Insight
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Flash Point
From the pages of the Jewish News
from this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
and 60 years ago.
Farmington Schools adopts international affairs course,
despite community objections.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
StaffWriter
la
semester. Also voting against the half-
credit course were trustees Linda
Enberg and Jack Inch.
Voting for adoption of the course
for fall 2003 were trustees Priscilla
Brouillette, Gary Sharp, Frank Reid
and Cathleen Webb.
After the.vote, Superintendent C.
Robert Maxfield said the district
would institute a thorough review of
the new course after its first year.
embers of the
Farmington Public
Schools board of educa-
tion have approved an
elective course called "International
Affairs," to begin this fall at the dis-
trict's three high schools.
The class, one of several presented
to board trustees by Jerry Fouchey,
director of curriculum and staff devel-
Left-Leaning Bias?
opment, won approval by a 4-3 vote
Community members who spoke at
at the June 17 board meeting.
the 4 1 /2-hour meeting expressed con-
Beginning with the Class of 2006,
cern that the proposed course is biased
which enters high school this fall,
Farmington students
in its presentation
will be required to
of political issues.
choose one of three
They especially
half-credit interna-
objected to
tional studies courses.
sources listed as
The course approved
"--; recommended
June 17 is the first to
adjuncts — peri-
come before the
odicals and Web
seven-member board.
sites they found
The other two will
left-leaning at
focus on sociology
best, and anti-
and cultural anthro-
American or anti-
pology.
Semitic at worst.
As Fouchey
"If you approve
described it, the
this course as out-
course encompasses
lined here, a new
"the study of coun-
standard of bias
tries and world
will be intro-
Robert Stulberg favors a required
regions currently
duced into the
American government course for
undergoing signifi-
curriculum," said
high school seniors.
cant political, eco-
Susan Bernstein
nomic, social, cultur-
Kahn of
Farmington Hills.
al or environmental changes."
Kahn looked up some of the Web
The purpose of the international
sites at random, and found "no site
affairs course, Fouchey said, is to
where our children find reasons to be
"equip the student with the tools to
proud to be an American."
thoughtfully respond to the changing
events in the world."
What she found was typified by the
Web site AlterNet.com , which
The June 17 vote reflected strenu-
includes the following statement: "'It
ous objections by about a dozen par-
is time to say in public that the
ents of students in the district.
United States is a fascist state,'" she
"I would like us to put this aside
and look a little closer at the Web sites said.
"I do believe there is great value to
mentioned in the curriculum," said
teaching global issues and America's
trustee Pamela Christian, who voted
role in the world," she said, adding
against adopting the international
that "the way the curriculum is cur-
affairs curriculum for the 2003 fall
rently designed may very well have a
negative effect on our students."
Community members first heard of
the international affairs course at a
school district meeting in March
about globalization education. "It
came up that there was a course being
developed that no one had heard of,"
said Don Cohen of West Bloomfield,
former executive director of the Anti-
Defamation League Michigan Region.
In response to that meeting, Kahn,
along with Robert and Linda Stulberg
of Farmington Hills, met with
Fouchey April 1 to voice their objec-
tions to the curriculum. Although
Cohen, a member of the school dis-
trict's diversity committee, was unable
to attend, the others brought along a
three-page memo he had written.
The memo included sources intend-
ed to broaden the discussion and
counterbalance the uniformly one-
sided opinions Cohen said several
parts of the curriculum contained. In
addition, it pinpointed parts of the
curriculum relating to the Middle East
that Cohen said showed a strong anti-
Israel bias.
For example, Palestine is referenced
as a nation, and students are asked to
study Jewish settlements and American
Jewish influence on the American
political process, while terrorism,
Islamism and the influence of Arab
nations goes unmentioned, he said.
Implementation, Evaluation
Many of Cohen's suggestions were
incorporated in the 37-page version of
the course outline before the board,
yet he said the course still had the
potential, when taught in a real class-
room by a real teacher, of carrying out
the biases in the original outline
because much of the sourcing was still
the same.
"So, in addition to revising the doc-
ument, some concrete actions must be
taken to ensure the original mindset
will no longer guide its implementa-
tion," he said.
INSIGHT on page 20
1993
Some 193 acres in Hartland
Township goes on the market after
Camp Tamarack decides to merge
with Camp Maas in Ortonville in
the wake of tight funding and
increased township development.
1983 C
Detroiter Jill Colman Ruskin is
ordained a Reform rabbi by Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion, Cincinnati.
1973
An oil painting by well-known
Michigan artist Max Shaye, com-
missioned for the Old Orchard
Center at Orchard Lake and Maple
roads in West Bloomfield by the
center's owners Gilbert and
Silverman, will be hung next week.
1963
At the 31st annual convention of
B'nai B'rith Women, District 6,
held in Chicago, Mrs. Alfred E.
Lakin of Detroit is elected presi-
dent.
Rabbi Emanuel Applebaum is
elected president of the Jewish
Historical Society of Michigan.
1953
As part of a program on Jewish cul-
tural and educational activities, the
Manischewitz Co. presents to United
Hebrew Schools of Detroit copies of
My Mission to Israel by Dr. James C.
MacDonald, first U.S. ambassador to
Israel.
Dr. Harold A. Basilius, professor
of German and director of the
Humanities program at Wayne
State University in Detroit, is the
Franklin Memorial Professor in
Human Relations for 1953-1954.
1943
Jewish citizens of France who have
been naturalized since 1927 are los-
ing their national rights, an order
that many believe will result in a
mass expulsion of Jews. LI
— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin
7/ 4
2003
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