From what I can gather here, there is a curriculum ("kirikulum") debate raging in New York "negara" (state) over the role of Arab langauge and culture in the curriculum taught to Arab-(American) students and others.
Judging by the photograph, Frank Gaffney, "Presiden Pusat Kajian Keamanan dan Kebijakan di Washington," is demanding a multi-cultural "kiriculum" that would include Arab language and culture.
It has become fashionable in American politics to assert that education in "madrassas" (Arab religious schools) necessarily leads to increased terrorism.
On January 23, KSFO Morning Show hosts Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers repeated the accusation, first made by InsightMag.com, that "researchers connected to" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) have said that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia," even though the story has been debunked by CNN, and the Clinton camp has denied any involvement. Nonetheless, Morgan and Rodgers repeated the allegation while adding a new, equally baseless accusation that the story came from the campaign of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC). MediaMatters.Org
Since Barack Obama was educated as a child for a few years in a madrassa, the political purpose of the discussion at this time is to make Barack Obama seem foreign and strange, subtly associating him with America's fears of terrorism and of everything and everyone who comes from beyond its own borders (xenophobia), particularly people who are not white and/or don't speak English.
Since the dawn of American civilization, in the colonies before the Union, we have had raging debates over which language(s) would be spoken and taught in schools. Attemps to compel immigrants to speak "English-only" are a way of putting immigrants on the defensive, making them feel unwanted, scape-goating them for unrelated economic, social and political concerns, constantly creating and reinforcing a paranoid "us vs. them" approach to the world.
Children are caught in the middle of this struggle, with politicians and social activists believing, perhaps correctly, that they can control the direction of the country by controlling the education of its children.
Meanwhile, educators perceive an essential role of language acquisition in the child's self-image and sense of place in the American context. Education advocates who are primarily concerned with the children and their communities often emphasize the empowerment that comes from maintaining fluency in one's own native language and culture. On the other hand, political advocates primarily concerned with reducing immigration and maintaining control over American society and institutions are often heard advocating that immigrants adopt American language and culture as quickly as possible, believing the maintenance of immigrants' language and culture to be irrelevant or even harmful to second-language acquisition, cultural, political and social assimiliation.
1 comment:
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