An education expert is warning that some American textbooks present a biased view of Islam and offer a sugarcoated picture of Islamic extremism, a trend that has parents worried about what’s being taught in public schools.
In numerous history textbooks, “key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, the status of women are whitewashed,” said Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, an independent group that reviews history books and other education materials.
Cindy Ross, the mother of a junior high school student in Marin County, Calif., said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she read her son’s textbook last school year.
“I was very shocked by what I saw, looking through the book,” she said — shocked at how Islam was portrayed in her son’s seventh grade history text.
“What did strike me was that all the other religions seemed to be lumped together, where there is an inordinate emphasis on Islam specifically,” Ross said.
Well, this is not stricking at all, specially after knowing that both the Catholic Church (Ohhh, Myyyy) and the Muslims have agreed to erase everything which portraits them in a bad light from history books.
Catholic and Muslim officials want all negative references to each others’ religions removed from school books.
The proposal was put forward in joint statement following talks in Vatican City between delegations from Cairo’s Al Azhar University and senior Catholic officials, Reuters reports.
“Scholastic books should be revised in order not to contain material which may offend the religious sentiments of other believers, at times through the erroneous presentation of dogmas, morals or history,” the joint statement says.
The statement does not detail how the two groups would attempt to achieve this rewrite.
Absolutely shameful. Hiding people’s defects is not the best way to promote peace and justice. It’s just the opposite. Inquisitions, witch hunting, etc have existed, whatever the textbook says.
(UPDATE): Always on Watch has more about the US textbooks whitewashing Islamic extremists.
), Spanish people have other kind of worries. According to the 
at all…
