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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
But she's not hiding her face. She's wearing a non-intrusive head-scarf that keeps her face completely free. All it covers is her hair. There's a picture of the teacher interviewed on TOL on last Sunday's Oregonian front-page (at the top).
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
Hi Ellipsis914,
You need to distinguish between Islam and local traditions. Unfortunately, in many muslim countries, local non-religiious traditions have kept women inferior to men. However, if you look at Islam as a religion, it emphasised women's rights to inherit, to own property, and to keep their property separate from their husbands about 12 or 13 centuries before these rights came into existence for women in the west. For example, until well into the nineteenth century (maybe even the twentieth), women in Britain did not automatically inherit from their parents, had no vote, and had rights greatly abridged when compared to men's rights.
So in that sense, Islam as a religion was way ahead of western societies in giving women full rights.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
Wanted to make several points:
- First of all, I have no problem with keeping religion out of the class-room. But what does “keeping religion out of class-room” mean? In my opinion, it means that teachers don’t preach at children or try to impose their religious views on the students. It does not mean that a teacher’s right to obey the rules of his/her religion is taken away. I.e., if a teacher wears a turban or a head-scarf because a teacher’s religion says they must, that should in no way be considered preaching or crossing the line. School districts and DOE can impose clear guidelines as to what is acceptable and non-intrusive clothing. I.e., districts can impose rules that prohibit teachers from wearing T-shirts that proclaim a message.
- It takes a lot of work to become a teacher – college degrees, practical training, licensing, etc. It’s a long multi-year process. People who go through all that work should be judged by their qualifications and how well they do in the classroom, not by whether they wear a turban or a head-scarf. For example, a teacher should be viewed as a teacher who happens to be a muslim, not as a muslim who happens to be a teacher.
- There is a large number of young men and women who want to go into the teaching profession, and who can make great contributions to our schools, but who are being kept from it by this law. Do we want to disqualify prospective teachers simply because they wear non-intrusive clothing that their religion requires them to do that, and completely disregard their actual qualifications to teach?
- Kids are much more likely to snicker at a teacher's religious clothing behind the teacher's back, than they are to fall over and become muslims, sikhs or jews because their teacher wears a head-scarf, turban or yarmulke.
In response to the ACLU gentleman, I'd like to add that 47 states have no problems with allowing teacher to wear non-intrusive religious clothing and there have been no problems reported about teachers preaching to their captive audience of students. House bill already envisions almost 18 months to allow for careful drafting of rules to prevent proselytizing.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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