Ontario, OH High School: Pro Islam, Pro Violence; A Stone In My Hand

Now allow me to introduce myself. I am the grandmother of a student. I am very involved in the lives of my grandchildren and we regularly discuss educational topics. These students do not play video games and spend their time texting. We play board games and work together on projects and interact a lot. My husband and I both work full time and invest the rest of our lives in our family.  It is Connie who brought this book to my attention and asked if I would read it to get my opinion.

A book of historical fiction called “A stone in my hand” was assigned to the class as mandatory reading prior to the first day of school.  It is written in the first person voice of a Muslim Arab child living in the Gaza during the intifada years of 1987 – 1993. I was more than stunned and appalled at this agenda for English and Social studies assigned to ninth graders this year. I have no problem with historically accurate studies, studies of other cultures and religions. But I do have a problem with a slanted presentation that is clearly anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and pro-Islam. Not only am I offended at the book, but today I had a chance to review the the worksheets sent home as homework for this 9 week course. The worksheet’s title is “Islam Project – Growth of Islam”. Islam is a very specific religion. So this, in my opinion, is religious indoctrination masked as Social Studies and English. This is not an elective class on world religions.  How in the world did this happen?
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I want to know at what level the decision was made to choose this book and this agenda and why there was not also offered an alternative to students whose families may be Jewish or Messianic gentile believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? I instructed my granddaughter not to read out loud the prayer to allah on page 8 of this book. It is a violation of our religion to speak a prayer to another god. I regret she even had to read it in order to comply with this assignment. I certainly hope there are not any children of Jewish origin in the ninth grade there. This course of study is the height of insult to them. The very first page of this book contains a translated “nursery” rhyme, written by a young girl living in the Gaza:

Understand that the “outlaw” is any Jewish person and the “martyr” is an Islamic Arab child who was taught that suicide bombing is a righteous thing to do.

The “Islam Project” worksheet directs our children to a Muslim web site (www.zawaj.com). I consider that unwise and dangerous. Islam is not a religious system to be laid out before our children lightly, and certainly not one they should explore on line without serious informed parental supervision.  Surely you must know of the incredibly abusive treatment of women that is rampant in the fundamentalist Islamic cultures – the Jihad suicide attacks that mothers are encouraged to send their sons and daughters on with promises of financial reward – the rockets being fired every day – NOW – from Gaza into Israel by the hundreds of thousands. This is not a nice pretty “let’s all just get along” religion. Will there also be a “Judeo / Christian project” in which the birth of the Jewish state of Israel is presented and the holocaust explained? How about the attack on infant Israel by the highly organized armies of the surrounding Arab nations a few days after it became a state? How about the 6 day war and the Yom Kippur war? Will all of that be explained also?  Will the Twin Towers attack be included as part of the full understanding of Islam? Will these children be told that, to a fundamentalist Muslim, it is a “divine” act to murder all infidels – non-Muslims  – and every one of these children would be included in that group? I doubt it.

I fully understand the principles of diversity and learning other cultures and religions. I am an RN in a management position and have created diversity curriculum and taught it to my staff. I have a college degree and have studied most of the religions of the world, to some degree. I have worked in Alabama, Massachusetts, Haiti and  Russia and spent time in Israel. I personally subscribe to Messianic Judaism. So I have more diversity in my experience than most people. To make Islam appear to be just another happy – go – lucky religion that we just need to understand better to get along, would not have prevented the twin towers from being attacked nor would that “tolerance” stop men, women and children from strapping bombs to their bodies and riding buses into crowded places in Israel. I have been to Israel twice. I was there during the Hebron Massacre and had to be escorted out of Jericho with the Israeli army. I personally saw Muslim Arab men lined up along the road to Jericho, hurling huge boulders into passing Israeli cars in protest over the Hebron incident. Will that side of this religion and culture also be taught?

What this agenda is doing is so dangerous, so offensive that I cannot believe it got anywhere near a school curriculum. Are not other parents outraged?