The Stupid, it Burns
Jul. 6th, 2008 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgundWho's bright idea WAS this anyway???
Schoolboys disciplined for 'refusing to pray to Allah'
"Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.
It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
Yesterday parents accused the school of breaching their human rights by forcing them to take part in the exercise.
One, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.
"Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."
Another parent Karen Williams, 38, whose 12-year-old daughter is a classmate of the boys, said: "I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable.
"The teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'we are now going out to pray to Allah'.
"Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshments' break."
She added: "Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.
"They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."
She said the pupils were asked if they had water on them, and when one girl produced a bottle, the teacher began washing her feet with it.
Sources at the school are saying it was a 'role-play' and that the students may have not been briefed properly. Which begs the question what kind of idiot uses someone's religious rituals as 'role-play'. I'm all for teaching about other beliefs and cultures, but this was STUPID. Not to mention that some could argue that, depending on the prayer used, it could be seen as the "profession of faith" used to convert to Islam - which opens up an entire kettle of worms.
Besides which, if the teacher had taken her students to the girl's bathroom, had them each assert that they had accepted Christ as their personal savior, and then baptised them all in the shower? Would the parents of any Muslim, (or Jewish, or Hindu, or....) students had accepted it as 'role-playing'??
Also:
Pupils were ‘disrespectful of prophet’
Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah
Schoolboys disciplined for 'refusing to pray to Allah'
"Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.
It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
Yesterday parents accused the school of breaching their human rights by forcing them to take part in the exercise.
One, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.
"Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."
Another parent Karen Williams, 38, whose 12-year-old daughter is a classmate of the boys, said: "I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable.
"The teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'we are now going out to pray to Allah'.
"Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshments' break."
She added: "Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.
"They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."
She said the pupils were asked if they had water on them, and when one girl produced a bottle, the teacher began washing her feet with it.
Sources at the school are saying it was a 'role-play' and that the students may have not been briefed properly. Which begs the question what kind of idiot uses someone's religious rituals as 'role-play'. I'm all for teaching about other beliefs and cultures, but this was STUPID. Not to mention that some could argue that, depending on the prayer used, it could be seen as the "profession of faith" used to convert to Islam - which opens up an entire kettle of worms.
Besides which, if the teacher had taken her students to the girl's bathroom, had them each assert that they had accepted Christ as their personal savior, and then baptised them all in the shower? Would the parents of any Muslim, (or Jewish, or Hindu, or....) students had accepted it as 'role-playing'??
Also:
Pupils were ‘disrespectful of prophet’
Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah
