"Malignant" curriculum manuals
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs caught my attention with an entry on The Textbook League. The TL is an organization that provides commentaries on textbooks, curriculum manuals, videos and reference books. The commentaries are available online and through a letter that sent to teachers, administrators, and private citizens.
What got Charles riled up was this review of ISLAM:A Simulation of Islamic History and Culture, 610-1100, entitled: Page for Page, This Is the Most Malignant Product That I've Seen During All My Years as a Reviewer
ISLAM: A Simulation of Islamic History and Culture, 610-1100 is produced and distributed by Interaction Publishers, of Carlsbad, California. This company, which does business under the name "Interact" (and refers to itself by that name), promotes ISLAM: A Simulation as a curriculum manual for use by history teachers in grades 6 through 12. ISLAM: A Simulation consists of lesson plans and handouts for a three-week program of classroom instruction in which students "will simulate becoming Muslims" and allegedly "will learn about the history and culture of Islam..."
ISLAM: A Simulation has no educational purpose, and it can serve no educational function. From beginning to end, it is nothing but a Muslim religious publication, produced by writers who seek to exploit classroom teachers for propagating Islam...ISLAM: A Simulation directs teachers to deceive their students and to boost Islam by disseminating lies and by falsifying history...ISLAM: A Simulation requires teachers to indoctrinate their students by feeding them servings of "information" in which historical facts are insidiously intermixed with Muslim myths and Muslim woo-woo...ISLAM: A Simulation directs teachers to present facts, myths and woo-woo as equivalent, equipotent items...ISLAM: A Simulation requires teachers and students alike to abandon rationality, to shun analytical thinking, and to embrace the view that any claim about anything -- no matter how fatuous the claim may be -- must be accepted as true.
No, I don't know what "woo woo" is, either, but it doesn't sound good. At the end of the lengthy review, which is backed up by footnotes, the reviewer concludes:
Page for page and ounce for ounce, ISLAM: A Simulation is the most malignant product that I have seen during all my years as a reviewer of instructional materials...This document's malignancy transcends mere deceit, however, for the Interact writers have used their lies and other devices to mount a sustained attack on rationality itself.
I have sought to emphasize, in this review, that Interact's program requires a great deal of promotion and participation by the classroom teacher -- the teacher who must serve as Interact's dupe, must carry out Interact's instructions for bamboozling and deluding students, and must even recount a flying-horse legend as if it were history. I now assert that any teacher who would do such things should be sacked forthwith. I assert that any teacher who would have anything to do with Islam: A Simulation should be fired before the day is out. Islam: A Simulation has no place in any legitimate school, and neither does any teacher who is so ignorant and so stupid that he cannot recognize Interact's manual of rubbish for what it is.
Think reviewer William J. Bennetta is overstating the case? This isn't the first time this product has come under such scrutiny. Estimable scholar Daniel Pipes reviewed it last year:
...the curriculum presents matters of Islamic faith as historical fact. The Kaaba, "originally built by Adam," it announces, "was later rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ismail." Really? That is Islamic belief, not verifiable history. In the year 610, Interaction goes on, "while Prophet Muhammad meditated in a cave ... the angel Gabriel visited him" and revealed to him God's Message" (yes, that's Message with a capital "M.") The curriculum sometimes lapses into referring to "we" Muslims and even prompts students to ask if they should "worship Prophet Muhammad, God, or both."
The Thomas More Law Center is absolutely correct: This simulation blatantly contradicts Supreme Court rulings which permit public schools to teach about religion on condition that they do not promote it. Interaction openly promotes the Islamic faith, contrary to what a public school should do. As Richard Thompson of the center notes, the Byron school district "crossed way over the constitutional line when it coerced impressionable 12-year-olds to engage in particular religious rituals and worship, simulated or not..."
I also found another letter by William Benetta on the TL site in which he questions Ms. Suzanne C. Rios, the administrator for the Curriculum Framework and Instructional Resources Office of the California State Department of Education, as to why their office granted legal-compliance approval to ISLAM:A Simulation of Islamic History and Culture, 610-1100, in spite of the fact that California's Department of Education booklet, entitled "Standards for Evaluating Instructional Materials for Social Content", explicitly prohibits the approval of any instructional product that subjects the student to religious indoctrination.
This was the first of three letters sent to Ms. Rios, none of which were answered.
P.S. - if you go to the LGF link, be sure to read the comments. Charles's peanut gallery always has the best (most sarcastic and hilarious) take on these absurdities...