Student-Teacher Says Islam Lessons Cost Him Internship

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

A student-teacher in Maine has been dismissed from his internship at a high school after students and parents contended that a unit he prepared for a world history class stepped over the line between informing students about Islam and advocating the faith.

Stephen Kent Jones, a student in the graduate teaching program at the University of Maine in Orono, was told to leave Old Town High School last month, midway through his internship, amid complaints that the content of his lessons and his instructional approach were inappropriate.

While the history and culture of the Middle East and Islam, the region's dominant religion, have taken on a larger role in the curriculum since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, they have not lost their potential for controversy. Mr. Jones, 34, said he believed he could present the topic objectively by having students read and compare passages from the Koran, the...