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Seventh Annual Summer Teacher Workshop
Zeina Azzam Seikaly
Published in 2005
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For the teacher outreach program, the highlight of each summer is the annual week-long workshop for teachers, “Approaches to Teaching the Middle East.” This year 28 educators from Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and New York attended the program, taking in a variety of disciplinary perspectives and networkingwith colleagues within and outside their school districts. The group included four pre-service teachers who benefitedimmensely from contact with seasoned educators in their fields. Held on campusfrom June 27 to July 1, the workshop was underwritten by funds from CCAS and from the US-Department of Education-funded National Resource Center on the Middle East at Georgetown.
The first sessions were devoted to examination of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Daniel Walsh, a MAAS student who has been collecting posters on Israel and Palestine for decades, discussed using poster art as a window into the dynamics of the conflict. He showed slides of posters that illustrate the complexity of the issues and the competing narratives of both peoples. Mr. Walsh focused on “threshold terms” around which there is much controversy, such as Zionism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and Palestinian nationalism, and explained how the posters can lead to a healthy debate about these central concepts. Marc Gopin, the James H. Laue Professor of Religion, Diplomacy and ConflictResolutionatGeorgeMasonUniversity, addressed peace and justice issues in Middle Eastern civilizations, emphasizing the importance of the role of religion and culture in conflictresolution.He said that building trust between people and leaders is key to change; he stressed the importance of developing relationships and injecting all negotiations with respect and honor. Although Dr. Gopin characterized the Israeli-Palestinian situation as “the conflict that has defied all conflict resolution,” his prescriptive remarks regarding the ethics and psychology of peacemaking framed the future in more humanistic, and somewhat more optimistic, terms. Mubarak Awad, president and founder of Nonviolence International, analyzed the human tragedy of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He offered a Palestinian perspective critical of Israel and discussed his experiences with nonviolent resistance involving Palestinians as well as Israelis who work together to end the occupation. He advocated a two-state solution that grants equality to all citizens.
Two speakers from the World Bank tackled issues of development and economics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Nadereh Chamlou, Senior Advisor, MENA Region for Knowledge and Economic Sector Work, outlined the following areas as currently critical in the region: governance, management/the private sector, water, education, and gender. She said that deficitsin freedom, knowledge, and women’s empowerment impede development efforts in the region. In terms of advancing women’s economic rights, Ms. Chamlou cited three fundamental pillars: increasing women’s access to public resources, expanding their opportunities in employment and benefits,and enhancing their ability to create their own assets. Farukh Iqbal, Lead Economist and Poverty Coordinator in MENA’s Social and Economic Development Department, described the Middle East and North Africa as a differentiated region in terms of economics and resources, contrary to a common perception that it has an oil-dominated economy. He illustrated the diversity in the area by examining the varying population size of countries, per capita incomes and GDP, exports, tourism, social development, and female labor force participation. During the period 1960-2000, he said, the MENA region did very well overall in terms of improving social indicators (such as education, infant mortality,
and women’s work force participation), despite mediocre economic growth performance in the first part of that period. Although agriculture is important in many MENA countries, Dr. Iqbal continued, the region as a whole is a net food importer.
Kevin Martin, assistant professor of Middle East History at the University of Memphis, spoke on “Creating Failed and Rogue States: Modern Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon in World Historical Context.” He provided demographic data about each of the three countries, including religious and ethnic composition, and addressed the complex issues of identity and nationhood, Arab nationalism, colonialism, and domestic and regional politics. Dr. Martin also provided a rich list of resources for further study. Sara Scalenghe, a PhD candidate in Georgetown’s Department of History, explored women and gender in Middle Eastern history. She said that to westerners, the veil epitomizes the oppression of Muslim women; however, many Muslim women feel that it is a trivial issue and are baffled by the West’s intense focus on it. She suggested that studying the veil may therefore provide a good point of entry in the classroom for examining common myths and stereotypes about the Middle East and Islam. Ms. Scalenghe also discussed the history and structure of the Ottoman Empire; she explained why it was successful in growth and power, citing its careful political organization, efficient bureaucracy, use of gunpowder, and its adaptable, polyethnic composition.
“Arab Theater: Between Tradition and Modernity” was the title of the talk by Dina Amin, Visiting Assistant Professor at CCAS. She traced the roots of Arab theater to the traditional reciters of heroic poetry, storytellers, and street performers. Until the 19th century, she noted, Arab audiences were not used to going to the theater; rather, performances came to them, and they expected to participate in the dramatic presentations. The turning point, said Dr. Amin, came in the 1930s when Arab drama was accepted into the literary tradition. She had assigned two plays by Alfred Farag (Egypt) and Sa`dallah Wannus (Syria) before the workshop, and led a spirited discussion about the plays with the teachers, exploring themes such as censorship, political satire, symbolism, and theater as a “democratized space.”
A “hands on” session on Middle Eastern geography actually involved feet—walking on very large maps of the region! Paul Blank, Associate Professor at the Department of Geography at Humboldt State University, brought dozens of large “tactical pilotage charts” (published by the US Defense Mapping Agency) that spanned most of Africa, the Middle East, central Asia, and much of Europe. He placed these laminated maps on the floorof Copley Formal Lounge and asked the teacher attendees to explore their geographical details and characteristics. Walking on and surveying these maps provided an intimate experience with the natural features, scale, and relationship of countries and regions to each other; it was an innovative approach to studying physical and cultural geography.
A session on Islam featured Muhammad Eissa, an independent scholar in Arabic literature and Islamic studies. With a goal of providing an understanding of Shari`a, or Islamic law, he began with a brief overview of Prophet Muhammad’s life and the historical context in which he lived. Dr. Eissa discussed Shari`a as encompassing the rules that govern acts of worship and human transactions, playing a major role in Muslims’ social life in such areas as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and financialresponsibility. He noted that interpretation of Islamic law varies and that Muslims must abide by civil laws as well.
The final session of the workshop introduced a nontraditional approach to learning about the Middle East. “The Role of the Arabs in the Formation of Mediterranean Gastronomy” was the title of the presentation by Clifford Wright, author of a number of cookbooks including the culinary history opus, A Mediterranean
Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs. “What do they eat in the Arab world?” he asked, and described the types and uses of wheat and other grains, olives and olive oil, vegetables, spices, milk and its products (especially yogurt), dates, fruits, and baked sweets. Mr. Wright discussed the culinary regions of Turkey, the Levant, and North Africa and explained that the origin of Mediterranean cuisine was always the story of interactions of different peoples living in and migrating in and out of this vast area. Over time the Muslim community incorporated and contributed to many other culinary traditions, including those of the Jews, Persians, Chinese, Indians, Greeks, and others. He said that the Arabs’ great advances in agriculture and hydrology also made their way into Europe, where new food items arrived as a result of Arab trade and interactions among pilgrims and travelers.
The last session was devoted to presentations by the teachers themselves—those who had elected to take the workshop for GU credit and were developing a unit plan based on what they learned during the week. All the teachers received books for further study and were excited about integrating their new knowledge and resources into classroom instruction. Feedback from the evaluation forms was most laudatory, with many teachers indicating that they would like to attend the summer workshop again next year.
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