An Insider from the public schools
Reader comment on: A Madrassa Grows In Brooklyn

Submitted by Flora Huang, May 31, 2007 19:51

For all of you who are putting in your two cents, you should get a perspective from someone who has worked almost ten yeas in the public school system. Every public school is mandated by a strict curricular guidelines that they must follow because students are required to take a large number of standardized exams, and schools are held accountable to these exams. This has been made much worse with the micro-managing that has been happening with the Department of Education. KGIA could not even teach Islamic extremism, as some people irrationally suspect, even if they wanted to.

English language and literature and American History will not be given a lower priority because the students still have to take the 8th grade reading test, 8th grade social studies, the US History Regents, and the English Comprehensive Regents in order to graduate. There are pleny of other dual language schools, such as Amistad in Inwood and Shuang-Wen in Chinatown, and they are open to students of all ethnicities, just as KGIA will be. They are public schools. By law they are not allowed to discriminate. Many of these schools do better than the city in general. These schools do not promote seperatism; quite the opposite. They stress the importance of understanding other cultures.

There is nothing wrong with discussing controversial issues such as Western colonialism in the Middle East or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because part of learning is being able to discuss and debate controversial issues. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with discussing Islamic culture from an academic perspective because I remember learning about the New and Old Testament in my world history class in high school because to understand European history and European colonialism, you had to know the contents of the bible. I also remember learning about Mohammed, the Quran, and Islam.

What has made New York a wonderful city is that it embraces people of all cultures. It allows people to embrace their cultural background and ethnic identity, instead of dismissing it. Rather than forcing people to assimilate, the approach is to let them gradually acculturate and adapt to this country over time because people do. This diversity and progressive ideas of this city is what draws so many people to this place including me. KGIA helps promote that.

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