Senior Sarah Yamani, a Muslim, spent yesterday morning in the Gantcher Center teaching Boston high school students about Islam and the Arab world. She tried to avoid making the discussion personal, but it wasn't easy.
"I wasn't actually trying to defend Islam," she said afterwards. "But it was difficult."
Yamani was one of 52 Tufts undergraduates who led discussions with 400 students from the Boston Arts Academy, a pilot school that makes use of student teachers from Tufts' Department of Education.
Tufts' Institute for Global Leadership hosted the discussion to foster discussion about the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath. The morning-long series of speakers and discussions answered some of the teenagers' questions, and compelled them to ask more.
Yamani said she participated in the program to help "inquisitive minds" better understand the issues. "Maybe they didn't come up with a conclusion," she said, "but they opened up their minds."
During the opening panel, the students listened to professors lecture about the history of Islam and the south Asian region around Afghanistan, and repeatedly asked the speakers how the US should respond to the terrorist attacks.
In his opening remarks, Provost Sol Gittleman said the program was intended "to peal the intellectual onion" of the high school students' minds.
The students' questions addressed issues ranging from US energy policy to its military strategy. Zadina Cadyma, 16, asked the panelists what strategy the US government should use to capture the man they believe masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.
After Sherman Teichman, the director of the Institute for Global Leadership, said Afghanistan's Northern Alliance were "thugs and rapists" with whom the US should not have been quick to make alliances18-year-old Diego Ribeiro: "Should we tell people they can't help us? The US has done some nasty things too."
Ribero was one of the high school students who organized the discussions with Tufts. He was hoping to learn more about Afghanistan and America's war on terror. "I think the biggest thing is 'what's next?'" he said. "A lot of people want revenge, but what can I do as a citizen?"
After a saxophone performance by Kenneth Radnofsky, a music professor at the New England Conservatory, the high school students were divided into discussion groups of 15, led by Tufts undergraduates. Their topics ranged from the media to religion.
"I don't think they can call this a holy war if one of the freedoms we have is freedom of religion," said Adriana Malliaros, 15, during the group discussions. Malliaros' group focused on cultural imperialism and the realities of American influence around the world.
Egyptian J.P. Ghobrial, a senior, led another group. "It wasn't a session of 'I am an Egyptian, this is how I feel,'" he said. "I tried not to get involved in that way at all."
In the end, it was not just the students who say they benefited from the event. Kevin Jones, a Tufts graduate student and an intern history teacher at the Arts Academy, questioned how best to address Sept. 11 in his classroom, but never found definitive answers.
"It was very difficult for me as a student teacher to approach some of the questions they were asking," he said. "You want to be politically correct but at the same time you want to give them something they can come away with."
Jones, who plans to become a teacher, said the morning's activities provided training for dealing with tough issues. After listening to a panel, the students' questions, and moderating his own discussion group, Jones said he felt better prepared to moderate class discussions about complex crises.
