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	<title>Comments on: Lessons from Kahlil Gibran</title>
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	<description>Gotham Gazette&#039;s blog about New York policy and politics</description>
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		<title>By: Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; McCarythism in Brooklyn?</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-81206</link>
		<dc:creator>Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; McCarythism in Brooklyn?</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:13:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-81206</guid>
		<description>[...] Schools to establish a small public school devoted to Arab language and culture. The school sparked  opposition, much of it directed at Almontaser, a Yemeni-born educator, who has promoted religious and ethnic [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] Schools to establish a small public school devoted to Arab language and culture. The school sparked  opposition, much of it directed at Almontaser, a Yemeni-born educator, who has promoted religious and ethnic [...]</p>
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		<title>By: Jerry Krase</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-50019</link>
		<dc:creator>Jerry Krase</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2007 17:35:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-50019</guid>
		<description>Kahlil Gibran International Academy: A School for All Seasons by Jerry Krase

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being. -Kahlil Gibran

Some few months ago the New York City Department of Education, ever so carelessly, announced the birth of dozens of schools, however it seems at least one was a bit premature. The DOE seems to think that simply naming things and announcing things improves the poor state of public education in the city today. Some of the newbies had wonderful names such as “The School of the Future” which reminds me and my friend Michael of Ralph Kramden in the Honeymooners “Chef of the Future” skit when Ralph froze trying to “core a apple” during a live TV commercial - but then again perhaps I’m showing my age. Many of the other names indicated a welcome educational sensitively and focus on culture and language. 

One of 40 new schools announced was the dual-language (Arabic and English) Khalil Gibran International Academy that was created not only in recognition of the growing number of Arab American children in New York City&#039;s schools, but the need to understand the Arabic language and culture. (Especially given our convoluted foreign policy tied to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.)  The Gibran Academy takes it name from the Lebanese-born poet and philosopher who wrote &quot;The Prophet.&quot; It was created in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded nonprofit agency New Visions for Public Schools and the Arab-American Family Support Center which provides social services in Brooklyn. The misnomered “Arab American School” is open to students of all ethnic backgrounds. As an educational innovation the announcement should have been applauded but it almost immediately it became controversial. Even some normally liberal parents protested the placement of Gibran students in their schools, while as usual some abnormally conservative columnists simply wrote ignorant, bigoted, and hateful commentary such as referring to the Academy as a “madrassa” and shamelessly inventing quasi-“Protocols of Islam” agendas.  

The new principal of the new school to be is Debbie Almontaser, a respected educator and interfaith activist who arrived in the US from Yemen at the age 3.  I know her personally from a Voice of America program we participated in about inter ethnic relations and from research I have been doing about and for the Arab American community of New York City. Her school was to start slowly with about 80 sixth-graders in the first year and increase to something like a total of 600 students in grades 6 through 12. It will have a standard college preparatory curriculum that would include the history and contributions of the Arab people, as well as Arabic language instruction. It had been reported in The New York Times, however that due to the protest, and perhaps the rabid publicity, that NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein had considered postponing the opening for a year. The most recent information is that the academy has found a temporary home in a Brooklyn school where parents and administrators were more level-headed.  

If we think about the seeds of the Japanese-American internment as being planted by reaction to the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor we can recognize the dangerous analogy of 9/11 “terrorism.” As did Japanese Americans, have Arab Americans become “potential enemies in our midst?” The angry reaction to a small school by too many people who should know better ominously makes the grade B movies about rounding up Arabs on the streets of Brooklyn seem less fictional. Rudy Giuliani aside, I don’t want to believe that 9/11 has made New Yorkers as intolerant as perhaps they have become. I have been writing and lecturing for decades about achieving Community in a Multicultural Society and arguing that, despite all its historical flaws, the US and especially Gotham has been, until now, a good model for others to follow. Let’s not start moving backward.

Although it is obvious that I have plenty of choice, and not so choice words, of my own concerning how ineptly this school was announced to the community and subsequently how horrible was the press coverage, I went on line to gather a few more thoughtful ones from the person for whom this school is named. 

I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny. 
I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization. 
I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America. 
I believe that you can say to the Founders of this great nation, &quot;Here I am, a youth, a young tree, whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon, yet am I deeply rooted here, and I will be fruitful. - Kahlil Gibran</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Kahlil Gibran International Academy: A School for All Seasons by Jerry Krase</p>
<p>Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being. -Kahlil Gibran</p>
<p>Some few months ago the New York City Department of Education, ever so carelessly, announced the birth of dozens of schools, however it seems at least one was a bit premature. The DOE seems to think that simply naming things and announcing things improves the poor state of public education in the city today. Some of the newbies had wonderful names such as “The School of the Future” which reminds me and my friend Michael of Ralph Kramden in the Honeymooners “Chef of the Future” skit when Ralph froze trying to “core a apple” during a live TV commercial &#8211; but then again perhaps I’m showing my age. Many of the other names indicated a welcome educational sensitively and focus on culture and language. </p>
<p>One of 40 new schools announced was the dual-language (Arabic and English) Khalil Gibran International Academy that was created not only in recognition of the growing number of Arab American children in New York City&#8217;s schools, but the need to understand the Arabic language and culture. (Especially given our convoluted foreign policy tied to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.)  The Gibran Academy takes it name from the Lebanese-born poet and philosopher who wrote &#8220;The Prophet.&#8221; It was created in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded nonprofit agency New Visions for Public Schools and the Arab-American Family Support Center which provides social services in Brooklyn. The misnomered “Arab American School” is open to students of all ethnic backgrounds. As an educational innovation the announcement should have been applauded but it almost immediately it became controversial. Even some normally liberal parents protested the placement of Gibran students in their schools, while as usual some abnormally conservative columnists simply wrote ignorant, bigoted, and hateful commentary such as referring to the Academy as a “madrassa” and shamelessly inventing quasi-“Protocols of Islam” agendas.  </p>
<p>The new principal of the new school to be is Debbie Almontaser, a respected educator and interfaith activist who arrived in the US from Yemen at the age 3.  I know her personally from a Voice of America program we participated in about inter ethnic relations and from research I have been doing about and for the Arab American community of New York City. Her school was to start slowly with about 80 sixth-graders in the first year and increase to something like a total of 600 students in grades 6 through 12. It will have a standard college preparatory curriculum that would include the history and contributions of the Arab people, as well as Arabic language instruction. It had been reported in The New York Times, however that due to the protest, and perhaps the rabid publicity, that NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein had considered postponing the opening for a year. The most recent information is that the academy has found a temporary home in a Brooklyn school where parents and administrators were more level-headed.  </p>
<p>If we think about the seeds of the Japanese-American internment as being planted by reaction to the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor we can recognize the dangerous analogy of 9/11 “terrorism.” As did Japanese Americans, have Arab Americans become “potential enemies in our midst?” The angry reaction to a small school by too many people who should know better ominously makes the grade B movies about rounding up Arabs on the streets of Brooklyn seem less fictional. Rudy Giuliani aside, I don’t want to believe that 9/11 has made New Yorkers as intolerant as perhaps they have become. I have been writing and lecturing for decades about achieving Community in a Multicultural Society and arguing that, despite all its historical flaws, the US and especially Gotham has been, until now, a good model for others to follow. Let’s not start moving backward.</p>
<p>Although it is obvious that I have plenty of choice, and not so choice words, of my own concerning how ineptly this school was announced to the community and subsequently how horrible was the press coverage, I went on line to gather a few more thoughtful ones from the person for whom this school is named. </p>
<p>I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.<br />
I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.<br />
I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America.<br />
I believe that you can say to the Founders of this great nation, &#8220;Here I am, a youth, a young tree, whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon, yet am I deeply rooted here, and I will be fruitful. &#8211; Kahlil Gibran</p>
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		<title>By: Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; Kahlil Gibran (Continued)</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-48877</link>
		<dc:creator>Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; Kahlil Gibran (Continued)</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2007 19:50:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-48877</guid>
		<description>[...] The outpouring of vitriol that greeted plans for the Kahlil Gibran Academy, a public school focusing on Arabic language, culture and history did not surprise its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser. But,  writing in the News, she describes fears that the schools will be some kind of Islamist training ground “unfounded and unfair.” Instead, Almontaser writes, the school, set to open next fall, will “offer a Regents-based curriculum enhanced by intensive instruction in Arabic and the study of Middle Eastern history and culture.” In doing so, she believes, the school “can strengthen and unify the city….Students will graduate emulating Khalil Gibran&#8217;s quote, &#8216;The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.&#8217;&#8221; [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] The outpouring of vitriol that greeted plans for the Kahlil Gibran Academy, a public school focusing on Arabic language, culture and history did not surprise its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser. But,  writing in the News, she describes fears that the schools will be some kind of Islamist training ground “unfounded and unfair.” Instead, Almontaser writes, the school, set to open next fall, will “offer a Regents-based curriculum enhanced by intensive instruction in Arabic and the study of Middle Eastern history and culture.” In doing so, she believes, the school “can strengthen and unify the city….Students will graduate emulating Khalil Gibran&#8217;s quote, &#8216;The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.&#8217;&#8221; [...]</p>
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		<title>By: leftofrightwing</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-45872</link>
		<dc:creator>leftofrightwing</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2007 14:21:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-45872</guid>
		<description>Once again, the enemy of tolerance rears its ugly head. Blind bigotry, piggy-backing on the well-to-do&#039;s status quo, stifling yet another opportunity for average Americans to get to know Arabic culture and, yes, maybe Muslim culture (Lord save us).  

But as we all know; all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are radicals, so we can&#039;t have that. Thanks to all those who tried.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Once again, the enemy of tolerance rears its ugly head. Blind bigotry, piggy-backing on the well-to-do&#8217;s status quo, stifling yet another opportunity for average Americans to get to know Arabic culture and, yes, maybe Muslim culture (Lord save us).  </p>
<p>But as we all know; all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are radicals, so we can&#8217;t have that. Thanks to all those who tried.</p>
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		<title>By: Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; What They&#8217;re Saying</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-45859</link>
		<dc:creator>Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster &#187; Blog Archive &#187; What They&#8217;re Saying</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2007 12:54:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-45859</guid>
		<description>[...]           Gotham City, Education, Civil Rights, Finance, Transportation          Recent Posts   What They&#8217;re Saying  Farewell to Kalikow Lessons from Kahlil Gibran What They&#8217;re SayingToday [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...]           Gotham City, Education, Civil Rights, Finance, Transportation          Recent Posts   What They&#8217;re Saying  Farewell to Kalikow Lessons from Kahlil Gibran What They&#8217;re SayingToday [...]</p>
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		<title>By: Rocky</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/comment-page-1/#comment-45595</link>
		<dc:creator>Rocky</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2007 12:36:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2007/05/07/lessons-from-kahlil-gibran-2/#comment-45595</guid>
		<description>&quot;I didn’t expect the New York Sun to oppose it by means of slander.&quot;

That&#039;s funny -- I didn&#039;t think the Klan would oppose integration by means of cross burnings!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;I didn’t expect the New York Sun to oppose it by means of slander.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s funny &#8212; I didn&#8217;t think the Klan would oppose integration by means of cross burnings!</p>
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