By Todd Starnes
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
An Advanced Placement World Geography teacher at a Texas
high school who encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing also
instructed them to refer to the 9-11 hijackers not as terrorists – but as
“freedom fighters,” according to students who were in the class.
Students at Lumberton High School were also told to stop
referring to the Holocaust as Genocide – instead they were told to use the term
“ethnic cleansing.”
John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton
Independent School District, tells me that the teacher did absolutely nothing
wrong.
“What is more dangerous – fear and ignorance or education
and understanding,” he asked. “From our standpoint, we are here to educate the
kids.
Valastro said the teacher involved is a 32-year veteran
who was simply following state teaching guidelines.
“I don’t think my freshman-level teacher was trying to
politicize radical Islam or anything like that,” he said. “I don’t think our
teacher has...to my knowledge ever converted a single student to Islam.”
The Islamic lessons in the small public high school
generated national attention after a photograph of four female students wearing
burqas surfaced on Facebook.
April LeBlanc’s 15-year-old daughter was one of the
students in the photograph. She told me that many parents in the district feel
betrayed by school officials.
“My biggest thing is not the burqa,” she said. “That was
the key to opening up the rest. It’s scary how far they dove into the Islamic
faith. It’s scary what they taught my daughter. Who’s in charge of this? How
did our superintendent let this slip through the cracks?”
LeBlanc said the students were told that they could no
longer use the terms suicide bomber or terrorist. Instead, they were instructed
to use the words “freedom fighters.”
“This teacher taught her that a freedom fighter is when
they give their life for the Holy War – and that they’re going to go to
heaven,” she said. “They were saturating these kids in Islam and my daughter is
an American Christian child.”
Madelyn LeBlanc told me that it was clear her teacher was
very uncomfortable lecturing the students.
“I do have a lot of sympathy for her,” the 15-year-old
said. “At the very beginning she said she didn’t want to teach it but it was in
the curriculum.”
Her mother added that it was her impression that the
teacher did not agree with the quote about calling the terrorists freedom
fighters and laced her lecture with sarcasm.
During a lesson on Judaism, LeBlanc said the teacher told
the class, “Students, I’m supposed to be politically correct and tell you that
the Holocaust was not Genocide. It was an ethnic cleansing.”
LeBlanc said her daughter kept detailed notes of every
classroom lecture and as she read the transcripts she became disturbed.
“Really,” she asked. “They can’t call the Holocaust
Genocide? I was more upset with that than the lessons on Islam. It made me
sick.”
And then came the comparison between the 9-11 hijackers
and the freedom fighters.
Madelyn said a young man sitting beside her was stunned.
“He was shocked that we had to call them that,” she told
Fox News. “He laughed and asked the teacher, ‘Is that a joke? Are you serious?
Why do we have to call them that? That makes it sound okay (what they did) And
it’s not.’”
Madelyn said the teacher didn’t know how to respond.
“She said it was something we have to learn for the end
of the year testing,” she said. “I’m sure it was very difficult for her to do.”
Madelyn said the lesson about freedom fighters made her
feel “terrible.”
“That made it sound like what they were doing was okay,”
she said.
The superintendent also defended the lesson on freedom
fighters.
“The whole idea behind this particular lesson – do you
call yourself a freedom fighter or Islamic jihadist – or whatever it is you want
to be called – you’ve got to put things in perspective,” the superintendent
said. “We’re trying to teach the kids to discern for themselves that one thing
can be called many different things.”
Valastro said it’s important for students to understand
context.
“We might see it as terrorism, but from the Islamic side
they might call it jihadist or freedom fighter,” he said.
The superintendent said he was not aware of the specific
comments made about the 9-11 hijackers – but conceded there was only one side
to the attack.
“I do agree it was a terrorist attack,” he said. “But in
several classes across this country, you’re going to have a make-up of students
from all over the world in your class. We teach it as an act of terrorism –
whereas they are teaching it to their kids as a revolutionary event.”
LeBlanc said she was especially bothered by the lack of
emphasis on other religions. She said there were hardly any lessons on Judaism
and none on Christianity.
“I wondered how it was okay for them to go so in-depth
into a religion from the other side of the world but it was not okay for them
to be like that with Christianity,” she said.
“I try to stay open-minded,” she said. “I don’t want my
daughter to be ignorant about the world. My kids watch the news with us. We
make them aware. I don’t even mind the high school teaching these things.”
But, she added, there was no balance.
“They can talk about how important Mecca is – but why
aren’t they talking about how important Christianity was to the founding of the
nation,” she asked.
LeBlanc and other parents said they feel betrayed.
“We trusted these people,” she said of the school system.
“It scares me. I feel like our school is being infiltrated. How can this not be
a sign? We’re talking about Lumberton, Texas. We’re talking about a small town
with Christian churches on every street corner. Right in our small school this
is going on.”
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