There has been a lot of discussion in NY Schools on the proposed closing of school during Muslim holy days. Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C., recently wrote about the issue of holidays in New York schools.
The latest wrangle over religion and schools is in New York City, where the City Council recently voted to add two Muslim holy days to the schools’ holiday calendar.
It may not happen, because Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gets the last word, opposes the idea. “If you close the schools for every single holiday,” the mayor told The New York Times, “there won’t be any school.”
While many groups are claiming that school holidays should be equal for every religion, many others are asking when and where the line will be drawn if this proposal goes through.
Whatever the outcome, the New York calendar debate is noteworthy as a harbinger of challenges ahead as schools grapple with America’s rapidly expanding religious diversity. Recent conflicts, from Hindus objecting to how they’re treated in textbooks, to Native American students seeking accommodation to wear unshorn hair, to Muslim students asking to be released for Friday prayer, members of minority faiths are speaking up as if to say, “We are here too.”
In and of itself, adding two Muslim holy days — Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha — to the holiday list wouldn’t have a major impact on the New York school calendar, as these holidays often fall on weekends or during the summer because their timing is determined by the lunar calendar.
The author offers his opinion on how the holidays and holy days can be accommodated in the classroom.
Meanwhile, there are other First-Amendment-friendly ways to accommodate the religious holiday needs of Muslim students.
Give students of all faiths a reasonable number of excused absences for religious holidays, with no penalty and appropriate opportunities to make up missed work. And, if possible, avoid scheduling major exams (such as the New York Regents exam) on any major religious holy day.
The face of American Schools are changing in order to keep up with the increasingly diversified student body that creates them and this issue will need to be addressed by every state in time.
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Children from minority groups, especially the Muslims, are exposed to the pressure of racism, multiculturalism and bullying. They suffer academically, culturally and linguistically: a high proportion of children of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are leaving British schools with low grades or no qualification.
In the 1980s, the Muslim community in Britain started to set up Muslim schools. The first was the London School of Islamics which I established and which operating from 1981-86. Now there are 133 schools educating approximately 5% Muslim pupils. Very few schools are state funded.
The needs and demands of Muslim children can be met only through Muslim schools, but education is an expensive business and the Muslim community does not have the resources to set up schools for each and every child, and only eight Muslim schools have achieved grant maintained status.
This leaves a majority of children from Muslim families with no choice but to attend state schools. There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models.
Prince Charles, while visiting the first grant maintained Muslim school in north London, said that the pupils would be the future ambassadors of Islam. But what about thousands of others, who attend state schools deemed to be “sink schools”?
The time has come for the Muslim community – in the form of Islamic charities and trusts – to manage and run those state schools where Muslim pupils are in the majority. The Department for Education would be responsible for funding, inspection and maintenance.
The management would be in the hands of educated professional Muslims. The teaching of Arabic, Islamic studies, Urdu and other community languages by qualified Muslim teachers would help the pupils to develop an Islamic identity, which is crucial for mental, emotional and personality development.
In the east London borough of Newham, there are at least 10 state schools where Muslim pupils are in the majority.
The television newscaster Sir Trevor McDonald is a champion of introducing foreign modern languages even at primary level in schools in Britain. The Muslim community would like to see Arabic, Urdu and other community languages introduced at nursery, primary and secondary schools along with European languages so that Muslim pupils have these options.
In education, there should be a choice and at present it is denied to the Muslim community. In the late 80s and early 90s, when I floated the idea of Muslim community schools, I was declared a “school hijacker” by an editorial in the Newham Recorder newspaper in east London.
This clearly shows that the British media does not believe in choice and diversity in the field of education and has no respect for those who are different.
Muslim schools, in spite of meager resources, have excelled to a further extent this year, with two schools achieving 100% A-C grades for five or more GCSEs. They beat well resourced state and independent schools in Birmingham and Hackney.
Muslim schools are doing better because a majority of the teachers are Muslim. The pupils are not exposed to the pressures of racism, multiculturalism and bullying.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk