It is up to us as educators to facilitate lessons, discussions, and cooperative skills that open-minds and increase understanding. Children repeat what they hear at home and from outside sources but we must not let bullying and hatred into our classrooms. Hate begets more hate. It never ends but it can end by making our classes a safe place. San Diego Unified School District Board Will Address Islamophobia and Bullying of Muslim Students | NBC 7 San Diego http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/San-Diego-Unified-School-District-Islamophobia-Muslim-Students-CAIR-Plan-388390272.html?_osource=mobilesharebar
We need to address this in San Diego, how about where you live?
Sign-up for one of my favorite resources, Teaching Tolerance Magazine, or check it out online. There are also many resouces for understanding world religions, ask you Librarian for suggestions or get started with these:
Teachers and communities may be fearful, and are not always trained to lead lessons on religion. http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-na-islam-schools-20151220-story.html
But, that's not helpful for us as teachers, our students, or our communities to not address that students may be hurt and bullied while other students may actual be fearful of muslim students based on what they hear in their homes. Noone can learn in fear. So, it becomes something we can take time to learn more about: how to talk and lead studies about religion in a fair, unbiased, inclusive, and caring way. It's our responsibility to make sure our children see themselves in our literature and in our classroom and to help build a future where we may not all believe the same things but we can understand each others beliefs. As we say in IB, just because someone is different, that doesn't make him wrong. It just means we may have different ideas. Moving toward developing international-mindedness is something we work on in IB and this paper may help understnd that educational philosophy more.
Thank you for working to develop open-mindedness, peace, and caring in our community and in your classrooms.
Posts
