Two boys in English school punished for not participating in Islamic prayer

Over the last day many readers have sent me the story from the Daily Mail with the (genuinely) shocking headline, “Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah.” The readers feel that this is one of the most extreme and alarming events they have seen so far in the Islamization of Britain. However, I don’t think that this is a significant story. There is no indication that this was the result of a school policy; it was apparently something done by one teacher. Furthermore, parents are in an uproar and have complained to the press, and the deputy headmaster of the school defensively pouts, ” I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the Press before coming to me.” This seems to have been a single, unrepresentative happening and the teacher is probably going to get in trouble over it.

Meanwhile, all the people quoted in the story including the angry parents hasten to state that they support the teaching of Islam to 11 year olds. The source of the current imbroglio, I think, is that today’s progressive pedagogy emphasizes that subjects must be taught through a “hands-on” approach, in which pupils “do” the thing they’re studying. You don’t learn about history by reading about it or discussing it in class, because that’s boring and alienating—in other words, knowledge of the world is boring and alienating. No, you learn about history by involving yourself in it personally, namely by dressing up as and play-acting the historical figures of the period you’re studying (a “drama” that, by the way, usually makes oppression and discrimination central to the past). So, when this same “hands-on” approach is applied to the study of diverse religions including Islam, it’s to be expected that you don’t learn about Islam by reading about it or discussing it in class. You learn about it by dressing and praying like a Muslim. The two boys in this case refused to participate in the class activity, and the teacher punished them.

Where the teacher obviously went too far, even by the standards of today’s far-left culture, was in requiring that the pupils pray as Muslims in addition to dressing as Muslims and practicing Islamic customs. And let us understand that such “study” of Islam (that is, doing the dress and the customs, but not the prayer) is going on in schools throughout Britain and America, and is not being challenged, and is not creating headlines.

On a side point, the story doesn’t explain why 11 and 12 year olds are going to school in July.

- end of initial entry -

Morgan writes from Wigan, England:

Going back as far as I can remember, the Summer break pattern for children in Britain’s secondary schools (age 11+) is to spend the first two weeks (at least) of July in school, then break until re-starting again sometime in the first week of September. A total break of six weeks.

Primary schools (up to age 11) usually start their Summer break a week earlier for a break of seven weeks.

This was the pattern when I started school some 50 years ago, and it has never substantially changed.

LA replies:

Thanks for the information. In the U.S., most public schools (i.e. schools operating under local governments) have traditionally closed from around June 20 to after Labor Day in early September—about two and a half months, though in recent years many schools have started to resume classes in late August.

Brandon F. writes:

There is some fodder for discussion in this story since the reaction of the public could be the real story.

If some rogue Christian teacher did the same the uproar would be stupendous with the leftists screaming about an institutional mindset and culture of oppression and empirical bigotry…..oh the inhumanity!

Jeff in England writes:

THE LAST THING I REMEMBER BEFORE I REFUSED TO KNEEL
WAS A TRAINLOAD OF BRITS BOGGED DOWN IN AN ISLAMIC FIELD.

(That’s a paraphrase of a line from of Bob Dylan’s “Senor,” from the 1978 album Street-Legal. Here are the lyrics and the original recording. By the way I think it’s a poor song overall, but it has some good lines.)

LA writes to Jeff (July 6):

I’m still laughing at your “The last thing I remember before I refused to kneel.” That is truly funny, as well as macabre and horrible and appropriate to this story. I wonder how many readers will get it, or, if they don’t get it, will click on the link to the lyrics of Senor which I provided and see the original lyric and figure it out.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 05, 2008 01:29 AM | Send