Today's guest speaker Sara was the highlight of this morning and her comments helped me dive into my essential question. A Syrian Muslim that grew-up in America and attended D214, I feel her perspective shares many commonalities with my student population.
Sara's comment: "I just want to be normal.," spoke volumes and will stay with me as an educator, guiding me in my interactions with students with respect to religion, culture, and many other areas where student can be perceived as different. Teens don't want to stand-out. One on one conversations are less threatening and may likely better deliver a teacher's intention of valuing a student's uniqueness and most always should be chosen instead of "calling out" a student's difference in a class or group environment I think I likely have erred in the past, hoping to share and value a student's culture, religion, etc in front of their classmates as something to be proud of.
Moving to the topic of Islam and our visit to the Turkish American Center, I feel I have a better understanding of the Islamic population in our world. The concept of Ummah and how a community reacts when threatened, made complete sense to me. It reminded me of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Also, understanding the importance of not only teaching what Islam IS but also what it IS NOT is critical. The parallel between KKK members calling themselves Christian and ISIS members identifying as Muslim may be a straightforward way of explaining radical jihad to others.
The CBS news video on the struggle of the Middle East was a great primer for me and I predict I will go back and watch it again now that I'm more familiar with some of the vocabulary. What stood-out to me most was the reporters last comment that it isn't necessarily a war of religion at times but rather a war of power.
Finally, at the risk of sounding too critical, the visit to the Turkish American Center was a bit disappointing. I was hoping to gleam a better understanding of what it is like to practice Islam in our Chicagoland area. While I appreciate learning the art of water marble paper (that was SO cool!), the music, food, and henna decorating, I wish we learned more about the experience of being in a mosque. I can appreciate why the program strayed more into Turkish customs, but the religious practices are what I was most interested to learn about. Fortunately, I'm confident the resources and supplemental readings will fill-in many of the gaps.
The TAS members were extremely kind and welcoming. I could tell they were pleased we took an interest in learning from them and they should be very proud of the beautiful presentation they provided us!
In closing, my past three days have been bittersweet and make me feel as if I'm seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. What problems could be solved? What lives could be saved? And what futures could be safer if we only took the time to invite others into our homes? And if we accepted invitations to visit theirs? If we took the time to know instead of quickly assuming? If we (as John said) listened more than we talked? The power of this course has shown me that as a teacher, mother, neighbor, and community member, I need to lead by example.
Sara's comment: "I just want to be normal.," spoke volumes and will stay with me as an educator, guiding me in my interactions with students with respect to religion, culture, and many other areas where student can be perceived as different. Teens don't want to stand-out. One on one conversations are less threatening and may likely better deliver a teacher's intention of valuing a student's uniqueness and most always should be chosen instead of "calling out" a student's difference in a class or group environment I think I likely have erred in the past, hoping to share and value a student's culture, religion, etc in front of their classmates as something to be proud of.
Moving to the topic of Islam and our visit to the Turkish American Center, I feel I have a better understanding of the Islamic population in our world. The concept of Ummah and how a community reacts when threatened, made complete sense to me. It reminded me of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Also, understanding the importance of not only teaching what Islam IS but also what it IS NOT is critical. The parallel between KKK members calling themselves Christian and ISIS members identifying as Muslim may be a straightforward way of explaining radical jihad to others.
The CBS news video on the struggle of the Middle East was a great primer for me and I predict I will go back and watch it again now that I'm more familiar with some of the vocabulary. What stood-out to me most was the reporters last comment that it isn't necessarily a war of religion at times but rather a war of power.
Finally, at the risk of sounding too critical, the visit to the Turkish American Center was a bit disappointing. I was hoping to gleam a better understanding of what it is like to practice Islam in our Chicagoland area. While I appreciate learning the art of water marble paper (that was SO cool!), the music, food, and henna decorating, I wish we learned more about the experience of being in a mosque. I can appreciate why the program strayed more into Turkish customs, but the religious practices are what I was most interested to learn about. Fortunately, I'm confident the resources and supplemental readings will fill-in many of the gaps.
The TAS members were extremely kind and welcoming. I could tell they were pleased we took an interest in learning from them and they should be very proud of the beautiful presentation they provided us!
In closing, my past three days have been bittersweet and make me feel as if I'm seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. What problems could be solved? What lives could be saved? And what futures could be safer if we only took the time to invite others into our homes? And if we accepted invitations to visit theirs? If we took the time to know instead of quickly assuming? If we (as John said) listened more than we talked? The power of this course has shown me that as a teacher, mother, neighbor, and community member, I need to lead by example.