Teaching Tough Topics: Textbook Fight Riles Tennessee
What should school children be taught about Islam?
In Southern states such as Florida and North Carolina, parents claim students are being “indoctrinated” with a sanitized version of the Muslim faith.
One of the fiercest fights so far is going on right now in Tennessee, possibly revealing the playbook for future battles.
For the Southern Education Desk, Chas Sisk of WPLN reports.
Usama Dakdok, a traveling speaker, addressed an overflow crowd of about 300 people recently at the Christian Life First Assembly of God in the small, Middle Tennessee town of Sparta.
Dakdok, using a fire-and-brimstone delivery, preached about the dangers of Islam. The military campaigns of Mohammad, the crusades and the 9/11 are all proof Muslims are violent, says the Egyptian-born Christian.
“If you stand up and you say anything, that means you are an Islamaphobe or you are a bunch of hate mongers or you are not practicing tolerance, “Dakdok says. “That means you’re not good Americans, and that is the end of the story. Tonight we’re going to turn it around. We’re going to throw this book and those who support it into the trashcan.”
Dakdok was referring to the world history textbooks being used by seventh graders in rural White County and many other Tennessee districts.
He claims those books are part of plot, similar to how schools have tricked kids into believing in the theory of evolution.
“When you do nothing, you’re going to lose your children,” he says.
The famed Scopes monkey trial on evolution took place only 50 miles down the road from Sparta. And just like that case, this fight over Islam isn’t only about how to educate a few school children or even several classrooms. It’s a demonstration of how hard religious conservatives are willing to fight to keep out ideas they believe are dangerous.
Chas Sisk,WPLN.
This textbook is used by some Tennessee Schools to teach students about Islam.
Foes of the textbooks have called for the White County School Board to resign. They’ve threatened to picket businesses.
They’ve even run radio ads calling school board members out by name.
It’s not just White County. Many other districts, including several in suburban Nashville, have been confronted by claims of pro-Islam bias.
Vicki Kirk, Tennessee’s deputy education commissioner, says the study of religion is different from becoming or adopting a belief.
She believes it’s a good idea to teach kids early about Islam.
“We have so many students in Tennessee that rarely go outside the borders of their hometown. Let’s say I wanted to be a missionary. It would be pretty important for me to know a little bit about other cultures if I was going to go live in one,” she says.
But Kirk understands why it’s a sensitive subject. She is a former middle school science teacher.
“I did teach things that some students found objectionable, and I said, you know, we’re going to talk about what science has to say about this. But you have your beliefs, and nobody’s treading on that,” she says.
Education officials have agreed to start revising the standards in January. They hope that’ll take some of the heat off local school districts. A panel of teachers will revise the curriculum. That will lead to a rewrite of the textbooks.
Three weeks after the anti-textbook rally, the White County School Board held its next meeting.
A local sheriff’s deputy stood watch as about 70 people entered. Almost all turned out to be supporters of the textbooks.
Deanna Lack says those who are calling for the books’ removal are acting out of fear.
“I think, we need to not villianize a whole group of people because of the actions of a few,” she says.
The crowd’s support seemed to embolden the school board. One by one, members said they would not send the textbooks back. For that stance, they were given a standing ovation.
School Board Chairman Edd Cantrell was emotional after the meeting.
“Really, I wasn’t expecting that,” Cantrell said. “I expected it to be one side and the other side. In reality, White County is one community. And we don’t need our community split.”
The Southern Education Desk is supported by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Florida’s 6-week abortion ban will have a ‘snowball effect’ on residents across the South
Abortion rights advocates say the ban will likely force many to travel farther for abortion care and endure pregnancy and childbirth against their will.
Attitudes among Alabama lawmakers softening on Medicaid expansion
Alabama is one of ten states which has not expanded Medicaid. Republican leaders have pushed back against the idea for years.
Birmingham is 3rd worst in the Southeast for ozone pollution, new report says
The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report shows some metro areas in the Gulf States continue to have poor air quality.
Why haven’t Kansas and Alabama — among other holdouts — expanded access to Medicaid?
Only 10 states have not joined the federal program that expands Medicaid to people who are still in the "coverage gap" for health care
Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing
Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected.
Q&A: How harm reduction can help mitigate the opioid crisis
Maia Szalavitz discusses harm reduction's effectiveness against drug addiction, how punitive policies can hurt people who need pain medication and more.
