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Teachers’ Perspectives on the Education of Muslim Students in Canadian Schools: A

Marginalized Voice in the Education Research

Sarfaroz Niiyozov, OISE, University of Toronto

sniyozov@oise.utoronto.ca

Abstract

This paper builds on data from a review of the comparative and international literature on teachers'

perspectives on the education of Muslim students in public, Catholic, and Islamic schools and a

Government- funded research project on teachers’ perspectives on the education of Muslim

students in Toronto schools. Bringing the teachers' voices and practices to the attention of

researchers, policy makers, and general readers, I emphasize the centrality of teachers' roles in the

education of Muslim students, highlight the constructive and positive work that teachers do, and

point out the challenges they face and the support they need in fulfilling their moral and

intellectual duties. I situate teachers’ perspectives in the context of the upsurge of global interest in

Islam and Islamic education and the increase in Muslims’ challenges to multiculturalism and the

existing education system dominated largely by Eurocentric, Hellenic-Judeo-Christian heritage

and modernist values. This paper examines and challenges the research, media and

publicly-produced contradictory and overlapping statements about Western teachers’ work with

Muslim students. Predominantly negative, these pronouncements implicate teachers in: (i) racism

and Islamophobia; (ii) an unwillingness and inability to include Muslims’ historical and

contemporary contributions and perspectives into the existing school curricula; (iii) a lowering of

expectations about their Muslim students and channeling them into non-academic streams; (iv)

cultural and religious insensitivity, and (v) an overall lack of knowledge about Islam and Muslims.

The paper problematizes these observations by engaging with them conceptually and

methodologically, and by bringing counter-points from research. The paper concludes by

proposing a balanced portrayal of teachers’ work and the inclusion of teachers' perspectives to

improve policy, research, and practice in educating Muslim students within a multicultural society.

The paper also suggests ways in which Muslim education is and could be further included in

Universities’ pre-service and graduate teacher education programs.

Canada's Multicultural Context

Canadian schools are places where multiplicity and diversity of colors, languages, ethnicities,

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religions and socio-economic backgrounds of the students are still encountered by a

predominantly of Anglo-Saxon, Judeo-Christian, feminine teaching population. Canadian teacher

makeup is slowly beginning to diversify and include teachers of other ethnic, cultural, color and

religious backgrounds. Similarly, the Eurocentric curriculum is slowly opening up to information

and ideas that embody the culture and background of the minorities and recent immigrants.

However, the historical and contemporary diversities of the Canadian education landscape remain

unmatched with the non-pluralist attitudes and approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. Although

Canadian students attend classrooms, and in most cases stand for the Canadian national anthem

each morning, their thoughts, values, loyalties, and aspirations cross its borders, resulting in

effects ranging from cosmopolitan trans-national and global citizenship to tribal and dynastic

affinities. Canadian students are wired, technologically savvy, conscious of multiple perspectives

and highly ambitious. They are ever more critical of authorities and politicians and are better able

to stand against peer and family pressures. While schools may claim to be neutral and secular

spaces, their students and teachers increasingly express their religious and cultural backgrounds in

more open ways. Not only students, but also parents, community lobbies, and organized groups in

society are demanding more from schools in terms of religious experience and identity (Adams,

2007).

In other words, Canadian schools, as is the case of majority of the western schools are in the state

of influx, transition, and shifts to address enormous demographic, curricula, and pedagogical

challenges. Canadian education policies and practices have attempted to respond to the above

challenges by embracing multiculturalism, pluralism, equity and diversity (Trichur, 2003).

According to these principles, different ethnic and religious groups are allowed to preserve their

cultures and languages, develop community institutions -- including religious and educational

institutions -- and practice their religions. The last two decades of theorization and application of

the multiculturalism principles and the concomitant research, however, have revealed how these

principles are increasingly becoming problematic to understand, embrace, accommodate, and

manage in the face of domestic and global challenges. For some, they multiculturalism has become

idealized an catchword, cliché, and rhetorical tool; for others, a construct and venue to misuse by

promoting personal and parochial agendas including power acquisition, tribal affinities, and

intolerance; for a third group it causes irritation and cynicism because of the unfulfilled promises;

and for others yet, it raises concerns about social cohesion and loyalty to nation-states. While some

urge to abandon multiculturalism and others have announced its death, a further group suggests its

preservation and strengthening as Canada‟s identity mark. 1

Schools and teachers are caught in the midst of enormous number of paradoxical

1 Due to limitations on space we are unable to expound the concept of multiculturalism. For

various perspectives on multiculturalism in Canada and internationally, see Adams, 2007;

Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1997; Kymlicka,,1995). On Muslim and Islam‟s challenges to

multiculturalism see (Alibhai- Brown, 2000; Bader, 2005; Jedwab, 2005; Karim, 2002; Modood,

2007; Parekh, 2006; Ramadan, 2004; Sardar, 2004; Shivani, 2008).

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challenges. Schools, administrations, teachers and curricula face tremendous pressures to

restructure and re-culture to respond to their students fast changing and paradoxical needs,

aspirations, and realities, such as living in a postmodern world of change, uncertainty, plurality on

one hand and politics of identity, community, and pre-modern loyalties on the other. They are

simultaneously learning how to deal with the re-emergence of multiple religions in the public

arena, the secular and transformative visions of the schools and real purposes of education. They

are grappling with how to allow and even celebrate religious discourses and at the same develop

students' critical thinking, autonomy and independence in decision making; How to reconcile

constructivist views of knowledge and social reality with divinely-ordained immutable texts,

authorities, and laws? How to teach evolution to students who and whose parents believe in

creationism? How to challenge their students' belief that their faith is the best and possibly the last

message and accept others' faiths as equals? How could schools be expected to celebrate cultures

when cultures could possess problematic elements such as racism, sexism, and social inequalities?

Is the role of schools to affirm and reflect society and its cultures as they exist, or is it to transform

these toward better, pluralistic, and just ones? These are among few questions teachers face in

today's world of religious, culture and identity politics.

In other words, teachers are asked to work for, against, and despite knowledge and globalized

society (Hargreaves, 2003). At the same time, their lives and work are intensified to the limits:

they are asked to do more with less support; they are blamed for most of the educational and

societal failures; They work's complexity is rarely appreciated and they are not provided with

opportunities for professional development, relevant to the afore-mentioned challenges.

Challenges to Educating Muslims in Canadian Schools: A Literature Overview

The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario‟s recent election promise of channeling a part of

public funds for private faith-based schools during the 2007 provincial elections exacerbated the

interest in and debate about Muslim education in the West (Abu el-Haj, 2006; Cristillo, 2008; Fine

& Seljuk, 200?; Merry, 2008; Niyozov, 2007; Parker-Jenkins et al., 2005; Zine, 2007).

Particular to Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., Muslims now constitute the second largest

non-Christian religious community (Siddiqui, 2001; Morgan, 2007). Official population base

numbers cite beyond 840 thousand Muslims in Canada (Adams, 2007) and 2.5 million in the

U.S.A. The unofficial estimates suggest 2 million Muslims in Canada and 7 mn in the U.S.A

(Cristillo, 2005).

A related challenge is Muslims' diversity. Often time, this diversity has been reduced to cultural,

geographic, and ethnic domains. More recently, the denominational, ideological, and social

diversities among Muslims are proliferating through discourses of social justice, pluralism, gender

equity in the Muslim communities worldwide (Abou El Fadl, 2006; Fatah, 2008).

While most of the challenges the diverse Muslim communities and students in Canada face are

similar to those of the rest of society (e.g., poverty, unemployment, depression, domestic violence,

alienation, gender disparity, generation conflict, racism, phobia), they surely take distinctive color

in the light of the global events, the peculiarities of history and settlement, the prevalence of

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traditional social and cultural values in Muslim communities, the media's heightened and

deficit-based focus on Muslims.

To that end, how to navigate their teaching between the diverse reactions from within Muslim

communities regarding how to live in the west and whether to accept or not its laws and values is

another challenge for educators. Generally, these reactions have varied between complete

rejection, creative adaptation, integration, and assimilation. The radicalization and alienation

among certain Muslim youth segments is not related solely to the "negative" experiences in

Canadian schools and society; it is also promoted by certain Islamist discourses that consider west

as dar-al-harb (abode of war) or dar al-kufr (abode of infidelity) or dar al-da'wah (abode of

summon). It is believed that these discourses of incompatibility are solidified by Islamist scholars

such as Abu Ala' al-Mawdudi, Ismaili Faruqi, Syed Qub, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. These and and

other thinkers have set up structures in the western world to actively promote their ideas of

simultaneous rejection and Islamization of the West (Fatah, 2008; Steinberg, 1996).

On the other hand, there are those who promote integration, dialogue and synthesis. Karim Aga

Khan (2006), the Imam of the global Ismaili Muslim community is among those Muslim

spokespersons, who have acknowledged Canada as beacon of multiculturalism and advised their

communities to respect, integrate, and constructively contribute to the Canadian society while

maintaining the ethical framework and tenets of their interpretations of Islam. Tariq Ramadan

(2004), a Europe-based Sunni Muslim scholar, noted that by providing constitutional rights for

practicing religion, maintaining Muslim identity, allowing the establishment of the religious

institutions, the West has become a better and safer abode to Muslims than their countries of origin

where Muslims are the majority and lead their governments. Ramadan also suggests integration

through a negotiation between the universal and fundamental values of Islam and the emerging

contexts, and does not see fundamental incompatibility between being Muslim and Western. Such

position is held by increasing number of Muslims, especially in Canada and the U.S.A. (Fine &

Seljuk, 2008). Tarek Fatah (2008) has invited his Muslim readers to observe their new countries‟

constitutions, the laws of the land, work for and contribute to justice and prosperity, be proactively

engaged, peacefully resolve the differences between the countries‟ rules and laws and their Islamic

tenets, hold the contract they sign as they take on the residence. For Ramadan, the West is more of

a Dar al-Shahada (Abode of Testimony), an abode of challenge to prove that Muslims can live up

to the universal principles of Islam and creatively, peacefully, and legally apply them in the new

contexts. Muslims have the chance and obligation to prove the universality, humanity, and

compatibility of Islam with the modern age (Ramadan, 2004, pp. 62-101). A recent poll by

Environics Research Group in February 2007 also showed that absolute majority of Canadian

Muslims identify themselves as the country‟s citizens and try to manage their daily life according

to the Aga Khan and Ramadan‟s assertions (CBC, 2007). Similarly Cristillo's report on Muslim

Youth in New York schools shows that unlike their parents' and religious leaders' assumptions,

majority of Muslim students ( 8 out of 10) have positive attitudes about public schools and

institutions ( 2008, p. 9).

In sum, different Muslim groups (Islamists, liberal, traditionalist from both Sunni and Shia

branches with further divisions) interpret the above challenges differently. Each also proposes

different solutions to these challenges. Educational institutions in the non-Muslim and Muslim

countries are inhabited by students and parents who adhere to the above positions (Saadalah, 2004).

The knowledge of Muslims‟ diverse coping strategies is helpful in developing engaging strategies

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to work with the Muslim students, parents and communities (Daun and Walford, 2004).

Around 90-95% of Muslims in North America continue attending public and commercial private

secular schools. There are approximately 200 Islamic schools in the United States (Critillo, 2005)

and 50 in Canada (Niyozov, 2007; Zine, 2008). Islamic schools are one of the many forms of

Islamic education that Muslims obtain throughout their lives. Among many other sites (Douglass

and Shaikh, 2004), Muslim students also learn about Islam in the public schools where curricula

are infused with information about Islam and Muslim societies, and where certain religious

accommodation services are provided to Muslim students (CIE, 1995; Moore, 2006; Toronto

District School Board -TDSB, 2000).

Schools and teachers do acknowledge that students and teachers do not leave their religion outside

when they enter classrooms. Many teachers and students indeed promote their views and

perspectives in the schools through personal (i.e., dress, ritual observance, self-isolation) and

organized means (e.g., various Muslim associations, clubs, etc.). Educators and policy makers are

surprised to see that many of the second generation Muslims are less integrated and less loyal to

Canadian society than their immigrant parents were. Questions of how and why Muslim youth feel

alienated loom larger than ever before.

The role of Teachers in Educating Muslim students: Claims, Misunderstandings, and

Responses

In the studies of teaching Muslim students, teachers‟ (both Muslim and non-Muslim) voices have

been marginalized. The literature on Muslim students‟ education whether journalistic, policy

studies, or otherwise, has predominantly focused on students‟, parents‟, and organized Muslim

voices about schools and teachers. Polemical in tone, most of this research tends to legitimate

rather than critically engage these voices of or about teachers. In so doing, voices that are against

public schools and teachers get priority in the representation.

This is despite the fact that teachers have remained central to quality education and to enabling

their students reach their aspirations (Alexander, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1996; Ghuman,

1994; Hargreaves, 2003; Henry, 1996; Rust & Dalin, 1990; Zine, 2007). Teachers, next to parents

and peers, spend the bulk of time with students, filter the curriculum and textbooks through their

experience and agency, decide on the kind of pedagogy and insert their interpretation and vision

into the official and “sacred” stories, model behaviours, make or break their students‟ hopes, deal

with parents and colleagues, make hundreds of instantaneous dilemmatic decisions inside the

classrooms, and anticipate their implications. They teach children to be creative and ethical,

independent and societal, individualistic and communal, critical and respectful, scientific and

artistic, open-minded to new ideas and conservative of their cultures and identities, seek

knowledge and examine its biases, take actions and consider their implications. Teachers are

required to live through these paradoxes, yet have little societal appreciation for their profession's

complexity and little support in the face of intensification of their work and vilification of their

status (Hargreaves, 2003).

In the next few pages, the paper will enumerate some of the accusations against teachers of

Muslim students, while also presenting teacher perspectives both from the literature and the

research data from the ongoing SSHRC project described above. Here are each of these

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accusations, followed by teacher responses from interviews.

1. Teachers in public/secular schools exhibit racism and phobia toward their Muslim

students on unconscious and conscious level (Alladin, 1996; Abu el-Haj, 2002, 2006;

Abukhatalla, 2004; Zine, 2001, 2004, 2007).

Teachers in my study as well as in the larger literature acknowledge this charge. What, however is

missed is that there are studies that refute the generalization of the racist thesis (Abbas, 2002;

Collet, 2006; Cristillo, 2008; Kassam, 2007; Sarroub, 2000). A teacher [all our teachers from

public schools had significant number of Muslim students] in our study responded to our query

about this as follows:

R (Researchers): I‟m wondering that what you would say about research portrayal of public school teachers

being racist.

T (teachers): They‟re right. We all are racists. Because of the lack of antiracist education and a wider scope

on ethnic prejudices; Because of what happened at 9/11, because of what Al-Qaeda is doing in many

countries, because of what the Taliban is doing occasionally there are white people who are really scared of

this small minority of militant Muslims and who cannot disassociate that the militants are that one percent,

and every other Muslims are the good people. And yeah, I agree with them, 100%. We need more education

that way. We are all racists. We have to recognize that we are all racists, and then cope with our racism.

R: Do you bring issues of racism to your class?

T: Oh yes. We discuss it quite openly. I say to my students, especially when we were doing human rights

education. I say, we all have to recognize that we have prejudices, and that we all are racist, and then when

we recognize that, we have to try and work on them. I can say many of my students are also racist and the

male students are often time sexist. I can see how Afghani students treat Pakistanis; how they both look at

Somalis and Sri Lankan students. So when I speak about my racism, my family racism to them, I also

expect them to open up and say about racism in their cultures. Some do and others not.

Another teacher said that an important way of addressing racism is for Muslim students and

teachers to stay within rather than opt out from the public schools:

If Muslim people are in Islamic schools, if they leave public school-- in terms of changing other

peoples‟ perceptions about what the regular Muslim person is, educating non-Muslims --there is

never a change to that, so you read all these things in the newspaper and it stirs people up but it‟s

really people‟s daily experience of Muslims, in the public schools and neighborhoods that modifies

that, normalizes their perceptions of Muslims as human being similar to them, there is nothing else

that modifies that.

An English teacher who works within global education frame, suggested that the issues of racism

needs to be seen in global and historical sense, if we want to eradicate it.

Yes western education and teachers have been racists; Yes there is institutional and subtle racism

toward the black and South Asians, Arabs and Jews. But there is also racism among these people I

mentioned. In South Asia, shades of color cause discrimination. In Africa, tribes discriminate

against each other. Look at what Arabs are doing in Darfour. Muslims also hate Jews and their

books depict Christians as bad people. So we need to bring all this to the table to tackle the issue. As

a teacher I cannot just defend one people and leave others. I have students from all background who

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have either suffered from one of another sort of discrimination from the whites or from each other.

Based on the above, it is not to say that discrimination, racism, and phobias of all sorts do not exist

and that there are no teachers who practice these on a conscious or unconscious basis. What the

teachers' voices suggest, however, is that teachers are aware of not only their and the school's

racism and phobias. They also suggest that their students, the communities from which they come

also have racist elements. The teachers also suggest that education in pluralist and globalized

communities requires that racism needs to be tackled across the spectrum, in fair-minded manner,

globally and historically. In the context of pluralist education, minority racism cannot be seen as

part of resistance of the powerless, whether it is aimed at those who are in the mainstream or those

are minorities different from them. Every student's feeling, knowledge, and identity, however

minor it is, counts in such a context. Muslim educators committed to equity in particular, should

also bring forward the inverse racisms in the Muslim world as well as the racism Muslim education

systems exhibit toward non-Muslim and non-mainstream Muslim students in the Muslim countries

and Islamic schools. The topic of discussion should be racism and not just racism against Muslims.

2. Teachers who are largely ethno-and Euro-centric and with Judeo-Christian background

ignore or denigrate the historic and contemporary contributions of Muslims to science,

architecture, culture, geography, navigation, literature, and history.

This point has been emphasized not only by some scholars (CIE, 1995; Douglass and Dun, 2001;

Milligan, 2005) but also Muslim leaders of various inclinations. While some (e.g., Islamists) use it

not only to promote Muslims' boycotting of the western secular society and urging Muslim

students leave public schools and attend various forms of Islamic schooling, others (e.g.,

moderates, negotiators, liberals) suggest the accommodation and integration to expand, enrich,

and pluralize the curricula experience. The recent editions of Ontario curricula guidelines

emphasize the need for including diverse perspectives of the topic, address contentious aspects,

and include the students' personal and communal perspectives into their teaching. However,

according to Azmi (2001), this movement for change was only partially successful in meeting its

goals, and, “confirmed that there existed only a token willingness to accommodate Muslim

concerns on the part of education authorities” (p. 262).

Sure, the major challenge regarding curriculum representation of Muslims is to move beyond

imbalanced, simplistic, and polarized portrayals. Abu El-Haj (2002, 2006), Abukhattala (2004),

Azmi (2001), CIE (1995), Said (1981), Zine (2001) have noticed that Islam and Muslims are either

absent from the western textbooks or present to a limited extent, as a part of the subjects such as

Social Studies, world religions, world history, and geography. Whenever Muslims are included,

the representations are very simplistic: Images of Arabs with camels, presentation of Islam as the

religion of only Arabs and Muhammad, Eurocentric versions of the Crusade stories and pro-Israeli

depictions of the Arab-Israeli conflicts are some of the ways in which Muslims are

mis-represented. Earlier Orientalist depictions of Islam and Muslims such as Muslims being

backward, anti-modern, oppressive of women, intolerant to diversity, despotic rulers, corrupt

politicians, devoid of any genuine intellectual life and creativity have resurfaced in the media and

texts aftermath of 9/11 terror events. Speaking to this, Moore (2006) suggested that the current

political, cultural and economic problems that exist in many Muslim countries should in no way

detract from past achievements of Islamic civilizations in a wide variety of disciplines” (p. 282).

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At the same time, Sewal (2003), Panjwani (2006), have noted that there has been extensive

attempts at bringing various aspects of Muslim history and cultures into the mainstream

curriculum. Donner (in Sewal, 2003, p. 6), pointed out that “while most Muslims applaud the

decision to present more material on Islam and Islamic history, their approval is constrained by

their own strong views on how this material should be presented.” Abu El-Haj (2008) argued that

"the focus on Arab culture can create a static picture of Arabs and Arab Americans, and at its worst,

sustains, rather than dismantles, cultural imperialism…" (p. 23). Panjwani (2006), in his analysis

of textbooks used in the UK schools, also noticed that the textbook authors – mostly non-Muslims,

yet oftentimes supported by Muslim scholars, Imams, and sheikhs, – have presented Muslims,

their particular Islamic interpretation, its history and dogmas in either idealized or simplified

forms. Panjwani concludes his study of Muslim representation in the syllabuses of the various

public schools in UK as follows:

… as far as the teaching of Islam is concerned, the content of religious education is such that it

leaves out much that ought to be part of 'education about religion' and includes much that should

not be (p. 309).

Moore (2006) noticed a similar trend in the U. S. textbooks and suggests that,

Teaching about Islam – like all religions and historical events – requires a

comprehensive and accurate presentation of positive and negative events; it is

unethical and educationally dishonest to tell only one side of the story (p. 283).

Our literature review as well as current research illustrates many examples of public

school teachers who enthusiastically incorporate positive perspectives of their

students‟ religious backgrounds and their cultures into their schools. Ghuman reports

about a female teacher, who uses “the experience, which children bring into the school”

as “an important psychological principle, which underpins sound classroom practice”

(p. 180). In fact, the Asian teachers in Ghuman‟s study thought that “teachers at their

schools were very positive and thoroughly professional in their commitment” towards

students of multi-cultural and multi-religious backgrounds (p. 181). Ali (2007),

Ouselati (2008) have noticed a significant improvement in the quantity and quality of

representations of Muslims in Quebec textbooks and school material.

In our study teachers mentioned different levels of curriculum enrichment. Some

mentioned texts, such as stories from Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfuz, the recent

book "The Kite Runner" by Khalid Hossieni. Another teacher of Mathematics, who is

also a Muslim, spoke to her students about Arabic/ Indian numbers, about

Al-Khorezmi (the founder of Algebra). Schools invite Muslim scholars and clerics to

inform their teachers about Islamic dimensions. Our history teacher mentioned that she

asks the students develop projects and her Muslim students often time take on issues

and topic related to their countries of origin, to some prominent figures such as Prophet

Muhammad and present those in the class. The English teacher was more articulate

about the many reasons for and goals of his curriculum enrichment:

I bring in stories from Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfuz. I read him on a friend's

recommendation. He won Nobel's prize. But it is not just about bringing in Muslim

culture or making my Muslim students happy. I pick these stories for many reasons: to

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ensure that they teach all my students not just Muslims some thing deep about life; to

have fun, do not get bored; I also use them to teach about reading, writing, about the

use and manipulation of language. The better my students are at manipulating

language, the more empowered and successful they are in this society. I use these to

empower my students at many levels. I do not say to my class that I am using a Muslim

author or I am bringing Muslim's voice to my classrooms. Similarly I expose my

Muslim students to non-Muslim authors.

In addition, teachers in Canadian schools face students who represent non only

different brands of Islam, but also different denominations of non-Muslim cultures.

Despite the exponential increase in Muslim numbers, Muslim students, except in a

small number of schools, still constitute minority in the Canadian public schools. A

teacher in our study explained this challenge as follows:

It is good that there is so much attention paid to representation of Islam in schools. I

value that. My problem is however that I have equally important non-Muslim

students. I wish someone paid similar attention to their representation in the school

and curriculum. I as a teacher cannot emphasize one culture in my class, which is any

way based on one culture, that is Euro-Christian or Euro-secularist. We promote the

secular and scientific and consider it as somehow neutral. I need help with ensuring

that when I move from this one culture, I am able to provide more than Christian and

Muslim viewpoints.

Based on the above, one can empathize with teachers' concerns about how much they are supposed

to know about Muslims and Islam and non-Muslims and other religious and cultural groups. How

much can they be expected to know about each group - and will it satisfy each group's particular

concerns?

3. Teachers do not reflect the diversity and/or the essence of the "real" Islam in their

teaching.

Here we need to reflect on the literature above, which pointed out the diversity of the faith and the

unreasonable demands placed on the teacher to teach about the one "true" Islam. As one teacher,

reflected, could teachers' lack of knowledge lead to the fossilization of their students into their

cultures from "back home", presented in static forms (Abu El-Hajj, 2006). A teacher reflects on the

complexity of this task:

When I encounter a student in my classroom....I am dealing with the individual culture that the

student brings to me. That culture is influenced by their fathers' attitudes towards books and

their‟s towards girls in school, their grandmothers' cooking, their mothers' songs, their level of

comfort in their homes, the level of conflict in the home, it's the reality that the young person

brings with them everyday to school. In that way, all 20 or 30 young people in my classroom

are unique. Every student I have brings a unique collection of artifacts.....an archive.

My job is to bring the archive to let's say a midpoint and the new knowledge that I am facilitating

to the same midpoint, a kind of epiphany, a new kind of understanding, and then the students

archive grows, gets enriched, diversified.

I object to anything that would leave me addressing their existing archive as a whole that is

complete, immutable, and that I am there to somehow validate or specifically respect that as and

end rather than as a means or as a starting point and fossilize them into that archive, cultural or

religious.

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The teacher above reveals the complexity of the notion of culture, its multilayered nature, content

and form. The teacher starts from what makes primary sense to her students. The teacher suggests

that in any case culture should not be seen as the end or and the aim, but as the material to engage

with. The importance of fundamental pedagogical goals while addressing students‟ cultures and

experiences is not lost here (Wheeler, 2003). Questions are raised as to what extent is the inclusion

of any cultural content into school curricula useful to the students' autonomy and independence

and to what extent it is the desire of their parents, conservative clerics‟ and politicians‟ agendas?

4. Non-Muslim teachers are not qualified to teach Muslim students about Islam (Faruqi,

1979).

Teachers from the SSHRC study express similar concerns. How can teachers who are secular in

their outlook be held responsible for making Muslims comfortable as Muslims. Muslim youth

have identities that go beyond their religions:

You get teachers who have the most superficial knowledge of Islam who encounter a student and decide

that their task is to make them comfortable as Muslims in their classroom. I can‟t imagine a more

arrogant goal. How in the world are you going to make a Muslim student comfortable as a Muslim in

your classroom with only the most superficial awareness of what it even means to be a Muslim,

especially if you‟ve got 9 or 10 or 15 young Muslims in your class, every one of them has a different

concept of what it means to be a Muslim. So my students are Muslims. What else are they? They‟re

teenagers. What else are they? They‟re young people who want to succeed. Okay well I may know about

Islam, but I don‟t know what it is to be a Muslim young person growing up in Apartment 202 at 89 X

street, but I do know its different from a young person growing up in apartment 203 because I know what

families are. So encountering them as Muslims is the worst kind of stereotyping, as far as I‟m

concerned, its racist, its racism, no matter how well meaning it is. Encountering the students as Islamists

is totally ridiculous because most of these young people have no philosophical foundation.. So I encounter

them as young people that want to be educated. I‟m not there to validate their faith. I‟m there to provide

them with the healthiest set of coping strategies for succeeding as individuals.

This Islamist perspective, selectively using some of the anti-racist and anti-colonial critics and

anthropologists, assumes that outsiders are not emotionally, socially, academically, and even

psychologically qualified to talk about Muslims‟ cultures and religion. This logic suggests that

even if we include Islam into the Western textbooks, we will also need specially trained Muslim

teachers to teach it accurately and sensitively. Some countries have hired more Muslim teachers

and others have purposefully hired and trained Muslim teachers to teach Islamic Studies (Merry,

2005). Part of the assumption is true due to Orientalist and neo-Orientalist depictions of Muslims

and other minorities described above. The problem is that such assumptions are only partially true.

They also ignore local elite and agency, and their role in auto-colonization. They ignore that no

internal scholar is free from bias, and personal interest. Where is the guarantee that an indigenous

scholars' voice is unbiased toward his/her clan, class, family, and tribe; that they are epistemic ally

superior (Milligan, 2005); that such voice is not reinforcing internal colonialism and

discrimination (Myer, 2002, p. 234)? It is naïve to any more suggest that the minority and

indigenous voices do not contain racism, bigotry and discrimination.

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To that end, there are some bizarre accusations of non-Muslim or 'not-proper Muslim' teachers in

converting, secularizing, and corrupting Muslim children, if and when they simply raise questions

about any Islamic issue, bring alternative Islamic, non-Islamic, or anti-Islamic perspectives to the

classroom, or even try and genuinely help their students. To challenge the above, a Hindu teacher

participant in the study felt that all her help for saving one of her Muslim students from the hands

of law-enforcement agencies was not appreciated. Instead she was given a hint as if all that help

was aimed at converting the student.

A science teacher, who described herself as fundamentalist Christian, refuted the accusation that

she was ineligible to teach Muslim students as follows:

R: My next question is that you bring your strong Christian values to your class, and you have Muslims,

Hindus, Sikhs and whatever other kind of students, and even Christians who are not Protestants….How

do students think about these things, you know, imposing on them or proselytizing.

T: Well, I try to be careful to not proselytize, and it‟s always a fine line but again my purpose in sharing my

perspective again is not for them to believe what I believe, but is to say that I as a science teacher, I as a

person of this world, have a certain take on something. This is my take, this isn‟t the take of all of

Christianity, this isn‟t the take of my department, or school or whatever, but this is one perspective. So I try

to really reserve it for the end. I am not trying to brainwash anybody.

SN: So do you let them ask questions? Do you let them disagree with you?

LK: Yeah, I tell them to disagree with me. To bring their perspectives. Some do, others smile and keep

quiet.

5. Schools are not safe environments where all cultural Identities can be explored

A history teacher in the SSHRC study expressed the view that she has created such a safe culture

that her students expect her to tell them about their views and disagree with her. "I tell my students

that if in your paper you say that you have written so and so because of I told you that is not going

to help you get a better grade. You will get a better grade if you show your disagreements with my

statements."

Earlier-on xamples from our research showed that teachers do not bracket their students as

generalized and culturally fixed representatives. Teachers see Muslim students as young kids and

adolescents not uniquely different from other students in their class. Collet (2007) in his study of

Somali students in Toronto reveals that even within one community, there are diverse approaches

to the subjects of music, sex, physical and co-education. While some students reject these activities

others endorse them. While some Muslim students are successful at sports and music, others are

struggling or rejecting them. Where for some being religious is primary, for others it is secondary

to their ethnic and academic aspirations. While some love math, others enjoy arts. Many Muslim

students and parents love and excel in science despite Islamists' demonization of science as

anti-religious. Indeed, these various approaches are justified by Muslim traditions, including

primarily religious ones. How does this make a particular Muslim teacher any more eligible than

non-Muslim one to work with them?

12

Ghuman (1994) and Sarroub (2000) illustrate that there are Muslim students who want to

have non-ethnic teachers because their co-religionist teachers over-discipline them, require blind

submission and obedience, mis-inform their parents on their behaviours, or control them in the

name of culture and religion. There are Muslim students who also do not want to be part of Muslim

students‟ organizations, which, male-dominated, sometimes try to control rather than assist them

(Sarroub, 2000). Students legitimately want to be exposed to alternative views and prefer to have

white teachers to whom they appear to confer and confess their little secrets and personal concerns.

Niyozov (2001) study of teachers in Tajikistan shows that Muslim students often found

non-Muslim teachers and instructors friendlier, more caring, and even more knowledgeable. The

personal warmth of Russian teacher Svetlana, an ethnic Russian made one of his study‟s teachers

to choose Russian as his teachable subject:

Svetlana was kind, gentle, and friendly. She was different from the local Tajik and Kyrgyz teachers,

who were mainly strict and sometimes would even punish…The best books, including the classics,

were mainly in Russian. So I studied Russian more to prepare myself for the Russian faculty (p.

146)…. Svetlana was gold. She would share both her successes and failures with us. With her we

got the first place at the University competition on creativity and academic excellence. She would

spend as much time as we wished to cover the lessons we missed. Svetlana was there to make us

succeed (p. 150).

.

A science teacher in the SSHRC study mentioned to us how a couple of years ago one of her

Muslim female students approached her to explain her feeling for a boy in the school and get

advice. "I told her as a Muslim you cannot date until you are married or engaged. I am not sure if

the student was satisfied. The student told me that I was the one she trusted and she shared all her

feelings about the boy and said the boy also likes her and sends her messages."

Research shows many non-Muslim teachers who effectively relate and empathize with their

Muslim students. Sarroub (2005) shows the tension between the two worlds of the Muslim girls

that the teachers perceive and are passionate to help their students handle:

Your heart goes out in a way to the female students because…it‟s been indicated

„we wish, we wish we could do some of these things…take part in more activities

at school.‟ I‟ve had girls in my classroom who have broken down and cried… (p.

99).

I have a female student [whose]… uncle came from Yemen and when he heard

that she was going to a school with boys, they‟re sending her back to Yemen.

You know, and this teacher was broken hearted (p. 98).

All the above indicates that the assumption that Muslim teachers are in a better position to teach

Muslim students, their history and culture may be unfounded. The question is not only about who

teaches whom, but also how does one teach, to what end, with what ethics and interest. In other

14

I find it strange that living in the 21st century we still have to hide real life issues from our students,

Muslims or non-Muslims. I am fundamentalist Christian. My church leaders are also not so open

about these issues, but they do not forbid me teaching and explaining to kids reproduction, sex and

sexual relations. Muslims like others are human being. While we never encourage anybody to

engage in sexual relations we realize, they similar to others need to know about sex, about how it

happens and what the implications are. Muslim kids have the same physiological needs like others.

We cannot control them. But leaving them ignorant on the questions of reproduction is not a good

idea.

While parents and religious activists attacked public schools and teachers in teaching the subjects,

we now notice that both Islamic education proponents and Islamic schools themselves teach the

subject. Sarwar (1989 quoted in Parker-Jenkins et al., 2005) states that “the need for sex education

is not in doubt. The debate is concerned with where, how, and by whom this education should be

given" (p.138). Collet illustrates that what parents and religious leaders may consider as taboo,

students themselves realize as possible and important.

8. Teachers exhibit insensitivity in accommodating Muslims’ religious practices and rituals

such as Friday prayers, fasting and react negatively to students' concerns about school trips,

etc.

One of our current study‟s teachers of English mentioned that they have been able to resolve the

parents‟ concerns on their children‟s, especially girl‟s field trip, by allaying the concerns through

direct discussion, by involving Muslim teachers in the trips and by proving their credibility in the

community through years of helping their Muslim students succeed.

The teacher put it as follows:

R: If Muslim girl want to play basketball or want to go for a field trip, but the parents come and stop them,

so you said in that case, there should be a different type of talk. You said that we will engage the parents

by using 'polite force'.... What is 'polite force'?

T: All it really is, is anticipating the questions and the worries that a parent might have, and honestly and

directly addressing those concerns. For example, when we take our young people away for a four day

retreat and parents of any sort are expressing concern about their daughters, we will address those concerns:

Are you concerned about boys coming close to where they are sleeping? ---This is what we have done to

make sure that doesn't happen; Are you worried that they will be able to go off alone with a boy? This is

what we have done to make sure that won't happen. Are you concerned about dietary restrictions that are

either religious or medical? This is what we've done to make sure this is taken care of. And, as we address

them not in a confrontational way, but in a way that: We feel that it is good for your daughter to participate

in this and we think so strongly enough that we are actually going to confront some of your concerns--kind

of thing, --and the more we do that, the more likely those parents are to begin to nod their heads that they

will try it. And once they have tried it the first time, it is amazing how eager they are nest time. We need to

allay the misconceptions about the schools created by the religious leaders of all sorts.

Likely Abbas‟ study in Birmingham, UK concludes that “teachers were considerate of all

religions.” In his research he found that 94% of the educators that he spoke with agreed that all

religions should be respected for their intrinsic values; and a full 82% disagreed with the statement

that “pupil religion and culture ought to be left at home.” His overall findings suggest that “many

15

teachers were positive advocates of the different faiths” and that “both religion and pupil ought to

be given the respect they deserved” (p.454

There are many teachers in the public school system, who are Muslim themselves. These teachers,

addition to teaching their own subjects, have been providing valuable services in bridging between

cultures, helping their colleagues understand the nuances of the students‟ backgrounds, their

deeper needs, and alley parents‟ misconceptions about public schools and western societies (Collet,

2006).

9. Public schools do not accommodate Muslim students concerns

By virtue of living in an increasingly pluralistic society, public school board policies have become

more responsive to the practices of Islam. For example, the Toronto District School Board

(TDSB) states that it “will take reasonable steps to provide accommodation to individual members

of a religious group who state that the Board‟s operations or requirements interfere with their

ability to exercise their religious beliefs and practices” (p. 3). The guidelines provide specific

accommodations for Muslim students so as to respect the Five Pillars of Islam, to acknowledge

Muslim norms, to respond to incompatibilities with the existing curriculum, and to address issues

with extracurricular activities. It also includes accommodations made for daily prayer and Muslim

Holy festivals. The TDSB has drafted a schedule for teachers for times during which the noon

prayer must take place. Muslim students are allowed to use all or part of their lunchtime for

prayers, and when prayer obligations occur during class time, students are allowed time for prayer.

The Board also recommends an allocated space in the school for prayers: especially for Friday

prayer, and when that is not possible, students have up to one hour to attend a nearby mosque.

Muslim Holy periods are respected in a variety of ways: students are excused from school for

Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-u-Adha, and Ashura; there is an understanding of the requirements of fasting

during Ramadan; and accommodations are made for students traveling to Mecca for Hajj.

An acknowledgement of the norms of Islam is also made through TDSB policy. School food items

containing ingredients derived from pork are clearly identified and vegetarian and Halal food are

encouraged. Board policy advocates acceptance of Islamic dress, as well as clear consequences

for harassment by intolerant peers. Board guidelines also inform teachers to be observant of

male-female relations: Special arrangements may need to be made for student seating, parent

meetings, and group work.

Discussion of Findings: Implications for Research, Policy and Practice of Education and

Pluralism

According to Panjwani (2006), the recent shifts in religious education (e.g., over-sensitivity,

uncritical celebration of differences, and political correctness) often blur the more serious

discussions on the actual aims of education and do not help students to develop analytical skills

and engage in open-minded discussion, do not expose students to more than one view, and do not

enable them to reflect upon the existential and social questions of the day. There has always been a

realization that playing it safe and politically-correct approaches to education are failing our

children and societies in education terms.

Teachers, whether in public or Islamic schools, are not taught or encouraged to problematize the

16

content, bring in and address controversial issues, make mistakes, and learn as they go. Until

teachers and students in public and Islamic schools are given the chance to take risks in handling

religious and other sensitive issues and learn from those risks, without fear of being called racists

and phobic, our efforts will be irrelevant and futile, no matter who teachers our multicultural

students population.

Such shift requires that we think globally and have moral courage to discuss unresolved questions

such as: How much of racism and phobia are real and how much are perceived? Should every

claim about discrimination be accepted as is, should it be engaged? To what extent are these claims

and voices about racism genuine, and to what extent are they based on personal agendas and

politics? How much discrimination is conscious and how much of is unconscious? Why are the

discussions on racism, colonialism, and imperialism limited to white people and western societies

and to the last two centuries only? Why do the non-white scholars, so good at identifying forms of

western racism and colonialism, fail to equally note these in their own cultures and histories?

Due to multiple reasons, today more than ever before, western teachers, educators, and general

population is aware not only of Islam and its major tenets, but also of its internal diversity and the

complexities of Muslims' historical relations with non-Muslims globally. With the recent

migration and transnational flows of people and ideas, we are witnessing new forms of identity

articulation. All these developments have had serious implications for teaching about Islam and of

Muslim students in contemporary societies that are not only diverse and complex, but also globally

interdependent. The predominant image of teachers in public schools in Canada and the West in

general remains mis-understood, and negative as far as the education of Muslim students is

concerned. Negative depictions come from various sources: research, media, politicians,

particularly during the elections, community leaders,

The new teaching approaches such as teaching through epistemological and pedagogical pluralism

and comparative, cross-cultural pedagogies will not be fruitful if they do not critically engage the

various curriculum commonplaces- teachers, students, textbooks, resources, relations and the

school culture.

As educators we need to know that debates around Muslim education are not innocent, but pursue

a number of goals and agendas, which are often hidden in benign words and terms that are modern,

critical, and justice-oriented. The teachers' voices from our research, coupled with our personal

experiences and the existing research suggest schools be places where all students freely engage in

critical analysis of the self and society, historically and today. The voices of teachers, researchers,

and religious clerics, organized groups must be equally engaged with in terms of their context,

origin, ethics, purpose, and implications for a particular Muslim student, Muslim community, and

global humanity. Fundamental education questions such as what is the purpose of education, what

is the role of teacher, how can we prepare out students for the 21st globalizing knowledge society

need not become trivial to concerns about politics of identity, difference, cultural sensitivity,

political correctness, and communal cohesion (Wheeler, 2003, Kassam, 2003).

Teachers' worldviews, pedagogies, and relationships should become central to education research

and policy. In no case are we saying that all teachers are always doing good job. The expositions

above acknowledge many teachers may be practicing forms of racism and discrimination

consciously or unconsciously. A lot needs to be done in terms of reducing teachers' and students'

17

prejudice, inclusion of the students' personal voices and their cultures and histories, as well as

accommodation of their needs. We need to consider teachers as knowledgeable, caring, passionate,

hardworking, and committed. Yet we do not take any of these qualities for granted. We ask our

teachers and ourselves where do the knowledge, passion, commitment and care come from, where

does it lead us, who does it empower and who does it marginalize.

The disregard for and distrust of the teachers‟ work (especially in public schools) and the ignoring

of their perspectives, leads to misunderstanding of the complexity of teachers‟ work and working

conditions, and the de-professionalization of the teachers‟ images in the society. It is clear that

teachers think and work through a much broader pragmatic perspective than any particular parent,

and religious/cultural/social group. They work on how to achieve the needs and hopes of all

students. Any demand on meeting any community needs requires an acknowledgement of this

simple reality check of the impact on the emotional, intellectual, political, and physical

intensification of their work.

Teachers need support, resources, appreciation, and recognition to do better. Indeed no single

teacher in the study rejected the idea of including Muslims' cultures and histories in the curriculum.

While some of our teachers acknowledged that the shortcomings mentioned above in terms of

curricula, pedagogy and relationships were important observations, they were rarely particular to

Muslim students. All teachers had questions about the appropriate information that would be

accurate and common to all Muslims. In some cases they simply needed help with finding the right

resources and strategies to work with Muslim students. Others pointed out the deeper issues

beyond the politics of recognition, culture, identity and representation; what are the agenda behind

such calls? Whose power and benefits do they serve? What is the role of education? Is it to

fossilize the students into certain cultures as if cultures and religions are innocent and neutral;

Whose Islam and which Muslim are we talking about in our debate about Muslim education?

What is so special about Muslims that sets them apart rather than connects them to the rest of

humanity? Are the differences so deep that we are doomed to communicate properly? Why can't

we talk about issues of discrimination and injustice in Muslims' history and society?

Education in pluralist societies requires that cultures, religions, and histories are included as

starting point, as materials for scrutiny and analysis not as sacred, untouchable entities. Pluralism

is a creative construction of new, not a mechanical piling up of differences as exotic materials.

Pluralism cannot exist when there is no fairness, equity, and honesty. Pluralism starts with

acknowledging complexity and imperfectness within oneself; With opening up to other

perspectives with humility, rather than with claiming religious or moral or civilizational

superiority. Therefore, the provision of curricula and textbook materials on Islam and Muslims

should not provide idealized and “imagined” realities and images of Islam and Muslim history, nor

should it hide or avoid Muslims social and historical problems.

There are implications for Higher Education. Teachers whether non-Muslims or even Muslims

need conceptual, academic, and pedagogical preparation. They need to be exposed to more than a

single perspective on all issues related to Muslim education: What is Islam? Muslim cultural,

ethnic, ideological and theological diversities; Muslims' history, scholarship, poetry; Relations

between Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and religions; between Islam, the West, and modernity; For

teachers, the concept, history and pedagogy of Islamic education are important to be learnt. To that

end, Islam has become an important subject at the Canadian and American universities and

18

colleges of education. In Canada, McGill University‟s institute of Islamic Studies has been an

internationally known program. University of Toronto has more recently established Islamic

studies program at its Department of Religions. Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario has started

its Muslim Studies Option?? Particular to OISE, where I work, we have undertaken a number of

initiatives. There is a deliberate search for students with Muslim background to our teacher

certificate program. In 2006, OISE has set a Muslim Education Project, an academic initiative that

brings together Muslim and non-Muslim stakeholders to explore and seek solution to issues and

challenges faces by Muslim students in Ontario. This initiative has held four Round tables around

various issues facing Muslims and one Summer Institute on Teacher Training on Islamic school

teachers in Ontario. In 2010 a B Ed course Perspectives on the Education and Pedagogy in Islam

will be offered as a related studies course at OISE. All these are steps in the right direction and with

time, will result in better preparation of teachers to work with Muslim students.

Finally, Muslim education whether in public or Islamic schools as a concept needs to be engaged

seriously, openly, and fairly. This educational concept must provide logical answers and evidence

on how it fares in the face of competing forces such as (a) neoliberalist push for marketization,

standardization of the content, commoditization, efficiency, and teaching for test, and (b) demands

for parochial morality and indoctrination. Comparative and global perspectives should be brought

in so as to reveal the particular and common between Muslims and non-Muslims and redraw the

line of allegiance from religious and parochial to fundamental global issues such as social injustice,

ecology, and peace (Giroux, 2002; Wheeler, 2003).

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