Teachers Must Protect Muslim Students

In a recent incident of Islamophobia, a teacher in Florida was fired for crassly interrupting Muslim students' prayers, accusing them of doing "magic." Her reasoning is cringeworthy: "I believe in Jesus, so I'm interrupting the floor." Though no reason is given for the boys' recording their prayers, I suspect it's because this type of incident isn't the first time they've been harassed while praying. As someone who teaches world religions, including Islam, I find so much wrong with this TikTok video. In order for our pluralistic society to thrive, we must work together to repair a sense of the sacred in teaching.

There are many layers of religious ignorance on display in the video. As I reflect on this event, I wonder if there's not something else going on, perhaps under the surface. Did this former teacher betray something more? In my mind, teaching is a sacred duty to create the world you want to live in, today and tomorrow. Wilful negligence of this duty is reprehensible, but it is far from unique in the profession today.

Few teachers at any level would likely call their profession a "sacred duty." Yet, what they're doing - and certainly not for the money - is bridging the wisdom of the past to the hopes of the future. We should reexamine teachers' sacred duties today in light of a rapidly changing world. Teachers not only have to anticipate future needs in literacy, knowledge, and skills, but they also have to use the newest methods to capture the attention of students.

I sometimes shock my students by telling them that they will likely work into the 2070's (their looks tell me that's the first time they've pondered that reality) and I have no idea what the world will look like then. The skills I am teaching them today, like critical thinking, reasoning, empathy, and an appreciation of complexity will serve them well no matter the state of work or the world fifty years in the future.

I do believe most teachers, whether in K-12 or higher education, go into the profession with the hope of creating a better world. To be sure, teachers and professors have some sense of what they're getting into, whether in expected pay, hours, or general work conditions. What no one really tells you is that the vast majority of the day-to-day labor is paying it forward, investing in students, but only rarely getting a glimpse of the payoff years later.

Few students get in touch later on, so the work has to be done with the understanding that you won't get to see the results in the same way as other forms of work. Yes, the proverbial lightbulb moments happen in a classroom (and they are glorious!), but the labors of teaching culminate in imagining a future and animating students to go for it. Teachers today need a reaffirmation of the sacred duty because they do not get to see how it all works out.

Teachers must lead the way into the future by incorporating and cultivating the habits of good citizenship. Religious freedom, even in simplistic tolerance, forms the backdrop of our pluralistic society. This means defending the rights of religious people to practice their faith unencumbered. Antisemitism, for example, is an ever-present and presently increasing problem in our society. In the reaffirmation of the sacred duty of teaching, we should take seriously how we imagine the future. This includes the safety and protections of Muslims and other religious persons.

The failure of this now-former teacher in Florida includes religious ignorance and insensitivity. An ideal of a pluralistic society is the celebration of difference. Muslim students should be protected by their teachers. Muslims are an important part of our society. Around the world and in the United States, the Muslim population is growing. This former teacher's Muslim students are part of her future, and so they should be protected today.

The reality of a pluralistic society is the effort everyday citizens must take to protect all people's right to religious freedom. In their sacred duty to create a better world, teachers share in the task of inspiring a new generation to honor differences.