What is Education with Muslims about?

Education with Muslims is a series of professional learning/development workshops for school educators aimed at enhancing their cultural awareness about Muslim students, their communities and the wider Muslim world. The initiative is targeted at primary and secondary schools in Victoria and New South Wales, and is open to educators from all independent, Catholic and government schools.

What do the workshops aim to do?

The workshops aim to:

• develop educators' skills and confidence on how to deal with the needs and expectations of Muslim students and parents
• raise awareness and understanding of Muslim cultures in Australia
• equip educators with the know-how and skills to develop a literacy of Islam and Muslim societies amongst students via  the curriculum
• develop a whole-school approach to support healthy relationships with Muslim students, their parents and Muslim communities
• provide insights into how to explore deeper the engagement of schools with Muslim communities in Australia and beyond

Who will be facilitating the workshops?

NCEIS has contracted Eeqbal Hassim, an expert on the history, theory and practice of Muslim education, from Opus Magnum, as well as Katherine Schoo (Executive Director) and Jennet Cole-Adams (Director of Membership and Curriculum Services) from ACSA to develop, deliver and manage the workshops. A/Prof Shahram Akbarzadeh was instrumental in securing the funding for the project and oversees its overall operations.

Eeqbal Hassim

Katherine Schoo

Jennet Cole-Adams

A/Prof Shahram Akbarzadeh - Deputy Director of NCEIS

What skills and knowledge and knowledge will I gain?

By attending these workshops, participants will develop skills on:

• handling the specific cultural, religious and linguistic needs of Muslim students in school
• interacting with the different worldviews of Muslim students
• how to deal with misconceptions about Islam and Muslims
• helping Muslim students meet the challenges they face at school (worldviews, expectations, 'fitting in', cultural differences, and media representation)
• dealing with Muslim parents' perceptions and expectations of education
• interacting with Muslim students within a multifaith and multicultural classrom
• how to handle diversity amongst Muslim students
• how to develop a literacy of Islam and Muslims through a variety of curricula
• how to engage local Muslim communities in school-based activities

Participants will develop and awareness and appreciation of:

• Muslim beliefs, cultures, practices and rituals
• Muslim expectations and perceptions of education
• current challenges for Muslim students and possible solutions
• diversity amongst Muslims
• Muslim history and civilisation
• the role and position of Islam in the Western and global settings (e.g. intellectual and trade links between Islam and the Western world)
• Islam's relationship with Judaism and Christianity

I already know the basic facts of Islam - how will the workshops benefit me?

The workshops will provide a knowledge-base and develop skills to deal with the diversity of Muslim beliefs, practices and cultures within school environments. Muslims in Australia come from a diverse range of social, cultural, linguistic, religious, political, economic and geographical backgrounds. The workshops focus on how Muslims perceive their faith in daily life as opposed to what Islam is supposed to be.

The workshops will incorporate presentations, group discusions, relevant case studies, action plannng and the sharing of real-life experiences with fellow educators, academics, Muslim leaders, students and parents.

Using a whole-school approach, the workshops target the development of practical skills and strategies that can be used at school rather than static information about Islam and Muslims.

A certificate of participation will be provided to all participants.

How will the workshops be run?

NCEIS and ACSA have held a series of consultations, as well as meetings with a number of prominent educational bodies, both private and governmental, to develop a sound method of delivery for the workshops. These bodies include Asia Education Foundation, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Social Education Victoria, and social Educators Association of Australia

The first workshop, Moving Forward and Engaging Communities, is a standalone, full-day workshop (9.30am-3.30pm). Other workshops are currently being developed as part of the Education with Muslims series.

What resources will be available?

A rich array of content-based and pedagogical resources will be made available to all participants, in print and online. All participants will be given a take-home professional learning/development pack, which contains all the material used in a particular workshop. The pack will also include the contact details of key organisations and individuals, website links and a host of other facts, figures and information on Muslims both in Australia and internationally.

A comprehensive resource kit for Education with Muslims is currently being developed by Eeqbal Hassim and ACSA, before being passed on to printers/publishers and IT experts. It will be made available in print, online and/or on CD. We expect that the resource kit will be ready by early 2010.

So, why learn about Islam and Muslims?

Islam and Muslims have garnered plenty of media, political, social and academic attention in the last decade for events both unfortunate and otherwise. Australia's nearest neighbour, Indonesia, is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, not to mention the millions of other Muslims who live in nearby Southeast Asian countries. Australia also has strong trade and educational links with the Middle East. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the Western world and, historically, Muslim intellectual advancements in the Middle Ages were the precursor to the rise of modern Europe.

Australia's current positioning as part of Asia necessitates an awareness and appreciation of Islam and Muslim cultures. For instance, the Preamble to the 'Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (Dec 2008)' states that 'India, China and other Asian nations are growing and their influence on the world is increasing' Australians need to become 'Asia literate', engaging and building strong relationships with Asia'. Importantly, both India and China have large Muslim communities.

The Preamble also emphasises global integration and international mobility. In this regard, knowledge of Islam and Muslims are key components to studies of history, human society, cultures, the global context and the media. Social inclusion and the strengthening of Australia's social fabric also demand good intercultural and interfaith understanding, respect and relationships.

As reported in Joel Windle's paper delivered at the inaugural NCEIS conference in November 2008, there appears to be a distinct lack of references to the history of Islam, in medieval and modern times, in history textbooks used in Victorian secondary schools. This is despite Islam's flourishing as a powerful intellectual, political and religious civilisation during the Dark Ages, as well as its pivotal role in influencing current affairs and contemporary global politics.

A report commissioned by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) Australia suggested that there is still a degree of prejudice and ignorance about Islam and Muslims in Australia. The report titled Isma (Listen) linked incidents of racial and religious discrimination with a lack of familiarity with Islam. This feature is recurrent in another piece of research on the print media prepared by A/Prof Shahram Akbarzadeh, funded by the Myer Foundation.

There is some realisation in the public service regarding the importance of education on Islam and Muslims. The Australian Federal Police, for instance, now runs 'Islamic Awareness' sessions for its senior officers though other government and non-government agencies have been less active in this domain.

The lack of knowledge on Islam and Muslims among school educators proves a hindrance to building bridges of understanding. This shortcoming has been reported by two secondary school teachers, both of whom are undertaking their PhD at the University of Melbourne. This observation has also been reflected by the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria (AISV), for which A/Prof Akbarzadeh has run introductory courses on the Middle East.

Teachers are often uncomfortable talking about Islam because they feel ill-equipped to deal with a topic that has received so much media coverage. The Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) has identified the importance of enhancing awareness of Islam amongst teachers, especially in regions with a sizeable Muslim population. On 18 August 2008, the NCEIS, in collaboration with the Department, organised a one-day seminar on 'Understanding the Multifaith Classroom in a Secular Society' for teachers, school leaders and other educators, at the Treetops Room, Melbourne Museum. The seminar focused on the common grounds between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as practical strategies to cope with religious diversity in the classroom. This event has demonstrated the need for a more elaborate initiative that tackles Islam and Muslims in Australia specifically.

Finally, as a key priority in national education, the Federal Government has funded the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies (NCEIS), a three-university consortium comprising the University of Melbourne, Griffith University and the University of Western Sydney, in order to promote a more informed understanding of Islam and Muslims.

Who can I contact for more information?

For more details about the project, please contact:

A/Prof Shahram Akbarzadeh

Deputy Director NCEIS

T: (03) 8344 8895 | E: shahrama@unimelb.edu.au

For all enquiries on the design and delivery of the Education with Muslims workshops, as well as the resource kit please contact:

Eeqbal Hassim

Partner and Consultant, Opus Magnum

M: 0430 708 650 | E: eeqbalhassim@gmail.com

For all registration enquiries, please contact ACSA on (02) 6260 5660, or at acsa@acsa.edu.au (ask for Katherine Schoo and/or Jennet Cole-Adams).