Educators around the country are making good-faith attempts to educate our young about Islam - its tenets of belief, its daily practices, its cultural trappings.
The backlash they experience is strong enough to prevent the education in question, almost every time. Suspended teachers, closed schools, cancelled classes.
I used to say knowledge and understanding could cure ignorance and fear. Now the hierarchy has flipped: ignorance and fear are (if you'll forgive me) trumping our efforts to raise the next generation to surpass us in empathy and egalitarianism as we have surpassed our parents, and - face it - as Millennials have largely surpassed us.
This must cease.
The burden is not on the educators themselves. It's on the administrations supporting them. It's not a light burden: it is difficult to receive spurious claims of offense and of treasonous activity. It is frightening to receive threats to campus safety, no matter how high or low in credibility.
So I have a question for those administrators: in our nation's recent (say, past 65 years) history, how often have the centers of secondary and higher education been the breeding grounds of desperately needed progress? How often have they been the last places to welcome the open, considered, and nuanced exchange of ideas? How often have activities on those campuses served to energize their charges, instilling within them an unshakable commitment to reduce some form of suffering in the world?
Let's implore those administrators to stand by their educators' efforts. If the campus must close, carry right on with the curriculum when it reopens. Don't cancel the class. Definitely don't suspend the teacher (although, as a dear friend observed, that's one of those "crazy-christian colleges" and likely would have done so anyway).
The fear-mongers among us want theirs to be the only voices teaching us of the things they want us to fear. Let us not be complicit in the success of their efforts.
The backlash they experience is strong enough to prevent the education in question, almost every time. Suspended teachers, closed schools, cancelled classes.
I used to say knowledge and understanding could cure ignorance and fear. Now the hierarchy has flipped: ignorance and fear are (if you'll forgive me) trumping our efforts to raise the next generation to surpass us in empathy and egalitarianism as we have surpassed our parents, and - face it - as Millennials have largely surpassed us.
This must cease.
The burden is not on the educators themselves. It's on the administrations supporting them. It's not a light burden: it is difficult to receive spurious claims of offense and of treasonous activity. It is frightening to receive threats to campus safety, no matter how high or low in credibility.
So I have a question for those administrators: in our nation's recent (say, past 65 years) history, how often have the centers of secondary and higher education been the breeding grounds of desperately needed progress? How often have they been the last places to welcome the open, considered, and nuanced exchange of ideas? How often have activities on those campuses served to energize their charges, instilling within them an unshakable commitment to reduce some form of suffering in the world?
Let's implore those administrators to stand by their educators' efforts. If the campus must close, carry right on with the curriculum when it reopens. Don't cancel the class. Definitely don't suspend the teacher (although, as a dear friend observed, that's one of those "crazy-christian colleges" and likely would have done so anyway).
The fear-mongers among us want theirs to be the only voices teaching us of the things they want us to fear. Let us not be complicit in the success of their efforts.
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