I am 10000% behind you, sister.

When push comes to shove, achievements and initiative are what counts.

I don’t care what the Mullahs say. I don’t care about the judgements, the slander, the negative press.

I look at “mehnat”…..and the abilitity and effort to educate, progress and move forward.

Nobody is putting gun to somebodys head and saying “learn sex ed”

but quite frankly, there is more to sex ed than just learning about the basics -or other superficialities.

I think topics like birth-control, safe-sex and contraceptives should not be considered taboo. It’s only the intolerant or the ignorant who can’t seem to find value in this subject area.

anything that benefits society, any knowledge, any know-how —I laud it. We cant just be sugar-coating everything and denying knowledge to our future.

And in this day and age where we are facing certain issues (apart from an unfavourable security situation on the ground) it is CRIMINAL to deny facts and knowledge to our children.

You worded it very well when you said (and I quote you):

“Being educated means keeping an open mind, listening to others before reacting and losing control, it means not throwing text books at a school principal in her office as the parents did, it means not yelling and screaming insults and threats in front of television cameras as the parents and certain other attendees did.”

BRAVO to you. Keep it up, sister, keep it up.

PAKISTAN ZINDABAD

Same here mam

Only courage sets one free.

Well I am not aware of the motive behind DPS management’s decision to introduce a book with controversial content in its syllabi, I can say for sure that it defies common sense to hand over books with stapled pages to students, thinking they won’t tear it apart. If the management considered the content not fit for students why they not tore the pages out themselves?

If other schools are teaching such content, does this gives your school the permission to do so as well?

As for the Islamiat book, it was by one Trevor Barnes and do contain objectionable content. Have you seen the book yourself? because I did and it is certainly not for Pakistani Muslim students. FYI the book is banned in Malaysia since 2008.

Your wrote: “They saw the name Jan Thompson, broke open the glass cabinet in the school lobby and stole copies of the book.The school voluntarily gave all the copies to the members of the Board to be dealt with as they considered right.” - and the parents wrote student names and classes themselves on the books? What a great conspiracy theory. If this is true, your management should have initiated arson complaints against such individuals.

You are saying the school was closed so that people calm down. However, most parents were not informed about that and they gathered and waited outside for hours (in Ramadan) to get their daughters in but nobody from the management bothered to talk with them. Your website displayed a message during that time, asking parents and students to stay away for their own security. What was that?

FYI Marmaduke Pickthall was a convert. I am sure Tervor Barnes isn’t.

In the end, I believe that it should be at discretion of parents to decide whether their kids should have sex education or not.

Well for you to know me a little I am a Science teacher with a decade of Experience in various Private Schools of Karachi and being taught by the finest institutions of this city.

The controversy has been contributed online by me because it was the talk of the town when it got published i.e in August 2009. I believe when there is smoke there is fire. U can watch videos broadcasted by the media these days and than defend DPS.

http://www.chowrangi.com/following-up-the-controversy-at-dawood-public-school.html

chowrangi also has the credit of publishing a students perspective as well as a post on objectionable Islamiat Course.

http://www.chowrangi.com/objectionable-book-about-islam-in-syllabus-of-dawood-public-school.html

I have seen private school and know very well how they work and what rights they give to students and parents.

No, there was no such text being taught, neither was it in the course outlines which were written in May 2009, well before the new term began. I know because I reviewed all the course outlines myself during June and July. The only mistake the school administration made was to have the omitted chapter stapled shut rather than actually torn out and completely removed from the science book. A number of other schools in Karachi had done the same thing. But why was DPS made the target of someone’s objections. Why were other schools not taken to task in similar vulgar fashion.

The school stands vindicated on this account with the Board of Education also because they were given copies of the course outlines. Parents ripped open the staples and took the show on the road. The school’s Principal was not heard and the true facts were not reported. The school’s explanations went unheeded because people did not want to hear them. People were on a merry bandwagon with their hysterical, uncouth behaviour and language, pushing and shoving and hitting teachers who tried to intervene. Everyone becomes so self-righteous and sanctimonious as though they are the cat’s whiskers.

Why do you think the members of the Board of Education took no further action? Simply because they realized that the school had NO sex education agenda. The children who have been posting their comments on your site have been influenced by their elders. The children who have written in support of the school have realized that there was no such agenda and the school has been falsely accused.

Also the two days that the school was closed, was not done by the Board. The school decided to stay closed for a couple of days to give people a chance to calm down, and the Board supported the school on that account.

Secondly, there was no objectionable material in the Islamiat book. It was written by someone called Jan Thompson, just as one of the finest translations of the Quran is written by a man called Marmaduke Pickthall.

When a mob of people go out of control they can do and say anything, and become a pack of bloodthirsty wolves.It was a book bought in the UAE to serve as a reference book only. They saw the name Jan Thompson, broke open the glass cabinet in the school lobby and stole copies of the book.The school voluntarily gave all the copies to the members of the Board to be dealt with as they considered right.

I am still speaking as a member of the public, but I am privileged because I happened to be there and saw and heard both sides of the proceedings. If I have spoken after so many months it is only because I think I should, in my capacity as a professional, an educationist, a Pakistani and as a mother of three grown children. My present reaction would have been exactly the same had any other school been involved and I knew enough of the inside story to become irked at the injustice and damage being caused by such a campaign.

Thank you for asking me the questions that you have. I think the administration of DPS have demonstrated exemplary restraint in not stooping to the level of the name-callers and getting dragged into a two-way media-circus. Hats off to them for showing self-restraint and self-respect. Hats off to them for continuing to retain and educate the children whose parents misbehaved, to put it mildly.

Again as a member of the Pakistani community, I want to state that I would be among the first to protest against something that was against our social and cultural norms as well as our much misunderstood and poorly represented religion.
Being educated means keeping an open mind, listening to others before reacting and losing control, it means not throwing text books at a school principal in her office as the parents did, it means not yelling and screaming insults and threats in front of television cameras as the parents and certain other attendees did.

Yes, the media covered everything, but is that the only job of the media. What is responsible journalism? Is there such a thing? or does everyone only want to sell their wares and make hay and entertainment while the sun shines.

The controversy about the teaching of sex education in schools is an old story. It is a controversy even in the most open societies and it will continue to be. I believe it cannot be taken up by schools in Pakistan beyond the study of biology by students of science and pre-medical students. Our children, unfortunately, will continue to grow up without certain basic information available to them from people who can present that information in a practical, scientific manner. They will continue to treat it as a subject that is taboo, to be researched on the internet on the sly or through books and magazines that titillate their curious little minds. No one can deny that children have access to all sorts of information and they stumble through life not knowing how to deal with their own physical growth and development. Parents in Pakistan are incapable of taking on the task, and schools cannot.

Hamza, I would like to believe that your readers will give credit to my long commentary, but I know that there will always be people who are unable to think outside of their circumstances and their mindsets. Having said that, I hope some sensible people will see the light and start focusing on more productive options, and also realize what I meant when I said we should learn to “forgive and forget”. The school’s mistake was to staple the pages rather than tear them out. Has no one among all of you ever made a mistake?
My best wishes. F.A.Zubair.

Also, as apparently you are officially representing Dawood Public School, the readers of Chowrangi would like to know if:

1. There were controversial topics in Science books (contraception etc), as reported by the media.

2. The blasphemous book by Christian author was used as Islamiat text book?

If nothing of the sort happened, why there was no official clarification from your school management?