The Covered Girl Challange

[Greenday]

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/inde...l#incart_river

Some colleges and high schools across America have begun a movement to educate people about another culture. Since that culture is not white or Christian, there was a huge uproar and enough people complained that the principal had to cave to peer pressure and cancel it.

I think it's an excellent idea. It's a great interactive lesson that'll give people a better idea of what other people in the world have to go through on a daily basis.

[Aragarthiel]

I don't see it as any different from having students pretend to be blind/deaf/in a wheelchair for a week. I admire the person that came up with that.

It also reminds me of when I was in elementary school. Each class in the school was allowed to choose a country, and on International Night each year, the classrooms were decorated to look like the country, or the walls were covered in fun facts, and food was usually served. My class chose Israel one year because of our teacher's Jewish heritage, and it was fantastic. I also got to help a first-grade class I worked with make sticky rice (their country was China). There were never any problems with it, it was always just for the sake of fun and learning.

[Gravekeeper]

there were never any problems with it, it was always just for the sake of fun and learning.

Fun is what leads to Sharia Law, don't you get it?

[TheHuckster]

I've read about this. People were protesting this for a myriad of reasons: Some were fundies who were offended that anyone would dare try to teach students anything multicultural. Some were angry that they were trivializing the oppression of women, and a lot were upset that it mocks a religion and was therefore un-PC.

You have to execute this lesson very carefully. You have to do it while not breeding anti-Islamic sentiment (i.e. this is practiced in a few countries, primarily in the middle east, by oppressive regimes) and really stress that, while this is a rather simple exercise, women in the real world have to live with this every day under the threat of extreme corporal punishment.

And if it's a success, I think it should be used for other cultures, and not just the oppressive ones.