A local school district has apologized after a parent complained about the use of a song about Islam in her son’s seventh-grade social studies class that she said seems to promote the religion.
On Tuesday, Nichole Negron posted pictures on a Huntington Beach community Facebook page showing pictures from a notebook her son brought home with drawings and song lyrics that included a stick-figure man saying, “Believe in Allah! There is no other god” and lyrics to a song that described spreading Islam. District officials said the lesson took place before Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
“Like a sandstorm/on the desert/sending camels/into motion,” the lyrics read. “Like how a single faith/can make a heart open/They might only have one God/But they can make an explosion.”
The post has spread on social media, sparking debate.
At the Ocean View School District board meeting Tuesday night, Negron told the board she was upset with the song.
“I believe that by singing this song, the children feel comfortable believing that Allah might be the only god and maybe that they should start following him,” she said in an interview with CBS Los Angeles Tuesday. “That I’m not okay with.”
Negron and the teacher couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
The Ocean View district issued a statement Wednesday from Superintendent Carol Hansen saying a school administrator and the teacher met with the family Tuesday.
The district’s seventh-grade social studies classes use a curriculum from the state that includes lessons on major world religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, the district said.
“It was unfortunate the lesson on Islam ended just prior to the tragic world events last week,” Hansen said.
“I apologize on behalf of the district if the song used in the World History lesson may have offended anyone,” she said. “It was not the intention of the teacher to incite, anger or offend.”
Ojaala Ahmad, communications coordinator for the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said while she didn’t know the teacher’s intentions behind using the song in her lesson on Islam, words in the lyrics like “explosion” were unfortunate. They might perpetuate an idea that terrorism or violence are supported by the religion, she said.
“Our reaction was that obviously the teacher could have had a better choice of words,” Ahmad said. “Those (lyrics) were very open to interpretation. ... If (the students) taught misinformation or biased information, that’s going to be on their minds.”
Negron’s post, which went up Tuesday on the Facebook group Huntington Beach CommUNITY Voice with almost 10,000 members, drew 586 comments. Some commenters said the teacher should be fired or they’d withdraw their child from the school, while others pointed out that Islam is part of state curriculum standards for social studies or history.
Negron wrote later in the post that she didn’t have a problem with the lesson, but with the song.
“I would have liked notice before my son sang it repeatedly,” Negron said. “I would not have let him partake in that particular activity.”