Teaching the Muslim Student

Yeah, so I've gotten my first dose of "What the hell did you just write?" in a student essay.

In a response paper to an article that describes the relative inaction of Middle Eastern countries to do anything to recognize and prevent the spread of AIDS in the Muslim world, a student wrote the equivalent of, "we only have 3% of the total AIDS patients, so it's not really a problem...about 1 million people dying isn't a big problem." WTF??

All I could do was ask: "How many people have to be dying for it to be considered a 'problem'"?

And then we have, "Maybe the writer hasn't grasped the idea that being conservative is safer in a fight in a deadly disease"

I mean, really....where do I even begin?