Relationships are especially important in the Middle East. I certainly understand and respect this part of the process because it is about establishing trust. I am a contractor who has worked all over the Middle East training aviation protocols. I consider my time here as one of the best experiences in my life. If nothing else comes of this…

This study explores significant aspects of the history of Islamic higher education in the central Ottoman lands (Bilad al-Rum) and Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham) during the approximate period 1530-1650. Two general themes constitute the greatest part of our focus. The first is an examination of the divergent approaches to pedagogy in each…

There are histories describing in detail the development of early childhood education (ECE) around the world, yet not enough is known about this in the Middle East and the information on the origins of ECE in Iran is scarce and fragmentary. This article is the first of its kind to present an overview of the main developments rendering possible the…

In this study we examined the impact of four teaching sessions on the history of ancient Mesopotamian mathematics, in a 10th -grade classroom. The sessions were taught primarily with historical objectives by researchers in the history of ancient mathematics. We reconstructed historians' practices and ethos. The presence of the researchers provided…

This article focuses on how the relations between Ottoman and Iran, which are important states of Islamic history, are discussed in Iranian high school history textbooks. The shadow of collective belief and identity constructed through history education reverberates across the fields of international and foreign policy. Past relations affect two…

This article probes the socially embedded musical pathways and learning strategies followed by professional Palestinian Arab wedding musicians active in the Galilee region of northern Israel from the late 1960s until the present day, from their first childhood experiences of music until the point when they step onto the platform for the first time…

Birzeit University (BZU)--established in 1924 by the Nasir family--was born out of struggle and developed as a microcosm of the Palestinian national movement against the Zionist settler colonial state of Israel. This article explores specific moments of solidarity with BZU and beyond. I map out a genealogy of three modes of solidarity with…

This paper examines two research questions: How do teachers refer to historical figures when teaching difficult past events? Which approaches to teaching difficult past events are reflected in teachers' ways of talking about historical figures? The paper is based on an analysis of lessons by three 11th grade history teachers in Israel on the…

Previous research has discussed the difficulty of teaching topics related to the Middle East. In our experience, one reason for this difficulty is that students are strongly biased with respect to these topics. This research attempts to systematically identify these biases through surveys and then test the effectiveness of targeted lectures that…

This article offers reflections and proposes practices that embody principles of diversity and inclusion while embracing spirituality in higher education. This approach to integral education is informed by the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and Haridas Chaudhuri, founders of the California Institute of Integral Studies. It blends Eastern philosophy…

"Children of Our Future" was a short essay published in 1929 in the Hebrew Teachers' Association jubilee book. It boldly claimed that future offspring of European Jews in Palestine were all fatally doomed due to the degenerative characteristics of the local climate. Such concepts stood in clear opposition to the dream of creating a…

This essay addresses the challenges of teaching to myths and misperceptions through a discussion of two books that the author uses to frame her course on the history of women and gender in the modern Middle East: (1) Geraldine Brooks' "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women" (1995); and (2) Heather Raffo's "9 Parts…

American K-12 school curricula are often bereft of acknowledgements of the historical contributions of Arab societies to our present-day intellectual heritage, an oversight most apparent in the sciences. Teachers in a thriving democracy are obliged to introduce contemporary scholarship that reflects the contributions of Arab scientists between the…

Using transcripts of 6 classroom debates that took place in 4 urban schools, the present study takes a closer look at what middle school students do during classroom debates in the context of a social studies curriculum designed to support student argumentation in debate. Two coding schemes were used to analyze student comments in the transcripts:…

Americans know very little about the Middle East in general despite the fact that the region is at the heart of American foreign policy. While no one doubts the importance of teaching the history, culture, and politics of the Middle East in the United States, lack of basic knowledge coupled with the strong antipathy toward Arabs and Muslims make…