"What Did You Do In School Today, Dear?"
"Nothing much, Mommy. We just played female genital mutilation."
Seven years after 19 Saudis mass-murdered 3,000 Americans, a New Hampshire school is celebrating what it's like to be Saudi. Aww, isn't that just so sweetly multi-culti?
Warner Todd Huston writes of an unbelievably ill-thought "cultural exchange":
On May 9, the kids of the Amherst Middle School in Amherst, New Hampshire, were forced to parade about their school dressed as "Saudi Arabians" so that they could "learn from people around the world" in a happy day of multiculturalism. But, what they ended up being taught was the wholly sanitized version of how wonderful Saudi society is instead of the truth.
A few examples of the day's activities, as outlined in The Milford Cabinet, a newspaper apparently without editors in a state of physical consciousness:
• During the check-in, guests selected a traditional Arabic name for their name badge and completed an actual Saudi customs form, which warned in bold letters "Death for Drug Trafficking " at the top.
• ...as the traditions of Saudi Arabia at this time prevent women from participating in these public roles.
• Seventh-grade girls hosted the hijab and veil stations, where other female guests learned how to wear the required head covering and veils. An antique trunk full of black abayas worn by women, and white thobes worn by the men, were available for guests to try on.
• An Islamic religion station included a Muslim prayer rug with a compass imbedded in it to locate Mecca, readings on the Islamic faith, call to prayer items and prayer beads.So, this school taught these children to be accepting and tolerant of excluding women, forcing them to hide behind a veil, and were told that the Muslim religion was something they should try on for fun?
Wonderful.
I can't help wondering if these middle school kids learned of the honor killings and the female genital mutilation called "female circumcision" that women are forced to go through in Saudi Arabia? Were these innocent American kids told that the Saudis have thuggish, pseudo "police" that roam the streets that beat people up who seem to be breaking their strict religious dress codes that religious zealots in government force upon the people? Did they learn of the oppressive laws that prevent people of other religious faiths from practicing their religions? Also, did they learn that the Saudis export bin Ladden's style of terror all across the world? Did they learn that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis?
I wonder, did these impressionable American kids lean any of these facts? Not according to the Milford Cabinet they didn't.
...Only in the west can we see oppressive cultural ideas that are antithetical to freedom and liberty promulgated as a fun thing for our children to learn about.
you write as if you had some higher expectation of public schools... stuff like this is worse than imagined terrorist threats...
next week, bring your red books as we will be participating in a week-long appreciation of Mao and the Cultural Revolution of China.
j.d. at June 3, 2008 6:24 AM
:::earworm alert:::
But if you go carryin' pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...
Flynne at June 3, 2008 6:32 AM
I was I was still in school these days, biggest historical/pc fiction/crap I could rage against at the time was columbus day
lujlp at June 3, 2008 7:15 AM
Anyone who has school age children needs to have a copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong. I read it as an adult with no children, and now realize that Paul Simon was right: “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school It’s a wonder I can think at all.“
The problem is that very few of us can dedicate the time and energy to overcome the fundies, the PC crowd, the school boards and the teacher's unions to actually get a truly quality education in the public school system.
And depending on where you live, it feels all but impossible to get the support of anyone, because you are surrounded by others who can get the slogan down, but lack the ability to think critically.
Jim P. at June 3, 2008 7:40 AM
They probably also forgot to mention to the kids that Saudi Arabia also provided shelter for that great humanitarian Idi Amin...
Damn.
Eric at June 3, 2008 7:58 AM
Fire the teachers and administrators, eliminate any sort of tenure policy (if there is one), ratchet up the pay scale to six figures, and then watch the competition for those jobs bring out a better, brighter grade of educator from the corporate sector.
This is just ridiculous. Did they drag all the kids to the cafeteria to make bomb belts out of s'mores at the end of the day?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 3, 2008 8:06 AM
Even when we're not importing trash culture, we're cannibalizing ourselves. A recent national survey showed that significant (my word) numbers of U.S. teachers teach creationism in science class:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13930-16-of-us-science-teachers-are-creationists.html
This caught me asleep at the wheel. I figured this could happen where fundies are pushing their agenda, but its ubiquity suggests gross systemic failure: misguided teachers and subversive, weak or clueless administrators.
DaveG at June 3, 2008 8:23 AM
Gosh, when I was in school we learned about how the pilgrims and indians all got together and had a great time eating turkey.
Also, George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.
Also, the USSR was an environmental paradise free from evil, oil-burning capitalists.
A few years ago when the movie Troy came out, my barber's high school age son told me it was all true. He was offended when I laughed.
Vouchers! Vouchers! Vouchers!
Shawn at June 3, 2008 8:54 AM
We should go Saudi-style on whomever thought this was a good idea.
Beheadings for everyone!
None are so blind as they who will not see.
brian at June 3, 2008 9:18 AM
Ah yes, that lovely Saudi culture... where they prefer that a bunch of schoolgirls burn to death rather than be seen in public with their ankles exposed.
Cousin Dave at June 3, 2008 11:28 AM
Being the skeptic that I am, I googled "Saudi schoolgirl burn" and found that Cousin Dave speaks the truth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm
Eric at June 3, 2008 4:58 PM
Our country can't even figure out what to do with trading and supporting other countries like Saudi Arabia and China and others who have no regard for their citizens, and we expect the public school system to address it? In my family's experience with sending a kid to public school before we gave up, we found that the public school system can hardly even figure out who is there from day to day, and what information they are allowed to relate to parents about what their kids are doing at school.
Not to paint them all with the same brush...our kid went to a really wonderful public elementary school. Then in middle school, we started him off at a magnet program at a highly recommended public school. We found overcrowding, which we thought was ok, they were dealing with it...but in the overcrowding we found that when we went in for the regular parent/teacher conferences that some of the teachers actually didn't know our kids name. After months in the class. Some teachers did fine with a bunch of students and some didn't know who the hell was there at any given moment. We got progress reports that said that our kid hadn't turned in assignments that he gave back to us with a grade and teachers initials. We took them in to check, and in two classes, his grades went from D's to B's because the teacher looked at her own intitals and said she did that in case the grade got lost along the way. So, a kid knows he did the work, his parents get a progress report with 2 D's...we take it back and now we all he actually did the work and it was graded but the teacher handed it back before recording it. That would have been fine, but the process was like the freakin Spanish Inquisition. We couldn't talk directly to to the teachers, had to go through the team leader. By now, we all hate it....and started taking digital photos of all work every day before our kid took it to school to be handed in.
We pulled him out of that school and put him in another school that was actually very good academically but there were a lot of young wannabe gang members and he came home with wounds and scars from defending himself every day. I thought he was being a wuss and went to the school to check out how things were, and he was right. He had friends there of many races, but they were the clean cut kids, and the gangster wannabes of many races went after the clean cut kids. He and his friends started hanging out together more and not letting each other be singled out for a beating, so they dealt with it, each one didn't have to deal with it on his own. He was there for two years without a scar or beating after they figured that out and stood up for each other. There were a couple of times after that when someone came at him, and he had a couple of fights in the lunchroom, and I talked with the teachers later. They said he was minding his own business, someone came at him and he punched them down, and they were happy to see it. They had to give him detention because anyone in a fight gets that, but they all went to him and told him that what he did was a good thing. We kept him there way too long, but in retrospection, it was probably a good learning place. The classroom instruction was as good as any place I have seen, and the social interaction as violent and shakey as it was sort of encouraged the teachers to be open with parents that actually came around. Plus, having to work with others and defend himself helped our kind of shy kid get to know his strengths. He hasn't backed down from anything since.
After that experience, we decided to shuck the whole public school thing so he is in a private Christian school for high school. Two years into it, his take on it is that he learns a lot because the teachers are really good, but the social environment is kind of snotty and the kids there have been protected all their lives and haven't seen anything other than a perfect place to live their lives. The range there goes from middle class like us to some very wealthy families, and he has found some very good friends in some of both who are kids that he has things in common with. He ends up hanging with kids who have been given responsibility for their own stuff and meet them, and who can think on their own. I like how he chooses friends...he chooses the ones he would stand up for and who he would be there for if they ever got into a wannabe gang fight again.
He's a good looking kid, and I have heard him on his cell take calls from girls at school and he doesn't want to talk with them. I ask him why, and he says there are lots of hot girls I talk with (and we have seen them on dates we drop him off for now since he's not driving yet) who actually have a soul and a personality...I'm just telling the Barbie's that call that I am not interested.
But, back on the public school thing...I have a friend who worked in public schools and just retired after 30 years at it, plus her daughter just began teaching...and they are amazed at what they are told they can not tell the parents of their students. If a student is sleeping in class, or has an attitude or just doesn't seem to want to learn...they can't talk to the parents about it unless there is some gross sort of misbehavior and I think that fighting in class doesn't even cut it, they basically can't talk to parents at all about their kid besides stats. They can just refer the parents to a counselor (who has no idea what is going on because they deal with hundreds of students) and give them the progress report of assignments and grades.
That is really sad because the people that see the kids every single day not only have their hands tied in getting troublemakers out of the classroom (saw this in our kid's middle school that the teachers could not send a kid out of the classroom), but they also can not talk about any situation but grades and stats with the parents.
It is not easy for us to send our kid to a private school. It takes a major bite out of our finances. But I am very thankful we are able to do it, and think that eventually the only way that the situation even has a hope of getting worked out is if vouchers are allowed in all school districts.
I have met alot of really good teachers in the public school systems, and most say the same. That they would lose a few students but they already have to magnet and charter schools, and in the voucher system their schools would become more competitive and they could really show how well their programs stand up, and get rid of some dead wood they have been dying to prune out.
I could go on forever...Oh wait, I already did :). Thing is, this is a vital issue for our country, our young folks and the quality of education that we all pay for in one way or another. The buck stops at the parents, but we also need to have a school system that is not just a babysitter or keeper for young people who have shown over and over that in all kinds of situations that if they are challenged to learn, they will not only learn...they will love it and exceed what is expected.
Ang at June 3, 2008 11:04 PM
Here is a link to the local paper that originally ran the story
http://www.cabinet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=about
It has all the contact info for any of you who like to cause waves
And here are the emails for the editor and assistant editor
mcleveland @cabinet .com
kcleveland @cabinet .com
lujlp at June 3, 2008 11:08 PM
And here is the letter I sent
I read your article and I must say I am disappointed in not only your paper but your school system as well. First a website you, your school board and every person in your town should look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm
I wonder if, at this nice touchy feely event, did the kids learn anything about female genital mutilation? Or the cultural and religious forces that encourage subjugating and beating women? Lord knows there are hundreds of you tube clips showing imams preaching these wife beating passages form the Koran.
Did the children learn about how women are imprisoned and whipped for the crime of being raped because a woman's testimony in islamic courts is worth half of a mans? Were they told about the morals police who arrested a woman in a coffee shop for the crime of sitting with her male co workers? Or how, as described in the link above, they prevented fire fighters from saving the lives of little girls fleeing a school fire because in their terror they forgot to put on their veils?
Let that sink in a moment please, 15 girls were sentenced to burn to death because in their haste to flee a fire they didn't put on their head scarves. And this is the culture your town chose to celebrate? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Imagine for a moment that during your 'open tent' one of the food stations were to catch fire and 15 of your towns little girls were force back into the flames to die because the religious police pulled up and threatened to kill any fire fighter who wanted to save them - simply because they didn't take the time to CHANGE THEIR CLOTHES BEFORE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES?!?!?!
Again I will ask, what the hell is wrong with you people that you would celebrate such a society?
lujlp at June 3, 2008 11:12 PM
WTF? Unbelievably stupid and monumentally sick.
lizzylights at June 4, 2008 3:05 AM
Lujlp - thanks for the contact details.
This is what I wrote to the editor:
I read of your article celebrating a Saudi Arabian day at Amherst Middle School and am appalled. How about telling them the truth: that the evil kingdom is a real place where real women are valued less, and treated worse, than goats. Not some multicultural paradise where people wear clothes that are fun to dress up in, but a country hellbent on destroying the very civilization these children are hoping to grow up in.
lizzylights at June 4, 2008 3:28 AM
I just got a response
You're a year too late
Michael Cleveland (cheif editor)
My response to his response
Well oddly enough your paper isn't delivered to my town out in Arizona so it is safe to assume I don't read it every morning. \
And just because it came to my attention a year after it was published don't make my concerns, nor your areas complete lack judgment and decency any less of an issue.
Local children in your area were tricked into venerating a death cult and your paper made it out to be a good thing and not the horrifying lie and misrepresentation it truly was.
Just because it took someone more than a year to say it to you doesn't not detract form the role your paper played in miseading to local readers.
lujlp at June 4, 2008 5:55 AM
I received the same reply.
Here's what I emailed back:
Michael
My comment still stands the test of time. So what happened? Did your paper and the school issue a grovelling apology for insulting everyone's intelligence?
lizzylights at June 5, 2008 3:35 AM
Amy,
I invite you to oneday do a little research on male circumcism and the WHO's stance on it... then reflect on just how common it is in America.
Start here: http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/smith/ (deferring to your request to post only one URL, not the couple dozen or more URLs I can provide here).
But of course ... male infant circumcision isn't considered genital mutilation (any more than a 20 something or + female school teacher f*cking a male student is considered rape).
Gunner retired
Gunner Retired at June 7, 2008 2:39 AM
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