Providing professional development for 6-12 grade educators.
by Catherine Angst
The Duke Islamic Studies Center and the Duke University Middle East Studies Center in partnership with the Qatar Foundation International (QFI) hosted forty 6-12 grade educators for a five-day summer institute from June 24-29, 2018
Throughout the week teachers engaged with university experts on a variety of topics to expand their understanding of the cultures, histories, and geopolitics of the Middle East. Lecture titles included:
- “Religious Diversity of the Middle East” with Professor Carl Ernst, Ph.D.
- “Women and Leadership in the Arab World” with Professor Nadia Yaqub, Ph.D
- “Contemporary Turkey from Ataürk to the AKP” with Professor Erdağ Göknar, Ph.D.
- “An End – Or A Beginning?: The Arab Uprisings of 2011 as History” with Professor James Gelvin, Ph.D.
“We have designed the institute’s program of study around common themes in state curricula, as well as frequently asked questions about the region,” said Emma Harver, a partner on the program from the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies. Beyond lectures, the educators participated in specialty breakout sessions, curriculum building workshops, and a panel discussion on Islamophobia with local Muslim community members.
“One of the biggest things I’ll bring back to my classroom is a comparison between of world religions,” said Kevin Wagner, a world history teacher from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, “There are so many things that the Islamic faith shares with Judaism and Christianity.”
A review committee selected this year’s participants through a competitive, nation-wide application. The educators represented 21 different states and a variety of teaching disciplines from social sciences, language arts, and more. “The committee was quite impressed with the number and quality of applications to this program,” Harver noted.
Duke and QFI piloted this summer institute in June 2017 with the theme “The Middle East and Islam: New perspectives of Islamic History from the 16th century to the present”. The pilot institute was quite successful, so the program grew to double the size of its teacher cohort this summer.
Photos by Catherine Angst and Julie Maxwell. Video by Catherine Angst.