The View From Inside the Khalil Gibran International Academy
You have your thought and I have mine.
I recited this line from the poetry of Khalil Gibran together with fellow members of the small staff of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), the first public school in the United States slated to teach a dual language curriculum with a focus on Arabic and Arab history and culture. As we spoke, we recognized our differences while accepting our challenge: to find commonality by exploring and celebrating the painfully misunderstood and underrepresented Arab-American community and learning and teaching Arabic.
Your neighbor is your other self dwelling behind a wall. In understanding, all walls shall fall down.
Over the past week, my inbox has been clogged with Google Alerts bearing such tabloid headlines as, “Jihad’ya Later,” “When In Doubt, Pick a Jew,” and “What’s Arabic for ‘Shut it Down.'” New York City has become obsessed with the Khalil Gibran International Academy. For me, it was a summer internship after returning from my junior year abroad in Cairo and before starting my senior year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For many others, it was a sign that the enemy had arrived at the gates.
Khalil Gibran was a Christian Lebanese immigrant to the United States whose words inspired messages of peace, hope, and understanding. KGIA will teach a message of global citizenship and international participation to its students, starting with one small class of sixty 6th graders.
KGIA and its visionary leader and former principal, Debbie Almontaser, have been subjected to relentless attacks since February. According to critics, KGIA is dangerous and poses a threat to America. The Stop the Madrassa Coalition, which led the charge against the school, is, according to its website, “a grass roots coalition of citizens groups and individuals,â€\xc2\x9d that asks the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education to “Shut down the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Now.â€\xc2\x9d Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum and enemy of KGIA, asks that the school “€œfundamentally rethink its mission.”€\xc2\x9d The school has been accused of being, “€œun-American.”
Ms. Almontaser was labeled “€œthe Intifada Principal”€\xc2\x9d by a slew of newspapers and blogs after a New York Post interview in which she was asked to define Intifada.€\xc2\x9d Her response was honest and true, but was twisted and used against her in what my father has called a €œhigh tech lynching. In the end, Almonaster was given no choice but to protect the school by offering her resignation. The consequent attacks, which led to her unfortunate recent resignation and replacement with a Jewish principal, can be characterized as guilt by association.
Debbie Almontaser, a long-time leader in anti-bias, tolerance, and inter-faith programming, has represented a face of the Arab-American community since September 11th. This summer, she led the KGIA staff in developing a common language. In an attempt to understand each other’s traditions, we were all asked to discuss our favorite holidays. When I said that mine was Shavuot, a Jewish harvest celebration, Debbie asked, “Is that when you read the book of Esther?”
“œNo, but close!,” I responded. “It’s the book of Ruth.”
Although America today is in critical need of citizens who understand the Middle East, Arabic and Arab culture have long been absent from our classrooms. An expert from Georgetown University spoke to the KGIA staff about the gaps in America’s curricula. After the pyramids and pharaohs, he says, our students draw a blank. In areas like Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab population outside of the Middle East, where I volunteered at an elementary school, young Fatimas and Ahmads read line after line about “€Brittney eating ham sandwiches”€\xc2\x9d and nothing about “Hassan eating felafel.”€\xc2\x9d They are not taught their language, their culture goes unrecognized, and their names are constantly mispronounced.
Opponents of the KGIA are fighting reality. We are a country of immigrants whose identity drawn from a rich mix of diverse cultures. America stands for diversity of all shades and sounds, and has a long and proud history of unpronounceable names.
I ponder my own experience and the difficulties that I, and my peers, have encountered in beginning the study of this complex and beautiful language at such late ages. Nothing seems more American than this new school. How better to improve global understanding than to encourage our young Arabic speakers to explore and improve their skills and to give language and cultural knowledge to our nation’s future diplomats?
Although Ms. Almontaser resigned from her position as principal after the false and malicious attacks against her, KGIA will still be opening in the fall. Our country and our world need graduates from KGIA; the message and the hope that they will carry will serve to protect us, and help mend our country’s reputation, both at home and abroad.
Naamah Paley was a summer intern at the Khalil Gibran International Academy, where she was responsible for enrollment.
