I walked up the dark stairwell, unsure of what to expect when I got to the top. Honestly, I was a little nervous. I found myself smoothing my hair into a tighter bun, trying to catch the fly-away curls, and running sweaty palms along the edges of my pants, hoping to hide the wrinkles as well as my nerves. I didn’t know what I was about to experience, but I had a feeling I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself than the color of my skin already allowed.
As I conquered that last step, the room opened up into a sea of head coverings and floor-length clothing. Faces and bodies rushed past me in all directions as I reached out a hand, steadying myself against a wall, slipping off my shoes and setting them among dozens of others within the doorway.
It’s not often my white, American, Christian, heritage places me in the minority, but today it did.
Today I found myself in a muslim nation, surrounded by muslim children. And it was time for 1st grade math class to begin.
Gently closing the door behind me, a teammate and I began an hour of math lessons with students who were more interested in passing notes and collecting Pokemon erasers than grouping numbers. One-on-one we talked through the difference between “greater than” and “less than” and how to spot patterns and sequences. After math came an english lesson with hysterical and slightly sassy second graders, followed by another english lesson with the rambunctious but well-meaning third graders. Not a moment passed today when a student wasn’t tapping on my shoulder, or yelling a respectful, but eager, “teacher, teacher!” from their desk.
In so many ways, kids are the same around the world and across cultures—across religions.
I had to keep myself from audibly laughing as one of my second grade girls slumped low in her seat, tossed back her scarf-covered head, engaging the strongest eye-rolling game I’ve seen since the start of the race when she found out we were reading “Picking the Perfect Pet” again during class.
When you think of muslims, do you think of second graders practicing their english, or kindergarten students learning to color and paint?
Do you think of fathers praying with their families or uber drivers and Starbucks baristas?
Do you think of women who do their makeup and shop at the mall with their friends, adjusting their head coverings to get the perfect selfie?
Do you think of friends you might bump into during a walk through the local park?
Do you think of hospitality from someone willing to open their home to you?
When you think of muslims, do you think of people who are searching for God; people who feel that same longing you might have to understand where we come from and why we are on this earth?
Or has fear told you to think something different?
There’s a great line in Harry Potter (caalassic), said by the ever-wise know-it-all, Hermione Granger, that goes a little something like this,
“Fear of a name, only increases fear of the thing itself.”
It seems like the name, “Muslim” has a whole lot of fear attached to it; a fear growing fast in an environment of ignorance and unwillingness to ask questions or engage differences. A fear intensifying with every acceptance of assumption rather than searching for truth. A fear too easily generalized over an entire population of people because of the actions of a small fraction. A fear which allows for forgetfulness of events in history and the dehumanization of living, loving human beings. A fear which clouds our inclinations to compassion and blinds our eyes; instead of seeing the second grader, the refugee, the person of Jesus in the form of the thirsty, the hungry, the stranger standing right in front of us, we’ve given physical form to fear—and we’ve named it Muslim.
As the clock struck 12 noon the school day came to an official end and I dismissed my students. They gathered their books and pushed in their chairs, each saying, “Thank you, teacher!” I watched from behind the classroom window as boys and girls from every grade grabbed their packed lunches and circled together on the floor; the atmosphere lifting with the unique excitement only the closing of a school day brings.
I slipped on my shoes and stood by the exit, waiting for the rest of my team before heading home. As I waited, the most precious of little girls wrapped her arms snuggly around my waist. She tilted her head up towards mine, looked into my eyes from beneath her head covering and said, “Thank you, teacher! See you again tomorrow!”
And fear lost it’s form.
