Textbooks and Islam - A match made in jihadist heaven?

[FromTheSouth]

An article on Fox News

Authors Warn That Many Textbooks Distort Religion

Saturday, March 07, 2009
By Lauren Green


Jesus was a Palestinian? That's what one public school textbook says.

Although Jesus lived in a region known in his time as Palestine, the use of the term "Palestinian," with its modern connotations, is among the hundreds of textbook flaws cited in a recent five-year study of educational anti-Semitism detailed in the book "The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion."

Authors Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research found some 500 imperfections and distortions concerning religion in 28 of the most widely used social studies and history textbooks in the United States.

Ybarra, a research associate at the institute, called the above example "shocking."

A "true or false" question on the origins of Christianity asserted that "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." The teacher's edition says this is "true."

But even though Jesus is the founder of Christianity, the question ignores the fact that he was Jewish. And Ybarra said, "The Christian scriptures say that he preached in Judea and Galilee, not Palestine," a term that was used at the time as a less specific description of the broader region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Ybarra says part of the problem is that publishers employ or contract with writers who are not experts in the subject, or they may use out-of-date information. Or they may bow to special interest groups.

"They're under pressure from all kinds of minority groups, religious groups, and they try to satisfy everyone and that results in content that is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator," he said. "And so, in that process, things can be missed. Errors can survive."

Ybarra also claims that the textbooks tend not to treat Christianity, Judaism and Islam equally.

"Islam has a privileged position," he said. "It's not critiqued or criticized or qualified, whereas Judaism and Christianity are."

One example is in the glossary of "World History: Continuity and Change." It calls the Ten Commandments "moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God," while the entry for the Koran contains no such qualifier in saying it is the "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God."

But First Amendment scholar Dr. Charles Haynes, who has written extensively on the subject of public schools and religion, says he thinks sometimes the criticisms go a little too far.

"There's no conspiracy in the textbook industry to favor one religion over another. ... I think the group that bangs the pot the loudest gets the most attention," he said.

"Having said all that, I think the textbooks are working at trying to treat everybody the same way," he added. "They made mistakes. They've got to work on it."

Experts agree, though, that part of the problem rests in the fact that there are so few textbook publishers.

Seventy-five percent of public school books are published by just three companies: Houghton Mifflin, McGraw-Hill and Pearson Education. None responded to requests for comment for this story.

"It's a big problem right now that we have so few choices in our textbooks," Haynes said. "This is an industry. ... It's a marketplace. They're trying to sell their textbooks."

But Ybarra said it goes deeper than pure economics. He thinks the school books are being used as tools for propaganda, particularly to perpetuate negative attitudes towards Christianity, Israel and pro-Palestinian views concerning the Middle East.

"We fear that this is creating a generation of biased school children," he said. "Some of our projects in the higher education realm with some of these same subject matters, we find that students do show up at universities with these prejudices."

Ybarra maintains that, ultimately, parents and communities need to get involved and demand accountability from school boards, publishers and scholars on what goes into the materials being used to teach fresh, young minds.

And the terrorists have won.....

Well, not exactly, but there seems to be some acquiescence to their culture. I am not one for political correctness, so this story has gotten under my skin.

My first problem is that these schools that teach tolerance as if it were the first commandment are also the first to be intolerant of those who love their God. We are to love and respect the reason that some have used to attack and kill us in America and England and Spain. However, when it comes to Christianity, text books treat teh Crusades as if the Christians were nothing but bloodthirsty conquerors. My text books treated the European explorers as conquering heroes, but now, my niece's tell the stories as if they were a Bruce Willis movie. The violent Christians vs. the peacefull Muslims. Umm, who flew hijacked planes into buildings? Better not check Hoghton-Mifflin if you want that answer.

Sugar coating an event and glossing over a culture of violence is nothing more than appeasement. I know many Muslims who are right and proper people, and they treat the jihadists with more contempt than these books. Real Muslims hate the way the johadists make them look, however, Muslim activists ensure that these books don't reflect those views. They insure that the jihadist view stays in the forefront, and are counter productive to the real search for acceptance and tolerance.

These books will do nothing but create a backlash against American Muslims. Tolerance might be taught in the schools, but parents, especially those in the flyover states, will feel obligated to teach the other end of the spectrum. However, these parents do not have the training in restraint that teachers tend to have, so the information will get mixed with opinion. That is where trouble begins.

I personally feel that an open and honest discussion of religion belongs in schools. Not so much the God parts, as the lessons taught by those experiences. I don't feel that kids know what Jews believe, and how similar it is to Christianity and they don't know that Islam teaches to turn the other cheek just like Jesus.

And calling Jesus a Palestinian is just another attempt to make the Jews seem more irrelevant in the world spectrum. Swedish tennis fans were banned from a building because of the threat of violence against some 20 something athletes over the conflict in Gaza. Dubai's tennis event banned Israeli Shahar Peer. All day and all night Jews are persecuted, and this textbook continues in that violence against Jews, by Muslims, is not an integral part of discussion. Jesus, the Jew, is a noted Palestinian now?

Bring facts back to education. There is already too much indoctrination by the liberals at colleges around the country, and now it is being moved down to the lower levels at school. Funny thing is, if you look at the writer's of High School text books, it is usually a staff of college professors.

 

[klunderbunker]

This is something I've seen happen too. In my AP World History text book, Islam and Buddhism got a chapter, which was about 130 pages, each while Judaism got I believe a page or less? There does indeed seem to be a bias against Jews at times. However, some of these things are very likely to be simple errors. Look at the main one in the article: Jesus was a Palestinian. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, with any kind of religious education can tell you that's simply incorrect. While I do think there's discrimination against Jews, that doesn't mean all of the errors can be attributed to such a thing. While it's possible some of it can, to say all of it can is simply unfair.

 

[Mr. TM]

Interesting subject FTS. It is easy to say that all text books are created with a bias in them. For a long time, we are taught in North America and other places that the Christians are the good, the Islams are the bad, and the Jews just sat around in the middle. That is to be expected, and I hate to be in the other shoes and be of Islamic heritage learning that we are an uncivilized people who fought against the Christians who were purifying the land. Now if the show is put on the other foot, and the painting is reversed, it again is bad.

You cannot fully get rid of bias, but all text books should be able to look at events from multiple angles. That way we get to see two sides of every event. It is like the Iwo Jima movies by Clint Eastwood. The little we are taught in Canada on the subject, we get a the view from the American/allied side about the glory of the battle. But seeing it from the Japanese side made me question the event more.

 

[FromTheSouth]

Oh no, I don't think there's a bias against Jews being perpetrated by the textbook community as a whole. I just think that it's symptomatic of an overarching cultural backlash that's been going on for thousands of years. I just think that at some point, someone decided that we can handle it because of everything else we've had happen to us. It's ok to say someone got Jewed in general society, but the n*****rigged elicits giggles and condemnation. All things being equal, they should both be left out of the lexicon.

But that gets away from the main point of the thread. I just feel that a complete recounting of a culture's impact is what students need. A sugar coated, apologetic version undermines the use of my tax dollars to buy these books.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I've always thought that education about religion was surplus to requirements. Just say "no religion is worse than any other" and slap a bow on it. It's a waste of time. You go into depth and, just like this, you end up getting claims of bias. I'm not saying they're baseless; facts do seem to get distorted or rephrased over time.

Going a little off-topic for a second. I have a Jewish friend. He used to live in Israel. We've been debating about, y'know, all that for a few weeks. I told him some figures that I'd memorised from The Independent. He said that they were anti-Semitist. I didn't know what to say.

Subjects with actual importance should be taught instead of religion. If someone is inclined to learn about religions, they can do so. Otherwise, the only function I can see is to teach tolerance - which, apparently, isn't working out.

 

[FromTheSouth]

I've always thought that education about religion was surplus to requirements. Just say "no religion is worse than any other" and slap a bow on it.

But history classes explore cultures, and before America, religion was the central tennant of most codes of morality. Ignoring it, or glossing it over is a disservice to class.

It's a waste of time. You go into depth and, just like this, you end up getting claims of bias. I'm not saying they're baseless; facts do seem to get distorted or rephrased over time.

You can teach it without bias. You can teach that the Christians preach love and then teach the Inquisition. You can teach that Islam preaches restraint and then teach Al Quaeda. You can teach that Judaism teaches community and then teach about the tight knit communities of Jews that seem to be wary of outsiders. There are two sides to every story, and if you count the truth, three.

Going a little off-topic for a second. I have a Jewish friend. He used to live in Israel. We've been debating about, y'know, all that for a few weeks. I told him some figures that I'd memorised from The Independent. He said that they were anti-Semitist. I didn't know what to say.

Give me those figures. I would love to see what he sees as anti-Semitic. We, as a group, are very wary of others. It's not necissarily a racist or supremacy thing, but if you look at our history, the peoples we have entrusted have always turned on us. This is centuries of paranoia all built up.

Subjects with actual importance should be taught instead of religion. If someone is inclined to learn about religions, they can do so. Otherwise, the only function I can see is to teach tolerance - which, apparently, isn't working out.

Once again, culture and religion were the same thing until about 250 years ago. And understanding these cultures is critical to understanding history. The reasons for the wars need to be taught along side of the winners and losers.

 

[Uncle Sam]

But history classes explore cultures, and before America, religion was the central tennant of most codes of morality. Ignoring it, or glossing it over is a disservice to class.

Maybe in America the quality of teaching is much better. However, in my experience in England, teachers will often teach Religious Education in a half-arsed, "just chuck a video on" kind of way. You leave the class less informed than when you went in. I'd rather them not teach it at all if they'll teach it like that.

You can teach it without bias.

Of course you can. But there are always people looking to further their own agendas, aren't there?

Give me those figures.

I did commit them to memory. Shame that my memory resembles a sieve. If I come across the paper again, I'll tell you. I will say The Independent is a very outspoken paper when it comes to Israel, as well as religious issues. I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with the writers a lot of the time.

This is centuries of paranoia all built up.

I read an interesting essay on that topic just the other day. Good read, if so close to the bone that I winced.

Anyway, back on topic.

 

[FromTheSouth]

Maybe in America the quality of teaching is much better. However, in my experience in England, teachers will often teach Religious Education in a half-arsed, "just chuck a video on" kind of way. You leave the class less informed than when you went in. I'd rather them not teach it at all if they'll teach it like that.

Well, in America we have the PC patrol. If one student is offended, I think they burn the school down now a days. When I was in school, there was a very informational day or two spent on relgion, which usually revolved around my spinning a dreidel and teaching the Jewish parts. I see where you're coming from. The quality of teacher is lacking, but you can't understand culture without understanding religion.

Of course you can. But there are always people looking to further their own agendas, aren't there?

Yes, and that is part of the problem. We usually save our indoctrinating teachers for college, but the question here is the message in the textbooks. They, oddly enough, are written by tenured professors. It has gotten so bad here, that I wonder how much longer Jews are going to vote Democratic. I never did, but all the rest do. Except my dad. He's a good man.