Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent: Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic Schooling in Canada

3. Between Immigrating and Integrating: The Challenge of Defining an Islamic Pedagogy in Canadian Islamic Schools

73 CHAPTER THREE BETWEEN IMMIGRATING AND INTEGRATING: THE CHALLENGE OF DEFINING AN ISLAMIC PEDAGOGY IN CANADIAN ISLAMIC SCHOOLS Nadeem A. Memon Introduction The initiation and establishment of Islamic schools1 in Canada has a relatively short history. The earliest school and those established soon after can all be traced back to a movement that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first school, founded in Mississauga, Ontario, has been followed by schools founded in suburbs of other major Canadian cities: Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Halifax, and Ottawa. In 2010, there were over 60 fulltime Islamic day schools across the country, with close to half in Ontario alone. In fact, Toronto houses one of the largest concentrations of Islamic schools across North America.2 Amidst the relatively rapid growth of Islamic schools in Canada, one challenge has been establishing some form of concerted effort or collaboration between schools. To date, and despite the concentration of schools in Toronto for instance, there is no organization or association of schools with any degree of oversight. All schools are, therefore, privately administered , either individually owned and operated or through community organizations such as mosques. Though some schools have articulated a vision because of a need to distinguish themselves among competitors, most schools operate with a limited sense of educational vision. For many Islamic schools, purpose and pedagogy are defined by sincere and committed individuals who rely on their personal schooling experience and their adaptation of what are deemed best practices in other schools (public and faith- AIMS AND PRACTICES 74 based). The lack of administrators and, in some cases, even teachers who are certified educators has meant that the amount of energy dedicated to defining the basis upon which school aims will be defined has been limited. In many ways, the growth of, and the hurdles in establishing and defining, Islamic schools mirror the trajectory of most faith-based schools: humble beginnings, simplistic frameworks, and disparate aims. Canadian Islamic schools have not been alone in their struggle to define themselves. The growth of Islamic schools in Canada is intertwined with the evolution of schools south of the border. The earliest Islamic schools are connected through the shared history of national, cross-border organizations such as the Muslim Students’ Association and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), two early organizations that were established to serve North American Muslim communities.3 As a result, the purpose and pedagogy of Islamic schools in Canada have been arguably shaped by the aims and rationales of more transnational discourses in the Canadian Muslim diaspora related to decolonization, immigration, and revival. The aim of this chapter is to explore the challenges in defining an Islamic pedagogy or, put another way, the conception of education in Islam in the context of Islamic schools in Canada. The challenges faced by Canadian Islamic schools will be contextualized within the factors alluded to in the title: immigrating and integrating. Each of these factors will be explored in relation to the aims and curriculum of early Islamic schools. To begin, it is necessary to contextualize the development of the first Islamic school in Canada with global trends in education within the Muslim world. In 1977, coinciding with the conception of the first school in Canada, the groundbreaking First World Conference on Muslim Education was held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The conference admittedly had little direct effect on the decision to establish Islamic schools in Canada, yet it certainly captures the global Muslim discourse of Islamic education in the time period. North American Muslim scholars, activists, and those whom I refer to as “visionaries ” of Islamic schooling were undoubtedly aware of, if not influenced by, this conference. I begin this chapter, therefore, with one of the few wellconceptualized frameworks of what defines education within the Islamic tradition in order to situate the problems and promises of Islamic schools in Canada. BETWEEN IMMIGRATING AND INTEGRATING | MEMON 75 Historical Method The research described in this chapter draws on a larger North American oral history project conducted with 24 Islamic school teachers, administrators , and visionaries.4 Pioneers in Islamic schooling were selected based on their involvement with the earliest schools and identified through speaking with community members. The voices presented in this chapter are largely from the interviews conducted with Canadian Muslims who established the earliest schools and, in some cases, Americans who have influenced the development of Canadian Islamic schools. Interviews were conducted between 2007...