ROCKLAND, Maine — The committee that focuses on curriculum in the Rockland area school district said it wants more specific information from a Rockland woman before it will decide whether to take time to discuss her concerns about the teaching of Islam.
The Regional School Unit 13 Curriculum Committee met Thursday evening.
At the end of the meeting, board members discussed briefly the request by Beverly Cowan to make a presentation to them.
Cowan was not at the Thursday night meeting but had appeared before the full RSU 13 Board at its April meeting.
“I found it disheartening to have prepared a short statement and be cut off, though the people ahead of me were given greater latitude,” Cowan stated in a letter to Sally Carleton, who is chairwoman of the curriculum committee.
She had asked to be put on the committee’s May agenda but that request was not acted on until Thursday.
At the April meeting, Cowan handed out an executive summary titled “Education or Indoctrination?” concerning the treatment of Islam in textbooks used in grades six through 12 in the United States. Cowan could not be reached for comment Thursday evening after the meeting but information she distributed to the board in April included a statement from Brigitte Gabriel, who is the founder and president of an organization called ACT! for America Education.
In that statement, Gabriel states the organization has no objection to the teaching of Islam in public schools but cited that many textbooks fail to treat the religion in a fair manner.
“To cite a particularly egregious example of how the textbooks reviewed fail to do this, the Crusades are routinely depicted as an unprovoked invasion by Christians of the Muslim-owned Holy Land, and Muslims depicted as victims of this aggression. This historical revisionism does not inform students that Muslims invaded and conquered the Holy Land (and the Jews and Christians who lived there) over 400 years prior to the Crusades, and that the Crusades were an effort to regain the Holy Land from the Muslim conquerors,” Gabriel said in the statement.
Neal Guyer, who has served as RSU 13’s interim superintendent and is sharing administrative duties with the new superintendent, said Thursday evening he has read some of the material presented by Cowan but not all of it. He said some of the textbooks referenced in the study are not used by RSU 13 but since he has not read the entire list he does not know if there are some used by the district.
Board member Loren Andrews of Cushing said Cowan should be asked to provide more specific concerns before the committee decides whether to take time to discuss the matter at a subsequent meeting.
“We have curriculum people, teachers and administrators and we should let them decide the curriculum,” Andrews said.
Board member Carol Bachofner of Rockland said it would be similar to if a person asked that a book be removed from a school library. She said there is a system in place and that it should be followed.
Bachofner said, however, that the board should not put Cowan off any longer since it has already been a long while since she asked to meet with the committee.
“When you put people off they tend to become more strident,” Bachofner said.
Carleton and Guyer said they would meet and then contact Cowan so she could provide a more specific written reason for meeting with the committee.
Yeah, promoting Islam in public school is a huuuge problem in Maine. When will these teachers be stopped.
Think how huuuge it would be if they were promoting Christianity! You’d probably be picketing.
Oh please, nobody is “promoting” Islam. Just more Christian religious zealot crap.
Crap, huh? How do *you* spell “bigot”?
Too true.These crazies have already destroyed the TX school system and intimidated textbook publishers.They need to be stopped and stopped NOW.
The point is, no one is promoting Islam, or any religion for that matter.
From my understanding of the article, this woman is more concerned with a more accurate description of historical events relating to Muslims. Whether or not she is one of those Muslim xenophobes does not seem clear. However, I suspect she might be one because if she was so concerned about indoctrination, then she should be concerned about the entire content of our history books. Read the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me”…it is an excellent introduction into this topic.
So I guess she would be OK with an armed conquest of the US by Native Americans. After all, white Europeans conquered them a few hundred years back, right?
Those were my exact thoughts.
Bingo. As she would be OK with England invading the US, Italy invading England, Greece invading Italy, and so on and so on…
the article i read did not sound like “she would be ok” with any conquests, but she is more concerned with the accurate teaching of historical events?
some people might want to actually read the articles before making comments?
So you obviously think it’s OK to hold grudges for over 400 years? Any invasion of the “Holy Land” 400 years after the fact is “unprovoked” in my book.
actually I am not sure I would attach any logic to anything (especially religious “grudges”) that goes on or has ever gone on in the middle east…………
I was just referring to having the whole history included in the teaching…maybe let the students determine what is provoked or unprovoked?
The Crusades were an unprovoked attack. Period. It’s one thing to go back even further in time to get historical context, it’s another completely to say that “the Crusades were an effort to regain the Holy Land from the Muslim conquerors”, to quote the nutjob in this article. High School history isn’t the place to go back and look at every event that has occurred since the dawn of man. The Crusades are a “significant” historical event, and are rightly included in High School history.
I guess you would rather ignore some events that occurred, so you can state your claims “Period”.
I agree …”The Crusades are a significant historical event, and”… should be ….”included in High School history”…….and real historical discussions of the Crusades do not refer to them as an “unprovoked attack”……..
Connecting these two events that are 400 years apart is unnecessary. That’s the point. If your 300 page high school history book has the depth and breadth to go back in time 400 years prior to talk about how the Muslims came to be in that land…then so be it. All well and good. Again, remember the language of the nutjob in this article. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to have the Crusades referred to as “an effort to regain the Holy Land from the Muslim conquerors”. That is absolutely ludicrous.
She has a point.
Rockland teaches Islam as part of its curriculum? Will they let the kids discuss Christmas or Easter? Or must they refer to those events blandly as holiday? Will the school allow the display of a cross as part of its education on Christianity?
I would hope all of the major religions and their tenets are taught in school. From a sociological and historical perspective. Schools have no business “promoting” any relgion, including Christianity.
So much for what our country was founded for… (sarcasm intended.) America is and has been since its foundation a Christian nation. It’s only been since the ’70’s that there has been a problem with that. Oddly, during this religioius decline, crime, drugs, sexual permissiveness, STD’s have increased exponentially. Good grief.
Good grief. Newsflash: We are not all Christian here. We do not HAVE to be all Christian here. Therefore, public schools should NOT be teaching/celebrating Christianity as not everyone there is going to be Christian.
To say otherwise is incredibly arrogant on the Christian’s part.
All irrelevant…it seems people are right on that the new illiteracy in this country is a lack of reading comprehension.
You need to retake history class.
Why has every attempt to amend the Constitution to proclaim this a Christian nation failed? Why do the words “God” or “Christianity” appear nowhere in the Constitution? Why does the Constitution expressly forbid any religious test for any federal office? Why does the very first amendment to the Constitution prohibit the establishment of religion and protect the free exercise of all religions? We are, and always have been, a secular republic. Learn your history. Read your Constitution.
“We have curriculum people, teachers and administrators and we should let them decide the curriculum,” Andrews said.The above statement is absolutely the reason why public education is in trouble. We hear all the time that parents need to get involved with their kid’s education. When they try they are told, “We know what is best for your child.” Usually the curriculum pushed by teachers, administrators and “Curriculum People” is what ever the latest fad is or what sounds politically correct to reflect their own indoctrination in college.
The reason parents want vouchers is because they do have input on curriculum content at private schools. School board members who do not welcome input from parents and taxpayers need to be replaced.
Board member Loren Andrews of Cushing said Cowan should be asked to provide more specific concerns before the committee decides whether to take time to discuss the matter at a subsequent meeting.
It sounded like Beverly Cowan tried to provide ” more specific concerns” at a prior meeting but was cut off and her request to address the board was ignored for three months.
you said exactly what I was thinking, Bradford!
What you mentioned is not the problem with education. It’s the amount of follow up outside of schools. American Parents need to learn how to take accountability. We get it you’re juggling a lot with, in many cases, both parents working. But trying to blame education’s short-comings on the people who present the information to be learned is ill-informed/foolish.
When the information to be learned is proven to be faulty and continues to be presented as was the case with reform math programs like Investigations, Everyday Math and Connected Math, that tells me the ones making the decisions are wrong. The nationwide invasion of these programs were fought every step of the way by informed parents and math experts. Parents could not help their kids with homework because it was like a foreign language. How could they be held accountable? According to the education Phd’s that were pushing it and the publishers that were getting rich off the programs it was the right thing to do even though the evidence (kids failing) was staring them in the face.
Finally after the two year study by the National Math Advisory Panel and independent studies by several states, our schools are moving back to teaching basic skills. This is after 20 years of parents hearing the same thing from the decision makers, “We Know What Is Best.” The Common Core Math Standards are a result of this. Unfortunately many of the same people behind the reform math programs are deeply involved with the Common Core or the National Assessment groups.
Most teachers do not make the decision of what to teach in their classrooms. They have to adopt whatever is forced upon them and convey the prepared message to the parents.
Your pen name gives you away. Typical Progressive Name Caller when faced with facts you don’t like.
Kudos to the committee.
Those that decide on the question should really go ask O’Sham-a, after all he is muslim and anti-american.
Obama has a prayer mat secretly hidden in the Oval Office and five times a day has his office vacated so that he may kneel and pray to the east.
You know, if that was true, it wouldn’t be a secret!! There is tones of camera out there. Besides if that was true, then that’s awesome, I wonder why he killed Osama Bin Laden then…
And don’t forget, not born in the US.
I find it curious that someone who is fighting for “fairness”, would quote and learn from the works of noted Islamaphobes as Gabriel and Norie Darwish. Seems to me that she is less interested in education and more in indoctrination herself.
A defender of the Crusades. Well well. As Gen. Honore said, don’t get stuck on stupid.
Why would we let a little detail like the full history of Islam vs. Christianity prior to The Crusades get in the way of teaching our kids? I mean we’re supposed to pander to these extremists, right?
Way to go, Rockland School board. Just ignore something that makes you uncomfortable until it goes away.
I’d say the school board did a pretty good job of ignoring the extremist at the meeting.
“In that statement, Gabriel states the organization has no objection to the teaching of Islam in public schools but cited that many textbooks fail to treat the religion in a fair manner.” I have a problem with it. No Religion should be taught or have a place in public schools. I believe that Easter and Christmas shouldn’t be celebrated in schools. It supports a christian belief and tradition. Schools should be mandated to be neutral.
Easter and Christmas haven’t been “Celebrated” in public schools for some time now. Because of the lack of a broad based education of religious beliefs around the world, I’m sure most people including service members, don’t have a clue about why the uprising of democracy in the Middle East is important to the security of the U.S.
That is not completely true. Easter and Christmas are still celebrated in some schools. They still do Easter and Christmas homework projects. I know,it is still done in my children’s school. I had to write a letter telling them that they will not do projects or Easter egg hunt. The note I got back was: “What does it matter. It is only the Easter Bunny” I replied back. It does matter. Religious events don’t belong in the school.It is also against our family’s religious view. The teachers tune changed. So yes. It hasn’t Been completely phased out.
I would think that would teach a child to be intolerant and afraid of other beliefs rather than trying to understand them. Depending on how old your children are, they may view it as a punishment because they are missing out on fun activities that their peers are doing. Before you make any judgement about my beliefs, I’ll make it clear that I do not practice Christianity.
My children do not hate. They have been exposed to other religions. They chose not to follow the customs of other beliefs.Nor should they be forced. Making them do papers and activities they do not believe in, is completely wrong. I have no problem with other children doing their belief. Just don’t force it down my children’s throat.
I support religion being taught in schools…but in a different context. Not in a way that promotes one to become a part of that religion…but in a way that teaches culture and history (you cannot teach history without including religion). Something more akin to a “World’s Religions” class.
I believe Easter and Christmas should be celebrated…religious or not the majority of people in this country do celebrate them…they are not just a christian holiday but have transcended into a tradition that is an integral part of our culture and are an opportunity to learn more about culture, history, and tradition.
Islam is in this country to conquer us. Islam is not a religion and , you are a fool if you consider it as such. Any mention of Islam in our school systems, is a method of indoctrination. Wake up
citizens , Islam is the fox in the hen house.
So let’s elect a Mormon to rid this country of all these “cults”.
Why is any religion or dogma taught in public schools? The purpose of schooling is to teach/acquire useful skills to better individuals and society …. skills like mathematics, reading comprehension, scientific principals. Activities of religious fanatics with centuries old education levels might be of interest to historians, but has no practical value …..less than a course in basket weaving.
Agreed. There should be no religion in schools – Christian or otherwise.
Not big fans of history or anthropology eh?
Let me rephrase. As part of history, yes. As a form of worship? No, nor should any other religion.
Basket weaving is a Native American tradition and at least the baskets are useful and can sell for big money.The rest of your post is spot on.The religious right is terrified of educated citizens.EVERY time the education level goes up,religious participation goes down.
What a waste of taxpayer time and money from a Fox stooge.Shut up and go away.
Islam is a religion, whether some people consider it legitimate or not. Like any other religion, it has its exrtemists and kooks who distort the tenants of the faith. Let’s keep things in perspective and acknowledge this much. I also believe that textbooks should contain accurate information, but truths in history are difficult to determine many centuries after the fact. After all, it tends to be written by the people who won the wars. And let’s face it, even the news is subject to some level of distortion, depending on who is reporting it, what they believe it means, and how it is presented. We are all “indoctinated” to one extent or another regarding religious beliefs and values, politics, etc, etc. etc.
I do not know what the Rockland School District’s curriculum on Islam consists of, but it certainly raises some red flags for people to consider. I referred the article to an expert on Islam for comment as I was curious on their view. Here is the reply I received. (The individual lived in the Middle East for over 20 years).
*********
“The
problem here is that the “Islamic education” programs in USA schools
are typically financed by the Saudi (Wahhabi) Embassy – during these classes,
the students often dress up in Arab robes (no problem there), but then during
this charming cultural campaign, the visiting Islamic educators ask the young
children to recite the “Shahada” three times (“There is no God
but God, and Mohammed is the Messenger of God”).
FIRST
PROBLEM: Once
any person recites the ‘Shahada’ three times, according to Islamic Sharia law,
they are a bona fide Muslim. They are also subject to Muslim Sharia law,
Muslim mandates, and fealty to the “Custodian of the two Holy
Mosques”, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. There are
ramifications of the ‘Shahada’ which may be viewed as disloyal and seditious
towards the United States, especially when that devout Muslim who is reciting
the ‘Shahada’ commits acts of terrorism, suicide-bombing, etc.
SECOND
PROBLEM: Once
USA students discover they have been converted to Islam without their consent,
if they choose to publicly disavow their conversion by reasserting their
original religious faith (other than Islam), they will be judged according to
Sharia law to be qualified ‘apostates’. i.e. they will now have a PhD in
‘apostasy’. Islamic apostates are considered to be the lowest of the low,
and Sharia mandates their execution.
Many
US Muslims believe their loyalty is first to “Islam and Sharia”,
while the welfare of the United States and our Constitution is out behind the
barn, somewhere next to the ol’ two-holer. If US students publicly
disavow Islam, they will instantly earn the contempt of the most devout Islamic
communities here, and some young kid will very likely get harmed.”
Your ‘expert’ sounds like a nutjob. What’s his/her name? What are their credentials? I would like to imvestigate your ‘expert’ so I can determine if they are a credible source or just another bigot with an ideologic axe to grind.
I don’t know who “windshear’s” expert is but the woman at the center of this “controversy” is I believe the wife of a local Tea Party tinfoil hat wearer named Ted Cowan.
Ok, fine. I’ll be the first to call BS on this one.
I didn’t know the knock 3 times ‘Beetlejuice’ conversion method was legit. lol
“We have curriculum people, teachers and administrators and we should let them decide the curriculum,” Andrews said.
Amen! lolol