Perilous Times
High School exams 'slams' Christianity, lauds Islam
By YOAV GONEN Education Reporter
Last Updated: 3:26 PM, August 24, 2010
State testmakers played favorites when quizzing high-schoolers on world
religions -- giving Islam and Buddhism the kid-gloves treatment while
socking it to Christianity, critics say.
Teachers complain that the reading selections from the Regents exam in
global history and geography given last week featured glowing passages
pertaining to Muslim society but much more critical essay excerpts on
the subject of Christianity.
"There should have been a little balance in there," said one Brooklyn
teacher who administered the exam but did not want to be identified.
RELIGIOUSLY ‘CORRECT’: A new Regents exam has glowing descriptions of
Islam’s past (left), but is less forgiving when it comes to the history
of Christianity (right).
.
"To me, this was offensive because it's just so inappropriate and the
timing of it was piss-poor," he added, referring to the debate over the
plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero.
The most troubling passage came from Daniel Roselle's "A World History:
A Cultural Approach," observers said.
The passage reads: "Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with
them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to
the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that
of western Christendom."
Meanwhile, an excerpt listing the common procedures used by Christian
friars to introduce the religion in Latin America stated that "idols,
temples and other material evidences of paganism [were] destroyed," and
"Christian buildings [were] often constructed on sites of destroyed
native temples" -- and built with free Indian labor, to boot.
"I can see why some people might see these questions as skewed," said
Mark MacWilliams, a religious-studies professor at St. Lawrence
University in upstate Canton. "Why does the exam seem to have only
documents that portray Islam as a religion of peace, civilization and
refinement, while it includes documents about Christianity that show it
was anything but peaceful in the Spanish conquest of the Americas?"
At the same time, MacWilliams criticized the presentation of Hernando
Cortes' conquest of Mexico -- which he said portrayed him as a
"choirboy" rather than a "conquistador."
"It's quite a whitewash," he said.
Some other religious-studies experts contacted by The Post said they
didn't see what the fuss was all about.
"[The] selections seem about equal in terms of being
historically/culturally focused, all relatively positive about the
contributions made by each religion as it was introduced into various
societies," wrote Barbara Sproul, an associate professor of religion at
Hunter College in Manhattan.
Yet Michael Dobkowski, chair of Religious Studies at Hobart and William
Smith Colleges in upstate Geneva, asserted that it was only
Christianity for which both positive and negative aspects were
highlighted.
"Some [essays] suggest a kind of Christian triumphalism and the desire
to convert the other that is not present in the treatment of Islam," he
said. "My impression is that there is certainly a divergence of
approaches and impressions that should not appear in a Regents exam of
this caliber."
State education officials said that every effort had been made to
present accurate historical information through the excerpts.
They said the questions had been developed over a four-year period and
require students to use their own knowledge of social studies to
produce answers.
They added that they weren't aware of any complaints about the exam.
The Muslim reading:
* “Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love
of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh
century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western
Christendom.
* “Some of the finest centers of Moslem life were established in Spain.
In Cordova, the streets were solidly paved, while at the same time in
Paris people waded ankle-deep in mud after a rain. Cordovan public
lamps lighted roads for as far as ten miles; yet seven hundred years
later there was still not a single public lamp in London!”
Source: Daniel Roselle, A World History: A Cultural Approach
The Christian reading:
Common Procedures used by Friars in Converting Areas in Spanish America:
* “Idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism destroyed.”
* “Christian buildings often constructed on sites of destroyed native
temples in order to symbolize and emphasize the substitution of one
religion by the other.”
* “Indians supplied construction labor without receiving payment.”
* “In a converted community, services and fiestas were regularly held
in the church building.”
Source: Based on information from Charles Gibson, Spain in America
Additional reporting by Chuck Bennett