Appeared in The Blaze ... opinion on Pennsylvania teachers taking taxpayer-funded diversity training on Islam faith ... including travel to local mosque for prayer.
Fifty or so teachers and
administrators with the Lebanon School
District in Pennsylvania, including the superintendent, were just given a
day of specialized training on Islam – at taxpayers’ expense – that wrapped
with them hitting the floors of a local mosque, in the required shoeless
fashion, and partaking of the faith’s call to prayer.
Can you say what the --?
Or better yet, how about imaging
this “what if” scenario: Fifty or so teachers and administrators with one
Pennsylvania school district were just given a day of specialized training on
the Baptist faith – at taxpayers’ expense – that wrapped with them hitting the
sanctuary of a local church and joining the congregation in prayer.
Now is it outrageous?
The Lebanon
Daily News first reported the day-long Muslim-inspired venture, describing
it as a way for school officials to learn more about their district’s growing
Arabic population – in much the same vein they would for, say, Hispanics.
In other words, it’s a cultural
divide thang.
At the same time, there’s no way
the politically correct crowd would handshake any deal that brought teachers to
a Christian church during the tax-paid school day. In that instance, the loudly
proclaimed denial would be: “It’s separation of church and state!”
But with Islam, at the Lebanon
school district, the Islam training and mosque visit seemed necessary
educational experiences.
That said, the workshop was headed
up by Mohamed Omar, a former teacher aide and Arabic translator for the school
district who also previously served as president of the mosque. Omar, who moved
from Egypt to American in 2000, is now employed by the Department of Human
Services in Philadelphia, but was able to take a day off work to instruct the
teachers and administrators, and bring them to the mosque.
There, teachers removed their
shoes, in line with mosque requirements, and joined several members of the
facility in sitting on the floor for a quick 20-minute instructional on the ins
and outs of Islamism, and how the faith compares to Christianity. Some even
bowed to Allah, the Daily
Caller reported.
“We believe we will be judged by
God,” Omar told the participants, the local newspaper reported. “The more good
deeds we do, God will forgive us in the end. … You must work. Faith without
work will not be accepted.”
Mosque founder Hamid Housni was
apparently amazed at the school’s outreach, calling it “the first time ever in
the United States that a school district goes to a mosque” and saying “we don’t
have words to explain to you how we appreciate that.”
And English-as-a-Second-Language
teacher Lara Book called the day amazing – a real learning moment.
“It’s important that we educate
ourselves about cultures that are different from our own and that we try to
eliminate some misunderstandings,” she said, EAGNews.org
reported. And notably, the lessons she learned?
“Basically, although our cultures
are different, the fundamentals of them are similar and we all want the same
things: happiness for our families, health and success,” she said, “Although we
might go about finding those things in our lives differently, from a cultural
standpoint, we all want the same thing.”
Except – we don’t. One only has to
look to ISIS to see how the Koran’s interpreted by many Muslims. Or, to the many
nations in the Middle East and their views of Israel. Or, at a burqa-clad
female. If teachers want to educate themselves on the pros and cons of Islam,
that’s fine, so long as it’s on their own time. But the bigger issue is this: Should
taxpayers be paying for teachers to bow down to Allah during the school
day?
Talk about a propaganda tool. We
can only hope teacher Book’s reaction to the training session wasn’t representative
of what all 50 of those in attendance learned as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment