Some parents of students at a southern Indiana school district are upset after the school assigned a worksheet about Sharia law portraying it in a positive light, the Courier-Journal reports.
The worksheet was assigned to seventh-grade students at Highland Hills Middle School. Students were asked to read a passage about a 20-year-old woman who feels “very fortunate” to live under Sharia law in Saudi Arabia. The passage describes her marriage to a man who already has one wife, and it describes her modest dress.
The Courier-Journal received a copy of the passage which reads: “I understand that some foreigners see our dress as a way of keeping women from being equal, but ... I find Western women’s clothing to be horribly immodest.”
Parents shared their frustrations during a recent New Albany-Floyd County school board meeting.
“The way that the worksheet is left would be like describing how effective Hitler was at nationalizing Germany and creating patriotism but leaving out that he slaughtered 6 million Jews,” said Dean Hohl, one of the parents who spoke out at the meeting. “I’m just not okay with my daughter – or any child that age – leaving class with the understanding that anything about Sharia law is okay.”
Another parent that spoke out said the worksheet reads like propaganda. “If you read that, you would think everything’s wonderful in that world,” Jon Baker said.
Bill Briscoe, a spokesman for the school district, told the Courier-Journal that the curriculum is being reviewed in light of the complaints.
The worksheet was created by InspirEd Educators Inc. Sharon Coletti, president of InspirEd Educators Inc., created the worksheet. She told the Courier-Journal that the purpose of the worksheet was to create an engaging lesson, not to indoctrinate anyone.
