Chapter 4 Article Response

The article I read was called, "Working With Muslim Youths". I found this article to be very interesting. This article taught me many things about the Islamic faith and culture. The article focuses mainly on the conflicts that arise when Muslims are in public school settings. These people have such a hard time in public schools. This article really opened my eyes up to these conflicts and issues I had never really thought of before. Some of the conflicts they talked about were how secular western society is very open to "disrespecting religious values". This can obviously cause a problems for those of the Islamic faith. This is something that really interested me. Another thing the article talked about was how professional providers who may not know about the religion may engender negative outcomes. This worries me. I think that these children deserve the same chance at a schooling as other kids. The last thing that the article touches on is freely exercising their faith. The article notes that the free exercise clause in the Constitution protects students’ rights to freely express their faith. Then it goes on to say that school officials have the constitutional freedom to excuse students from classes for prayer and fasting. But do our schools do this today? That is what I struggle with the most. I think it is important to allow children of not only the Islamic faith, but even of other faiths to be allowed to exercise their religion freely in school. Just a thought.