Teachers suspended over student work…
The evening news heavily endorsed a “why aren’t they regulating what’s taught in private schools?” slant. The gov’ts first response was to allow the school to handle it internally, but after media and political pressure they are now launching an Education Ministry investigation.
Here’s a quote from the article that started the whole fuss:
Two teachers at the Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended yesterday pending an investigation into the encouragement or incitement of hatred against Jews expressed in a young student’s violence-laden writing project.
Principal Aisha Sherazi said the seven-member school board and administration were “shocked” by teacher involvement in the project that was brought to her attention by the Citizen yesterday morning, and decided at an emergency meeting to suspend the instructors.
One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.
The other teacher had written comments on the student’s paper, praising the boy’s story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
“God bless you, your efforts are good,” the teacher wrote on the title page. “The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there.”
Islamic School Suspends Teachers Over Student’s Hate-Filled Tale
There’s the potential for all sorts of interesting fall-out from this one. I’m sure it won’t take them long to figure out which student wrote it, and then the family’s going to end up under the spotlight as well. If I was in their shoes (unlikely as THAT would be!) I would worry about Children’s Aid, CSIS, the RCMP… Also, could increased regulation of private schools lead to calls of increased regulation of homeschools, as well? Not to mention, the unpleasant spectre of Canadian private schools covertly training up little terrorists. But maybe I’m just paranoid…
2 Responses to “Teachers suspended over student work…”
Comment by traci March 25th, 2005 at 11:56 am |
Darby, I saw this story last night on the news & wondered the same thoughts that you did. Please let us know what else comes out of this. |
Comment by Tad March 25th, 2005 at 12:01 pm |
The problem with stories like this is, isolated as they are, they create a climate where people demand political action, and the politicians accomodate. The over-reaction causes oppressive regulation, which in turn “justifies” the hatred in the minds of the oppressed. And it snowballs from there. |