CAIR-Chicago speaks with Inner-City Teaching Corps

On March 10, 2011 CAIR-Chicago’s Outreach Coordinator, Gerald Hankerson, and Communications Coordinator, Amina Sharif, conducted a presentation among teachers who are part of the Inner-City Teaching Corps (ICTC).

The presentation began with a quiz that was distributed to the teachers; it asked questions pertaining to the stereotypes of Muslims and Islam. Afterward, Hankerson and Sharif gave a presentation on American’s perceptions of different religions. Their presentation held a variety of statistics, which showed percentages of people who discriminate against Muslims and of people who express prejudice toward Muslims in comparison to other religions. The main topics of the presentation were violence and Islam, women and Islam, and the overall perceptions of Muslims.

Once Hankerson and Sharif finished speaking, they had a group session where the teachers were instructed to create new ways of teaching about the Muslim religion.  They learned to find effective ways to educate their students properly on the nature of Islam, the tenets of the faith, and the demographics of the Muslim community in America and around the world.

Afterwards, the teachers, along with Hankerson and Sharif, re-grouped and shared their thoughts on the solutions they came up with during the group session.

Lastly, they had a question and answer session that gave the teachers an opportunity to ask anything regarding their teaching methods.

Hankerson stated that the event had a great turn out.  “The presentation workshop was well-received, especially the ideas that teachers shared; they can definitely be beneficial to students, themselves, and colleagues; it’s efforts like these that will ensure our society can be free of bias, discrimination, and misinformation.”

For more information on the “Alain Locke Initiative” visit www.alainlocke.org