Current Events

Every Friday we would focus on current events. Each week five students would bring in an article, explain it, and then we would have a short discussion on how it connected to what we were learning in the class. The first student to share their current event described the Taliban bombing a mosque in Afghanistan. While the student was generally thoughtful in describing the event, I worried that he might have come off as a little islamophobic because he made a statement at the end that linked terrorism and Islam. In this moment, I both wanted the students to connect this very serious topic to our class, and how the Taliban were in many ways an outgrowth of colonialism. At the same time, I didn’t want this moment to just be academic; I wanted them to address the news on a personal and emotional level. As a new teacher in a class with many Muslim students, I wanted to project my concern and sensitivity to this topic. I was aware of my positionality as a non-Muslim teacher and wanted my students to know that I took this issue seriously. I wondered if I should ask the students what they thought and how that made them feel with questions such as “this is a really serious and sad topic that might be impacting us in different ways - does anyone want to share how they’re feeling? Do you think we should talk about it more? Is this too serious and maybe we don’t want to talk about it?”