Sky News investigation finds UK school promoting "extreme Islam"

Karl wrote:

Rightey wrote:

Moggy wrote:We will never end religious schools or at least won't for a hell of a long time. But we can stamp out the gooseberry fool and/or extreme ones. And it's better to do all of those, not just the Muslim ones as that would only add ammunition to those teaching young people that the West hates or picks on their faith.

So you agree the muslim ones are the worst but think we should just close down all religious schools to not offend these people?

Oh no we don't want to appear racist, better just step on peoples rights to educate their children how they see fit and close them all so we don't offend them.

What Moggy is saying - and it's quite clear, really, but I'm guessing you're religious and this thread has made you 'see red'? - is that a fundamentalist environment in any form is so seriously detrimental to a child's education as to be worth legislating against, and that as such any laws made should target fundamentalism in general rather than just Muslim fundamentalism or just Jewish fundamentalism or whatever.

If you have any school of any creed that's found to be teaching children a load of dangerous nonsense that will impede their adult lives - be it the archetypically Muslim "the West is evil," Jewish "only speak Hebrew and never English or else," or Christian "science is a global conspiracy and medicine is a sin" - then that school should be shut down. It's not about them being religious, it's about them being fundamentalist nutcases.

Now, as a matter of fact I do actually believe (and I think Moggy does too) that there shouldn't be any religious schools at all, but that's a different matter to what we were just talking about. I hold that opinion because I think every child has the right to a secular education that doesn't impose any one belief system or life philosophy onto them, and I think the right of the parent to try to force their child to be religious can be fulfilled perfectly adequately during the evenings or weekends. That was my position long before hearing about these radical Muslim schools! and has nothing to do with not wanting to be racist towards them.

The thing is though, that is not really happening is it? The Muslim schools are teaching hate for the west, the Jewish schools are illegal anyways, so of course they should be shut down, and the Christian schools are teaching kids creationism to varying degrees (based on what that telegraph article someone posted earlier said):

The curriculum of one group of religious schools reads: "Creation stories give a holistic image of the origins of the earth, plants, animals and human beings."

In another, it says that 'The Darwinian mechanism delivers clarifying power within a certain range of phenomena, but it is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits.'

So it seems like there might be some variation, but let’s just assume they all teach it as fact for simplicity. Yes I agree this is wrong, but they do not as you say teach that medicine is evil, or that science is a global conspiracy. I would be really interested in knowing how their students do in tests on other subject, or even in Science outside of biology. If the school is doing a good job at teaching the other subjects should it still be shut down?

Karl wrote: How streaming works today is that you get a mix of ability within a school, and those children are continuously assessed by their teachers, and each year you get ranked and put into a class based on the previous year's performance. After a few years of this you may end up locked into a set but it's a lot more 'malleable' than the previous system.

If it's so easy to move between the streams than why even have them? The issue with the streams here is that if a kid is in the lower stream for a year, a gap develops in the knowledge they have and the knowledge someone in the upper stream has and then it becomes difficult to close that gap. Yes in theory it can be done but the vast majority of kids never do it...

http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/educ ... hools.html

I got bumped down to bottom set for RE and there are only two things I remember from the lessons:

1. The entire class laughing at the teacher after he told us he believed in God because he saw sun rays shining through parted clouds one day after climbing a hill with his girlfriend.

2. A lesson dedicated to creating our own superheroes . Unfortunately, I can't remember what I came up with .

Rightey wrote:If the school is doing a good job at teaching the other subjects should it still be shut down?

One of the most intelligent posts here. This question is salient to the entire issue of religious schools. I would really be interested to know the answer - it is such a fundamental point.

Cal wrote:

Rightey wrote:If the school is doing a good job at teaching the other subjects should it still be shut down?

One of the most intelligent posts here. This question is salient to the entire issue of religious schools. I would really be interested to know the answer - it is such a fundamental point.

And the answer is obviously yes.

easier to remember joke name wrote:

Cal wrote:

Rightey wrote:If the school is doing a good job at teaching the other subjects should it still be shut down?

One of the most intelligent posts here. This question is salient to the entire issue of religious schools. I would really be interested to know the answer - it is such a fundamental point.

And the answer is obviously yes.

Depends.

Would Rightey or Cal be happy to keep open the fundie Islamic schools as long as they were performing well at History, Sport and Maths?

I'm not keen on any faith-based 'fundamentalist' schools, tbh. I just believe that here in a free and open western democratic society schools - any school - should equip kids to function in a tolerant culture. If I had my way there would be no faith-based teaching at all, but I realise many parents don't feel the same way and we live in a free society, so we allow religious schools.

Our duty as a responsible society is to ensure that no faith schools are ever permitted to inculcate poisonous attitudes in the young, be they from Islam or from Christianity. The sad fact is that Islam has not gone through a religious enlightenment. I feel fairly sure, therefore, that any teaching based on an unreformed 7th century holy book really has some potential to present a threat to the values of a free democratic culture whose values it refuses to embrace or, in many cases, ever properly integrate with.

It's not about whether they teach history or maths properly. It's about whether they think Jews should be murdered, or queers executed or whether they think a woman has the right to make her own choices in love and marriage. It's about whether or not they teach that leaving the faith is punishable by death. Stuff like that. It's important to us all, isn't it?

Cal wrote:I'm not keen on any faith-based 'fundamentalist' schools, tbh. I just believe that here in a free and open western democratic society schools - any school - should equip kids to function in a tolerant culture. If I had my way there would be no faith-based teaching at all, but I realise many parents don't feel the same way and we live in a free society, so we allow religious schools.

Our duty as a responsible society is to ensure that no faith schools are ever permitted to inculcate poisonous attitudes in the young, be they from Islam or from Christianity. The sad fact is that Islam has not gone through a religious enlightenment. I feel fairly sure, therefore, that any teaching based on an unreformed 7th century holy book really has some potential to present a threat to the values of a free democratic culture whose values it refuses to embrace or, in many cases, ever properly integrate with.

It's not about whether they teach history or maths properly. It's about whether they think Jews should be murdered, or queers executed or whether they think a woman has the right to make her own choices in love and marriage. It's about whether or not they teach that leaving the faith is punishable by death. Stuff like that. It's important to us all, isn't it?

still wrote:

Cal wrote:I'm not keen on any faith-based 'fundamentalist' schools, tbh. I just believe that here in a free and open western democratic society schools - any school - should equip kids to function in a tolerant culture. If I had my way there would be no faith-based teaching at all, but I realise many parents don't feel the same way and we live in a free society, so we allow religious schools.

Our duty as a responsible society is to ensure that no faith schools are ever permitted to inculcate poisonous attitudes in the young, be they from Islam or from Christianity. The sad fact is that Islam has not gone through a religious enlightenment. I feel fairly sure, therefore, that any teaching based on an unreformed 7th century holy book really has some potential to present a threat to the values of a free democratic culture whose values it refuses to embrace or, in many cases, ever properly integrate with.

It's not about whether they teach history or maths properly. It's about whether they think Jews should be murdered, or queers executed or whether they think a woman has the right to make her own choices in love and marriage. It's about whether or not they teach that leaving the faith is punishable by death. Stuff like that. It's important to us all, isn't it?

None of that was facepalm worthy?

The fundie Islamic schools do preach that sort of horrible talk and want the kids to believe it's acceptable.

Rightey wrote:The curriculum of one group of religious schools reads: "Creation stories give a holistic image of the origins of the earth, plants, animals and human beings."

And I doubt the curriculum of the fundamentalist Muslim schools read, explicitly, "We teach kids to hate America!" either. I am sure the majority of Christian schools aren't fundamentalist, but those that are may not be shouting about it.

Rightey wrote:In another, it says that 'The Darwinian mechanism delivers clarifying power within a certain range of phenomena, but it is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits.'

This might not be as overtly evil as teaching kids to be terrorists but I would definitely like to see schools that teach that shut down.

Rightey wrote:If it's so easy to move between the streams than why even have them? The issue with the streams here is that if a kid is in the lower stream for a year, a gap develops in the knowledge they have and the knowledge someone in the upper stream has and then it becomes difficult to close that gap.

So that bright A*-grade kids can be stretched and challenged, and struggling C-grade kids given the support they need to achieve that.

Generally there is some locking-in of sets towards the end of school as people start taking higher vs. foundation tier GCSEs, which have slightly different syllabi, but especially towards the start of school someone might get a lot better at e.g. maths during a year, and it wouldn't make sense for under-performance aged 11 to impact them aged 16 when they might have discovered a love for the subject aged 12.

Year-by-year streaming is basically a middle ground between having proper, harsh streams that you enter young and stay in, and having no streams at all. It's not perfect but it works OK.

Moggy wrote:

easier to remember joke name wrote:

Cal wrote:

Rightey wrote:If the school is doing a good job at teaching the other subjects should it still be shut down?

One of the most intelligent posts here. This question is salient to the entire issue of religious schools. I would really be interested to know the answer - it is such a fundamental point.

And the answer is obviously yes.

Depends.

Would Rightey or Cal be happy to keep open the fundie Islamic schools as long as they were performing well at History, Sport and Maths?

I would be fine with that as long as they didn't preach hate for others. I disagree with the religion but not the peoples right to educate their children how they see fit.

Karl wrote:

Rightey wrote:The curriculum of one group of religious schools reads: "Creation stories give a holistic image of the origins of the earth, plants, animals and human beings."

And I doubt the curriculum of the fundamentalist Muslim schools read, explicitly, "We teach kids to hate America!" either. I am sure the majority of Christian schools aren't fundamentalist, but those that are may not be shouting about it.

Of course the fundamentalist Christian schools are shouting about it, that is their selling point, that they teach fundamentalist Christian beliefs. If the parents don't like that then they would put their children in either a public school or a less fundamentalist school. The difference between the Christian schools and the Muslim ones is that one teaches that the Earth was created in a week, and the other teaches the Earth was created in a week, oh and also hate the West and oppress women.

Rightey wrote:In another, it says that 'The Darwinian mechanism delivers clarifying power within a certain range of phenomena, but it is rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics and young people need to emerge from school with a clear sense of its limits.'

This might not be as overtly evil as teaching kids to be terrorists but I would definitely like to see schools that teach that shut down.
[/quote]

So if it's not overtly evil, what is it? Implicitly evil? Are you really trying to compare teaching creationism to, as you put it in your own words "teaching kids to be terrorists"?

I agree that knowing that evolution is real is important, but I don't think it is so important that people should have their rights trampled upon, especially if, as I've said these schools are doing well in all the other areas. If they are providing a narrow, and limited education like those illegal Jewish schools they should be shut down.

Rightey wrote:If it's so easy to move between the streams than why even have them? The issue with the streams here is that if a kid is in the lower stream for a year, a gap develops in the knowledge they have and the knowledge someone in the upper stream has and then it becomes difficult to close that gap.

So that bright A*-grade kids can be stretched and challenged, and struggling C-grade kids given the support they need to achieve that.

Generally there is some locking-in of sets towards the end of school as people start taking higher vs. foundation tier GCSEs, which have slightly different syllabi, but especially towards the start of school someone might get a lot better at e.g. maths during a year, and it wouldn't make sense for under-performance aged 11 to impact them aged 16 when they might have discovered a love for the subject aged 12.

Year-by-year streaming is basically a middle ground between having proper, harsh streams that you enter young and stay in, and having no streams at all. It's not perfect but it works OK.[/quote][/quote]

From the data I've seen, which I admit is limited as it's only from Ontario, streaming does not work, if the British system really does work then hat's off to you but I'd like to see some solid numbers first.

Christian fundie schools don't just teach that the Earth was made in a week, as I showed on the first page.



While that doesn't explicitly order the deaths of homosexuals, it is telling kids that God wants gays dead. I'd imagine that has quite an effect on kids that are brought up to believe in the literal word of God.

Rightey wrote:

Karl wrote:And I doubt the curriculum of the fundamentalist Muslim schools read, explicitly, "We teach kids to hate America!" either. I am sure the majority of Christian schools aren't fundamentalist, but those that are may not be shouting about it.

Of course the fundamentalist Christian schools are shouting about it, that is their selling point, that they teach fundamentalist Christian beliefs. [...] The difference between the Christian schools and the Muslim ones is that one teaches that the Earth was created in a week, and the other teaches the Earth was created in a week, oh and also hate the West and oppress women.

My point was that I am quite sure there are Christian schools out there who are more actively anti-science and anti-medicine than the syllabus you posted implies. It's one thing to say "we teach a holistic view of creation" - which I wouldn't view as particularly fundamentalist, as even moderate Christians believe in silly things like 'guided evolution' - and another thing to say "biologists are liars and condoms will give you AIDS," and one suspects there will be Christian schools out there teaching the latter. This is why we need solid rules on what a belief 'too fundamentalist' to teach a child is that's generic enough to apply to any religion, and schools failing that test need to be shut down.

It shouldn't matter if they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or anything else -- if their teachings are moderate enough then I can see there's an argument to be made that it's OK, but if they are too fundamentalist then I would say: anyone poisoning a child's mind with dangerous nonsense should not be allowed to teach.

Again, I don't think the direct comparison between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism is particularly helpful because I view them both as being potentially detrimental-enough influences on a child's education to legislate against. If you do insist on drawing the comparison though, then of course Christian fundamentalism won't tell kids to 'hate the West', as modern Christianity obviously has close ties to the West; a lot of fundamentalist Christians seem to turn out pretty racist and homophobic, though, so maybe there is an element of hatred in those environments and it's just less obvious because it isn't directed at the majority here?

Rightey wrote:So if it's not overtly evil, what is it? Implicitly evil? Are you really trying to compare teaching creationism to, as you put it in your own words "teaching kids to be terrorists"?

At the risk of showing my fedora, as a scientist I do think stunting a child's scientific education is at least a bit evil; but no, I don't think the comparison is important or helpful. I am anti-religion in education altogether, so of course I want schools teaching any religious nonsense as fact to be shut down.

Rightey wrote:I agree that knowing that evolution is real is important, but I don't think it is so important that people should have their rights trampled upon, especially if, as I've said these schools are doing well in all the other areas. If they are providing a narrow, and limited education like those illegal Jewish schools they should be shut down.

Teaching creationism in the way you outlined might well not fail my fundamentalism test, I don't know. It would depend how it was taught and how evolution was presented.

Regardless, though, again: I'm anti-religion in education altogether. We can talk about that if you like. While I wouldn't expect this view to be shared by the majority of people, I don't personally believe parents should have the right to take their kids out of comprehensive, secular education. Parents absolutely have the right to sit down with their child in the evenings after school and tell little Matthew that what he learned in Biology class was bollocks, or tell little Mohammed not to make friends with white boys because they are infidels, or tell little Labe never to speak English at home because it's not a holy language. What they do in their own house is up to them. Parents also have the right to send their kids to a church, mosque, or synagogue on the weekends and what they do in there is up to them as well. But sending your kid to a real school during the school day should be part of the social contract that makes up citizenship in a Western society.

Rightey wrote:From the data I've seen, which I admit is limited as it's only from Ontario, streaming does not work, if the British system really does work then hat's off to you but I'd like to see some solid numbers first.

Sorry, I don't have any numbers, I don't really know what they would look like or how to get them. I've never heard anyone really complain about the streaming system we have currently, but I did have one class at school where the teachers in that department refused to stream (History) and it was fine too.

I think the important thing is that kids aren't locked into being considered 'smart' or 'slow' at an early age, once you get that fundamental principle encoded in the system it probably doesn't matter that much if you mix or have yearly streams or whatever.

Karl wrote:RE was boring as shite at my religious primary school - where it was just all Jesus all the time - it was only when I got to secular secondary school and started to learn about all the world religions that it got pretty interesting. I almost did Philosophy & Ethics GCSE but I ended up taking German instead for reasons I can't really remember now.

Be glad your religious RE lessons were only boring - my high school RE lessons were outright bigoted, especially when we got to ages 15-17. I somehow ended up being on the Nicky Campbell show one night agreeing that the homosex folk should be allowed to adopt. The next day I was challenged and pushed against a trophy cabinet by my guidance teacher for daring to be so tolerant. FWIW at the time we were one of the top 25 performing schools in Scotland.

This is purely anecdotal, but some of the stuff I've seen taught in Catholic school I definitely wouldn't want my kids exposed to.

Crikey! Sounds grim!

Moggy wrote:Christian fundie schools don't just teach that the Earth was made in a week, as I showed on the first page.



While that doesn't explicitly order the deaths of homosexuals, it is telling kids that God wants gays dead. I'd imagine that has quite an effect on kids that are brought up to believe in the literal word of God.

It's a red herring, though, isn't it? Do a Google search for the number of homosexuals murdered by Christian fundamentalists around the world in, say, the past five years. Then do another one for the number of homosexuals murdered by Islamic fundamentalists around the world in the same period. Let me know what you find - because I think I know what the answer will look like.

Cal wrote:

Moggy wrote:Christian fundie schools don't just teach that the Earth was made in a week, as I showed on the first page.



While that doesn't explicitly order the deaths of homosexuals, it is telling kids that God wants gays dead. I'd imagine that has quite an effect on kids that are brought up to believe in the literal word of God.

It's a red herring, though, isn't it? Do a Google search for the number of homosexuals murdered by Christian fundamentalists around the world in, say, the past five years. Then do another one for the number of homosexuals murdered by Islamic fundamentalists around the world in the same period. Let me know what you find - because I think I know what the answer will look like.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2008/02/12/ga ... in-brazil/

Activists estimate that more than 2,680 gay people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2006.

Cal wrote:It's a red herring, though, isn't it? Do a Google search for the number of homosexuals murdered by Christian fundamentalists around the world in, say, the past five years. Then do another one for the number of homosexuals murdered by Islamic fundamentalists around the world in the same period. Let me know what you find - because I think I know what the answer will look like.

The onus is on you as the person making the claim to demonstrate that Muslim countries have the highest rate of LGBT killings per capita. They may well do, though there is evidence to suggest that the title has been previously held by Brazil [1], an overwhelmingly Christian country.

Either way, it's utterly ridiculous bordering on farcical to imply that teaching homophobia to British children would be OK as long as the religious group doing it were not the biggest net contributor of LGBT killings worldwide. Teaching children to hate homosexuals is completely abhorrent and should be roundly condemned no matter who is doing it.

Not only that, but your repeated implication that Islamic fundamentalism is somehow uniquely evil is also a load of complete nonsense. Fundamentalist Islamists operate in the world's largest power vacuum; fundamentalists from other religions do not. There are plenty of examples [2, 3, 4, 5, 6] of other brutal fundamentalist groups affiliated with other religions, and there is no reason to suspect they would not be just as bad if they operated in equivalent power vacuums. The Lord's Resistance Army, which operates in several African states but primarily in Uganda, is an example of a Christian-affiliated group who approach ISIS in brutality - using little boys as soldiers and little girls as sex slaves [7] - but are better-contained by a somewhat more stable surrounding geopolitical situation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobic_violence_in_Brazil#Anti-LGBT_violence
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Regional_examples
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism#Contemporary
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_terrorism
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_religious_terrorism#Since_1948
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh_terrorism#Rise_of_militancy
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

lex-man wrote:

Cal wrote:

Moggy wrote:Christian fundie schools don't just teach that the Earth was made in a week, as I showed on the first page.



While that doesn't explicitly order the deaths of homosexuals, it is telling kids that God wants gays dead. I'd imagine that has quite an effect on kids that are brought up to believe in the literal word of God.

It's a red herring, though, isn't it? Do a Google search for the number of homosexuals murdered by Christian fundamentalists around the world in, say, the past five years. Then do another one for the number of homosexuals murdered by Islamic fundamentalists around the world in the same period. Let me know what you find - because I think I know what the answer will look like.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2008/02/12/ga ... in-brazil/

Activists estimate that more than 2,680 gay people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2006.

Normally I would laugh when Cal is so easily proved wrong, but the murder of people based only on their sexuality isn't a laughing matter.

Cal, it is utterly bizarre how willing you are to ignore horrors just to avoid having to change your mind or admit you were wrong about something.

Cal wrote:
It's a red herring, though, isn't it? Do a Google search for the number of homosexuals murdered by Christian fundamentalists around the world in, say, the past five years. Then do another one for the number of homosexuals murdered by Islamic fundamentalists around the world in the same period. Let me know what you find - because I think I know what the answer will look like.

One might also say it's a red herring, during a discussion specifically regarding the UK education system to invoke worldwide crime stats.

Perhaps we should instead, in the interests of honesty, see how many students of the respective fundamentalist religious education centres in the UK went on to murder homosexuals?

(Is it none? Bet it's none)

Poll: Half Of Muslims Want Homosexuality Banned

Responding to the poll, Trevor Phillips says "the integration of Muslims will probably be the hardest task" the UK has ever faced.

Just over half of Muslims in Britain think homosexuality should be illegal, a survey has revealed. A poll carried out by ICM found that 52% of those quizzed disagreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain, and 47% said it was unacceptable for a gay or lesbian person to teach in school. Commissioned for Channel 4, the poll will feature in a documentary called What British Muslims Really Think, presented by Trevor Phillips - former Equality and Human Rights Commission chairman. The survey of 1,000 people was carried out to try to understand what British Muslims think, and why some young Muslims are being drawn to violence. It found only 34% would tell the police if they thought someone they knew was getting involved with supporters of terrorism in Syria and 4% said they sympathise with people who take part in suicide bombing to fight injustice.

More than one third - 39% - were also found to be of the view that "wives should always obey their husbands". A large majority of UK Muslims, 86%, said they felt a strong sense of belonging to Britain, with 94% saying they felt they were able to freely practise their religion. But 23% said they would support there being areas of Britain in which Sharia law was introduced. Responding to the findings, Mr Phillips said they pose profound questions for society and the implications for future relations between Britain's Muslim and non-Muslim communities. "Hearing what British Muslims themselves think, rather than listening to those purporting to speak on their behalf, is critical if we are to prevent the establishment of a nation within our nation," he said. "Many of the results will be troubling to Muslims and non-Muslims alike - and the analysis of the age profile shows us that the social attitudes revealed are unlikely to change quickly. The integration of Britain's Muslims will probably be the hardest task we've ever faced. It will require the abandonment of the milk-and-water multiculturalism still so beloved of many, and the adoption of a far more muscular approach to integration."

ICM used face-to-face, in-home research to question a representative sample of the 1,000 UK Muslims.

http://news.sky.com/story/1676189/poll- ... ity-banned

Phillips said we should not be afraid of challenging Muslims on the core values of British society.

He said: “We are more nervous about Muslims because we feel people will be offended. But my view is that looking at the results of this survey, which have surprised me, that we have gone beyond the situation where we can say: ‘OK, don’t worry; they will come round in time,’ because that is not going to happen we have to make things change now.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016 ... sharia-law

'A nation within in a nation' (Trevor Phillips words, not mine). Islam might be permanently marooned in its 7th century ideology, but it's savvy enough to know the best way to achieve its aims here in the west is via the ballot box. If it can use our own democratic process to achieve its goals (and there are clear historical precedents for the subversion of the democratic process from within by ideologues and tyrants) then that whole issue of 'integration' which Sir Trevor worries about so much won't ever be a problem - because it won't even exist. Short of taking away the democratic vote from the UK's muslims (which, to be clear, I do not promote), I see no way to avoid the eventual victory of Islam in the UK and Europe and as whole. This is how they will win, if at all. Not fighting, not civil war, not even terrorism. It might take another 50 years - but they can wait. 1400 years of conquest would suggest that Islam is all about the Long Game. It's a numbers game - and they understand this. And it's a numbers game that all the statistics suggest they will win. They know this, too.