'Fake News', Islamic-style, at Istanbul Grade School

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Milliyet Newspaper, 18 November 2017)


Sort of reminds me of the nuns I had in grade school, sigh...

In Istanbul, 4th-grade teacher H.P. told one of her students that her
name, İrem, is a sin and it is forbidden to speak her name in class. H.P.,
who teaches at the Beykent Adem Çelik Elementary School in the
Büyükçekmece district of Istanbul, told İrem that her name means
'false heaven'.

//ed note: Redhouse gives the following meaning for İrem: "the 
mythical gardens said to have been devised by Shaddad bin Ad 
in emulation of the garden of Paradise.//
  
Parents of the children in the class have been commenting on the
situation on 'eksisözlük' (a social media platform in Turkey), with
one noting that H.P. has told the children that "if there is a cat or
dog in your house, angels will not enter."  and another mentioning
that H.P. said that "only a grandmother can name a child.  If someone
else names a child it's a sin." 

İrem's mother spoke to Milliyet and said that "I didn't just hear these
things from my daughter, I heard them from her friends, as well. My
daughter said to me 'Mom, the name İrem is a sin.  My friends won't
say it anymore.  My teacher calls me by my middle name Zeynep.' "

Because of H.P.'s pronouncements, Zeynep Naz Ayka has taken her
son Ege out of the school.  Ayka lamented that "you can't imagine
what it does to a child's psychology to hear such things.  My son used
to be interested in space and the planets.  Now he says 'whatever God
created he had a reason for it.'  He didn't go to school for 4 weeks
because of this teacher."


                 Not quite heaven-on-earth.