Asalamu alaikum Miss! Are you Leb*?

Great Western High School had many of the characteristics of an old zoo. It was divided into caged areas, it was ugly and the students wild. I wondered if the aesthetics of the school affected the behaviour of the students, but I seriously thought it went a much deeper than that.

The school had a large population of Lebanese, Turkish and Afghani background students, the male populations of each group always well represented in the detention room and suspension lists. Most teachers pulled out their hair in frustration as to what to do about these students, but there where a few, two or three teachers who had less behaviour problems with these students than other teachers.

Something that these few teachers had in common with each other was that they all came from non-English speaking backgrounds. This was not the main factor to their better relationships with troublesome students because there were many teachers in the school from non-English speaking backgrounds, but they did not have the same type of success as these few teachers. I observed these few teachers at work to learn their secrets and reflected on my own teaching style and student-teacher relationships with the same students.

What I noticed with these teachers was that they always had time to talk to the students in the hallway, during class, after class and even at lunch time. They spoke to the students in a respectable manner, and the boys reacted positively to this. These teachers had a fairer way of implementing discipline, and because of the respect and rapport they had built up with the boys, it was easy for them to discipline them when necessary with less severe methods.

Every lunch time the staffroom was full of noise about what little Ahmad or Muhammad did in class today, and why was he not suspended? I know that the student’s behaviour was absolutely atrocious, but at the same time, the teachers did not at all understand the psyche of these boys, and to compound the problem, the boys could not relate to their teachers at all.

I remember during an observation visit at the school, sitting in a year 12 class. One of the boys in the class asked the teacher what she was like at school. The teacher replied that she was very studious and hard working. The boy replied, “no, that is not what I meant, I meant were you like Simone?” (Simone was a girl in the glass). The teacher was a puzzled at this stage and replied that she was like Simone – studious and hard working. The boy was not finished yet and continued, “Nooo Miss, I don’t mean that, I meant were you all blonde and stuff.” I found this exchange amusing, and so did the teacher, but what it highlighted to me was that this boy could not relate to the teacher and wanted to be able to place her into normal life. He was however, very pleased to know that this teacher barracked for the same rugby league team as him. This gave the teacher some human quality with which he could relate.

I will refer mostly to the Lebanese background boys I had in my classes because they were the majority, and they were the most lively. To start off, I did not have any serious discipline problems with these boys. When they first saw me in the school they were excited and repeatedly gave me salams. I could not walk five metres without one of them calling out from somewhere, “Asalamu alaikum Miss!” To which I always responded, and responded with more as we are told to do in the Qur’an:

“When you are greeted with a greeting, greet in return with what is better than it, or (at least) return it equally” al-Nisa’ 4:86

This instantly won me some initial respect with these students. I knew something about them and their identities that the other teachers did not know, even if it is as simple as a greeting.

There was a year seven ESL/learning difficulties class that I observed for most of my stay at the school. As the class entered the room on my first day of observing them, one of the Lebanese boys saw me and immediately gave me salams, to which I replied.

The teacher started settling the class and the Lebanese boy turned to me again smiling and gave me salams again, and of course I replied even though I knew the teacher was trying to settle the class. The teacher shouted at the boy telling him that what he was doing was not important and to sit down. Upon hearing this remark the boy snapped, he stood up and slammed his hands against the table screaming “Yes it is!” He was immediately sent to a table at the back of the room to sit by himself, and he remained disruptive for the remainder of the lesson.

I felt bad about this little episode and approached the student after the class and explained to him the excellence of giving salams to one’s brothers and sisters in Islam, and I that I am always very happy to hear the greeting. I continued by telling him that he only needed to say the greeting to me once at the start of class, and if he did not get the chance he should wait until the end of class.

In response to the reaction of the boy of being told that what he was doing was not important, I know that for this student it was very important to give salams to me, and there are a great number of ahadith which state that once a Muslim gives another Muslim the greeting of salam, it is compulsory for the other to respond with what is equal or more. The teacher was not to know the importance of this greeting as not only an act of respect towards me and our religion, but an obligation and a sign of solidarity (especially in an at times hostile environment). However, at the same time, I am not excusing the boy’s behaviour.

After explaining to the boy some protocols of giving salams in school and during class, I told the boy that I would explain to his teacher what happened. He was grateful for this and I never had any discipline problems with him again.

As the weeks progressed, the frequency of exchange of this greeting did not wane, in fact it grew stronger. A few times as I walked the corridors during class times sorting out my photocopying, the greeting would be sung out in unison from random classrooms. Nothing could be nicer to my ear than students wishing peace be upon me.

The environment and school system in the West does not cater well for boys like these and often the boys feel resentment and isolation. They come to school to be taught by teachers who don’t understand them, who represent the “opposition”. Seeing practising Muslim teachers in this system had positive effects in creating some stability and respect in the lives of these boys – something that most of them didn’t have at home.

These boys although not knowledgeable or practicing of their religion, started to practice the basics in the time I spent with them in the school – and inshaAllah that means ajar for me.

It has been some years since I have worked in a Western school, and although my influence on the Muslims in this school was positive, it was not enough to warrant me to remain living in the West. My experiences in Western High Schools highlighted to me the necessity of hijrah to Muslim lands in order to raise our children with pride in their religion and remove the confusion in identity many of the Muslim youth growing in the West experience.

* Leb - Lebanese.