Dar al Islam - Part II

Okay, fine, I'm back. I totally meant to post more pictures and stories while I was there, but trust me - there was too much to do and too much to see, and I couldn't spend my spare minutes on the computer. However, now that I'm home, I can write all about my fabulous trip to Dar al Islam in New Mexico! You've already seen the beautiful campus where I spent 95% of my time going to lectures and working on projects. Here are some extra special pics of the surrounding landscape:

Views from Dar al Islam Campus:

Here are some pics of "Plaza Blanca," or The White Place made famous by Georgia O'Keefe. Turns out these beautiful volcanic tuft structures were ON Dar al Islam's property and I walked to them every morning!

(That's Lauren from Dallas in the last picture - she's the funniest person I've ever met.)

And, on our trip to Taos, we passed a beautiful Echo Ampitheater and just had to stop to check it out. Here are some pics of that beautiful gem:

I spent one day in Taos, which was wonderful, and another day (my birthday!) in Santa Fe where I went to the world's largest folk art festival. I bought all kinds of nifty souveniers from all over the world, including a great hat for Chud Muffin and a brass plate for myself.
Our second week was filled with more and more and more lectures, lots of enlightening information, and some great relationships on which to depend as we all crusade into this school year. I can honestly say that I have a much more sympathetic view of Muslims (or any deeply religious group of people, for that matter) and I plan to make my classroom a place where important discussions take place.
I'm going to do my best to recreate Dr. Shafi's closing remarks from our banquet Saturday night. Before you read it, keep in mind, he is a Muslim scholar and business man from Pakistan who has made a successful life for his beautiful family in New Mexico, where he began the Dar al Islam institute twenty years ago to combat prejudice and wage peace. Here's what he said:
"When I was a child, my mother taught me a prayer. Every night, before we went to bed, we said this prayer. After we asked God to bless our mother and father - and their mothers and fathers, and their mothers and fathers - the very next person we asked God to bless....was our teacher - and their teachers, and their teachers." This is where he got a bit choked up. "The reason we asked God to bless our teacher was because we expecting big things from them." Then he started to cry and said, "We expected our teachers to tell us....the truth." I started thinking about how hard it must have been to grow up as a Muslim in this country, and I also started to wonder how many of my students have ever prayed for me (not many, I'm sure). Then he continued, "We expected them to give us the answers, to be our guides - and to NOT make us the enemy." At this point I lost it. I thought of my two, adorable, Muslim students from the last couple of years - the Jaloudi brothers - who always have so much life and so much love in their eyes. I started to cry for their futures - for the "random" stops they will get at the airport, the stares and glares they'll receive while they go grocery shopping with their mother in her hijab, and the prejudice they'll encounter as they go through high school and college in our disturbingly conservative community. After Dr. Shafi's closing remarks, I said a prayer for the Jaloudi boys. I know they will be successful and I pray that their future teachers will recognize the amazing contributions they have to give, regardless of their father's inability to speak English and their mother's fear of Parent-Teacher conferences.
I'm so glad I went to this institute. Now I'm afraid of being the only one I know who thinks that a mosque is beautiful, that Muslim prayers are just as sacred as anyone else's, and that the things happening in our world are so much more political than religious. I'll never know what it's like to be a Muslim, but I'll do my best to make sure that ALL of my students are comfortable asking questions and learning the truth - whether it's in the curriculum or not. God bless teachers and God bless the students who listen to them!

Dar al Islam - Part 1

The Eastern Wall of the Mosque

Well, folks. Here I am. I've been in New Mexico for almost four days now. It's been an amazing experience intellectually, spiritually and even physically! I haven't felt this all-around healthy in a long time! I'll spare you all the amazing details I'm learning about Islam and just say this: I am well on my way to being an expert on the subject and would be happy to sit down and discuss any aspect of it with anyone when I get home. The purpose of this first blog, though, is just to give you all an idea of the beautiful place where I'm staying. We're on the Dar al Islam property, which is 1600 acres in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The original structure was built to be a Madressa, or school, so it contains classrooms, courtyards, dormintories and a Mosque. It does not serve as a school anymore but rather as a Non-Profit organization devoted to educating teachers and business people about the religion of Islam. As you can probably guess, the goal is to encourage a better understanding of Islam in order to promote peace and effective communication throughout the world. Okay, enough of the details, here are some pics:


Outside:

Inside:

My Bedroom

The hallway outside our bedroom door

Beautiful tile on the Library floor

Library Desk

Lunch in the Courtyard

On Monday night we went to visit Benyamin and Rabia, one of the original thirty families that started Dar al Islam. Now there are only three families living on the property. These two travel all over the Middle East and bring back wares to sell in their "yurt," a Mongolian-type hut where they also invite people in to listen to their stories. We heard some wonderful stories from Benyamin and I bought some artwork from them before we left.

Well, I'm off to another lecture, but I have lots more pictures to post. I might even be able to post some video if I can get my act together. I miss everyone terribly but I'm having a wonderful time. I'll be home on the 20th!

Workin' hard or hardly workin?

I've been dreading this weekend for a while. I have two night classes this semester and I have to say, they're not so bad. When big assignments fall on the same week, it gets a little hectic, but so far I've been able to plan ahead and get all of my Monday night classwork done early enough to pencil in some Tuesday night classwork time. Until this week.

I missed my Monday class two weeks ago because we were on our 4H field trip - totally worth it, except as make up work I had to summarize all of the articles presented by other students and write up a book review to make up for my teacher's lecture. Not hard, just time-consuming. I finished most of that last weekend, on top of the four articles I had to present last Monday. No big deal. But THIS week is a doozy. I had a ten page paper to write for each class, one was just a position paper and all I had to do was read a bunch of articles on-line and decide who I agree with (if you saw my post about the weather lady from Washington, you can probably figure out how I feel about this Math Wars issue). But my Tuesday night Social Studies class was a bit more involved. I had to conduct a small-scale research project based on all the research I've read this semester, write up my results and interpret them in light of the three textbooks we've been reading, then make a ten minute power point presentation to present to my class this week. So, like an idiot, I waited until this past week to do my research project.

What's so bad about last week, you might ask? Well, my 21 students had portfolios due on Friday, which meant I had 21 portfolios due on Friday, AND I scheduled parent conferences this week. I was the worst teacher in the world this week! I gave my kids packets of busy work EVERY DAY so I could spend all day conferencing on portfolios, then I rescheduled any conferences I had from 3:30 - 4:30 so I could steal some kids from the after school program to do my research, then I had conferences at 4:30, 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00 Wed - Fri, then I had to go home and get ready to write these stinking papers. In summary, at 7:00PM on Friday night, I was looking at 2 ten page papers, a book summary, and a power point presentation. I wanted to kill myself.

Well, folks, it's Sunday night, and I am SO proud to say, I did it all!! Not only did I DO it, but I finished at 2:00 AM this morning, so I still had time to go to Keeneland with my family. And can I tell you a secret? While I was sitting at my kitchen table, tip tap typing away on my laptop, surrounded in books and articles and papers and highlighters, I looked up at the clock and it said 12:30 (AM). I smiled to myself because I actually enjoyed what I was doing. No lie. What I wrote was GOOD. My research is GOOD! For a brief moment I thought to myself, "I could do this for a living." At this point in the school year, I am so sick of grading papers, and calling parents, and making lesson plans. At this point in the school year, a PhD in education doesn't sound all that crazy. I could totally do it. And I'd be GOOD at it.

Exciting Summer Class!

Last week my professor brought a brochure to class about a Teacher Institute in New Mexico. I half-heartedly glanced over it, thinking "yeah right, like I can afford to go to New Mexico." The Institute is called "Understanding and Teaching Islam," it lasts for two weeks in July, and the participants stay in the Mosque-school complex built by a famous architect. It sounded awesome, but very unlikely. There were lots of roadblocks, the least of which was my advisor approving the program as an elective course that I could transfer.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I might be able to pull it off. After all, two weeks in July is perfect (and short)! So I emailed my advisor with all of the info and she responded today. She said, "The course sounds quite interesting and apropos for this day and age. I am usually a stickler for focusing your elective course work within your selected area of specialization; however,this topic is important to all content areas. Therefore, I would approve it for your program." Hooray!

Here's the icing on the cake - I would pay for the graduate credits through the New Mexico Highlands University. Ever heard of it? Me neither - must be why their classes are SO DARN CHEAP! The institute pays for books, materials, room and board, so all I have to pay is graduate credit and a plane ticket. In the end, as it turns out, it would be cheaper for me to fly to New Mexico for two weeks than it would be for me to stay here at UK and take a three or four week class! Can you believe that??

I'm so excited about this class! I get to travel somewhere and learn about something that I truly don't know enough about. Just for clarification (Mom) - I'm not going to a mosque to convert to Islam. I'm going to a school to study about Islam and to better understand it so I can service a wider variety of students. Y'alls know that multicultural education, diversity, culturally responsive teaching, etc. is right up my ally. It's like this program was made for me! I can't wait!

All I have to do now is get accepted to the darn thing. Wish me luck. If you want to check it out, here's the link.