The article does not quote the teacher as claiming that all Muslims are terrorists. The only thing that comes close to a direct quote is the student saying that the teacher said "his favorite candidate would keep Muslim terrorists out of the U.S." (again, not a direct quote of the teacher, but a direct quote from the article).
The teacher may very well have been insensitive (though the obliqueness of the article makes this impossible to discern), but I'd like to think that we would all support keeping Muslim terrorists out of the U.S.
Well, you're right of course. It's the job, though, of pessimists like me to assume the worst.
I had a colleague who was accused of stating something like that and it was proved to be false. What had happened is that a student said the Israelis blew up the WTC on 9/11 and she said that it was actually Al Qaeda. The student said that Muslims would never do that and the teacher said that these Muslims did do that. The student reported this to the principal and it blew up a bit before student witnesses corroborated what the teacher said.
It's always difficult to really recall what students and teachers said in the classroom, litteraly that is. I do believe though that a teacher should always refrain from political statements. A teacher should teach basic facts though, so the teacher mentioned in the previous comment (regaring 9/11) definately did the right thing, imo.
PS Thanks for adding me to your blogroll!
He said: .."saying his favorite candidate would keep Muslim terrorists out of the U.S."
She said: "A 16-year-old Muslim student said one of her teachers told a class that all Muslims are terrorists"
The Muslim faithful are hyper-sensitive whenever the words "terrorist" and "Muslim" are used in the same sentence, so I can see how how this was perceived as "all Muslims".
Still, I would have thought that a one-on-one discussion between parent, student and teacher would have been more appropriate than blowing it up (pardon the expression) into a national news item.
Commenting by HaloScan
