In September, New York City will open the nation's first public school dedicated to teaching Arabic and Arab culture. Named after the Christian Arab poet Khalil Gibran, it's one of 65 specialty dual-language schools in New York. But it's the only one that has sparked a public controversy.
Some conservative critics have warned it could breed home-grown extremists. Others have attacked it for balkanizing public education, which has historically played a primary role in helping the nation's many immigrants assimilate. Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes wrote that "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage." He pointed to a column in the Middle East Quarterly about Middlebury College's prestigious language schools. It contended that the Arab language curriculum there "indoctrinated [students] with a tendentious Arab nationalist reading of Middle Eastern history." Jeff Wiesenfeld, trustee of the City University of New York, said "Other ethnic schools have never been infused with this ethnic triumphalism which you have in many of the Islamic academies that are known around the world as madrassahs. We recognize that most Muslim people are as law-abiding as anyone else and abhor terrorism, but most terrorists today, as they are defined today, are Muslims."
Supporters deny both claims and say the academy is designed to educate world citizens and bridge Eastern and Western cultures, something sorely needed in today's increasingly global world. Mr. Ibrahim of the Arab American Institute hopes the school will not only help train Arabic speakers, but also help dispel the myths that he contends feed fear in the nation. He likes to point out that madrassah is the Arabic word for school and that the majority of Arabs in the US, like Khalil Gibran, are Christians. At the same time, US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies desperately need qualified Arab speakers to navigate the changed world.
There are more than 60 other dual-language schools in New York, notes Joel Klein, New York schools chancellor. Most are for Spanish, but others focus on cultures as diverse as Creole, Chinese, and Russian. At the same time as they teach language and culture, they also prepare students to pass the rigorous New York State Regents Examinations. He has promised that the school's curriculum would be monitored. That assuaged Mr. Wiesenfeld's concerns. The Department of Education also moved the school to another location with more space.
The Education Department continues to stand by the school, which is slated to start with 60 sixth-grade students from diverse backgrounds. Applications are still being processed. |