Education or Indoctrination?
December 18, 2012
By Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Brigitte Gabriel, the author of two New York Times Best Sellers “Because They Hate” and “They Must Be Stopped.” She is also the founder and president of ACT! for America, the largest national security grassroots organization in the U.S. with over a quarter of a million members, 750 chapters nationwide and a full-time lobbyist on Capital Hill. She just issued a report titled: Education or Indoctrination? The Treatment of Islam in 6th through 12th Grade American Textbooks.
FP: Brigitte, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Congratulations on issuing your new report, Education or Indoctrination. What inspired you to embark on this project?
Gabriel: When I was doing research for my second book “They Must Be Stopped,” I came across numerous instances where information that was being put in school textbooks or taught in classrooms was inaccurate, sometimes outright false, and at times sounded more like indoctrination than education. ACT! For America Education executive director and I discussed this at length in 2009, because when we traveled and spoke to groups about this they were very concerned. We investigated the issue more closely and found there had been a handful of previous studies done on this, but we believed much more needed to be done. We also knew that if we did a report, we could leverage its impact by drawing on the strength of our growing grassroots organization. So by late 2009 we drafted a plan, created the budget to do it, and embarked on the research in early 2010.
FP: How broad was your research?
Gabriel: We retained a top-notch team of experts with years of experience in this area. They selected 38 textbooks based on how widespread they are used in the schools and how much they address the topic of Islam. To give you an example of the breadth of the research, our team spent two years conducting the research, and comparing what they found with credible historical sources as well as Islamic sources. The results were astonishing, even to those of us who are familiar with this issue.
In some books the errors were less frequent and egregious, but in most of the books errors of the commission and omission occurred with such frequency that it was clearly evident the average student today is receiving a rewrite of history that paints a rose-colored picture of the history and central doctrines of Islam that is not supported by the facts. The report is painstakingly and thoroughly documented, with nearly 375 footnotes and a bibliography of nearly 275 sources.
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Education or Indoctrination?