The following case study could accompany any readings or discussion on religion, culture or rights. For example, it could be used with Jen’nan Ghazal’s “Muslims in America,” which is available through Contexts online.
Lisa is a new professor at a large public university. Her class just finished a unit on gender, and her students are taking an essay test. Lisa sits near the front of the room and keeps a watchful eye over her students. The classroom is completely silent except for their pencils scribbling furiously.
Suddenly, one of her students stands up and faces a corner. He starts to bow, and Lisa realizes that he is praying. Many of the students look up and start watching him instead of continuing their exam. Lisa can tell they are distracted, but she also believes that the student has religious freedom. Thus, she decides to pretend that nothing is happening.
After class, a few students approach Lisa and complain about the student who was praying. They say that they were seriously distracted during the exam and would like 10 more minutes to work on it.
Questions:
- What should Lisa do?
- Did Lisa make the right choice to ignore the student instead of asking him to stop?
- Should a student be allowed to observe her or his religious rituals during class? Should this differ around the world? By the type of school?
Comments 6
JihadPunk77 — July 8, 2010
I think it was really rude for the student to suddenly rise up and pray during class. and this is coming from a Muslim.
if the student wanted to pray, he should have asked Lisa first if it was OK with her. and for god's sake, he can always pray after class. There's nothing in Islam that says you have to pray on time.
Komal — July 9, 2010
As a Muslimah, I found this case study rather odd. I've given exams during prayer times and I either prayed later or missed that prayer. If I acted like the aforementioned student, I would have been penalised. Fyi, I live in a Muslim-majority country. I agree with JihadPunk77, the student should have asked Lisa or prayed after class.
Basiorana — July 9, 2010
While it was disrespectful of the student not to warn the teacher, at that point Lisa should certainly provide 10 extra minutes. It wouldn't change the results of the exam.
She should have gone up to the student and discretely asked him to move to the hall, then offered him 10 minutes at the end to complete it.
When using this for classes, teachers should change the nature of the prayer, because this does not have to be a Muslim praying to make sense and making it a Muslim introduces the question of racism on the part of the students-- ie, would they be distracted were it a traditional Christian prayer posture that they were accustomed to? Making it a generic prayer question-- simply saying he was praying, instead of specifically bowing-- would more specifically target the question of religious freedom, and could be followed up by asking them if it mattered what kind of praying the student performed.
Jeff Kaufman — July 15, 2010
@Basiorana: it matters that the student is muslim instead of christian in that there are hours when muslims are supposed to pray but christians don't have the same requirements. Unless you're a benedictine monk or something pretty unusual.
Kam — July 28, 2010
@ Jeff, the first two responses were from Muslims who said what Basiorana said.
Jeff Kaufman — July 28, 2010
@Kam: Basiorana had asked why it would matter that the students were muslim. While to some (most?) muslims the hours of prayer are somewhat flexible, my understanding is that there are some people for which they are not. With christians there's no concept of mandatory time-specific prayer, so converting the question to apply to the dominant religion would make it less effective.