiths from school. If it would have just stopped at ‘this is their culture, this is where they go to church,’ fine. But when you get into the actual aspect of it, that’s where I’m drawing the line. That’s just going a little too far.”
Jim Munden, a sixth-grade history teacher at High Mount, would not comment other than to say the issue had been resolved with the family.
Seger said she is happy with the quick resolution, and her daughter will work on the geography portions, not the definitions.
Mark Halwachs, superintendent of High Mount School, said parents rarely question specific parts of lessons. In his four years at the post, he said, one parent questioned a library book, but those concerns were allayed after Halwachs read the book and discussed it with other educators.
Halwachs says the school is teaching — and students that age can tell — the difference between a large group and a fanatical faction.
“We have to present, with 9/11 or anything, it wasn’t a religion that did that. It was bad men that did that. I think you have to take moments like that and use them as teachable moments,” he said. “You have to look at the age group and your students, and to me you can talk about different things in the world and teach about tolerance.”
Seger says her daughter is too young for some discussions.
