NYT: The Great Christmas Strike of 1906 (Jewish, Christian, Muslim religion good read)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/opinion/the-great-christmas-strike-of-1906.html?_r=0

By PETER MANSEAUDEC. 29, 2015

WHEN schools in Augusta County, Va., closed earlier this month after parents objected to an Arabic calligraphy lesson, it was tempting to see it as only the latest example of the rampant anti-Muslim sentiment that has taken hold in much of the country.

Yet it was also part of a much older conflict in American education: the inevitable tension between exposure to the cultural expression of various religious traditions and fears that art and music may be tools of evangelization in disguise. During a season that includes Christmas, Hanukkah and some years, including this one, the celebration of Muhammad’s birth, skirmishes like this unfold with the predictability of a holiday pageant.

At Riverheads High School in Staunton, Va., students were introduced to the elaborate calligraphy often used in Arabic religious texts with the Shahada, the basic statement of Islamic faith. Asked to copy the lines and curves of the “testimony,” students would attempt to write “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God,” albeit in an alphabet they could not understand.

Kimberly Herndon, the parent who first took to social media to voice her consternation over this assignment (given by a teacher named Cheryl LaPorte), explained her objections to the lesson this way: “Children were deceived when they were told it was calligraphy. This is not calligraphy. This is a language.”

FULL story at link.