"Dying To Be a Martyr": Your Tax Dollars Pay For PBS To Teach Kids About the Glory of Islamic Suicide Bombings

PBS: Yay! Suicide Bomber!

From the Heartland Institute:

A new lesson from PBS teaches your kids the glory of martyrdom. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is home to Big Bird, Frontline, and other “programing made possible by viewers like you,” including lesson plans instructing teachers how to show kids to be more sympathetic to radical Islamic suicide bombers in Palestine. “Dying to be a Martyr.” 

That’s the name of a lesson plan offered to students and teachers at no cost by the Public Broadcasting Service, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit, and some of the material seems to encourage students to learn to sympathize with radical Islamic terrorists. The “Dying to be a Martyr” lesson plan is offered through PBS’ LearningMedia website, “a media-on-demand service offering educators access to the best of public media and delivers research-based, classroom-ready digital learning experiences,” according to the PBS website. 

The stated “objectives” for the lesson plan, which is designed for use by students in grades nine through 12, include analyzing “why the Middle East conflict began and continues today,” discussing “how religions can unite or divide people” and explaining “why individuals and groups sometimes turn to tactics of terrorism, and evaluate how terrorism affects the world we live in.”

Here are instructions for a Learning Activity from the PBS "Dying to Be a Martyr Lesson Plan:

Provide your students with a bit of background on the segment they are about to see: explain that this segment is taken from an interview with an 18-year-old Palestinian named Mohanned Abu Tayyoun, who entered Israel carrying a bag of explosives with the intention of carrying out a suicide bombing. He wavered, however, and returned home without carrying out the mission. He was arrested several days later and this interview was conducted within an Israeli jail. Provide your students with a focus for media interaction by asking them to identify how Mohanned views his life and how he feels it differs from the lives of Israelis (Jews). Play the Martyrdom QuickTime Video for the class. Check for understanding by asking students to respond to the focus question. (Mohanned feels he would rather die and by a martyr than live his life, sees his life as hollow -- in contrast he sees Israelis as happy, going out, having fun, traveling.) Ask your students why Mohanned may feel that way (Answers may include: Palestinians have less land, fewer privileges, cannot come and go as they please.)

 Notice the only answers that may be included are answers that JUSTIFY TERRORISM.

Fuck PBS.