Acts Of Faith Reflection Ch 4.docx

Amber Kavie Religion 200 Dr. Simmons 10 December 2017 Acts of Faith Chapter Four Reflection This chapter details the beginning of Eboo Patel’s professional career, and at the end of the chapter, signals the beginning of the Interfaith Youth Corps that Patel intends to found. This chapter was interesting because especially at the beginning, Patel is trying to reconcile his education with real life experiences. I noticed a lot of similarities in what he was saying about his education and what I experience in some of my classes. Patel didn’t really know what he was going to do after he graduated. Many people share this uncertainty, but that doesn’t make it less terrifying. He ends up becoming a teacher at an alternative school for high-school dropouts in Chicago. I found the concept of the school very intriguing and absolutely necessary. The students at this school are involved in gangs, have children, and are generally just at an extreme disadvantage in society. Patel thought that he was going to be able to understand these student’s situations and apply his prestigious education to the classroom. I can totally relate to this. Currently, I am taking a class called American Education in a Diverse World. It teaches me about all the wrongs of the American school system. It describes how all of the minority groups are essentially set up to fail. Don’t get me wrong, this is completely true. However, one quote from Patel really struck a chord with me. He writes, “I began wishing that my professors had spent a little more time lecturing on how to constructively engage the world as it is and a little less time teaching me how to criticize it” (64). This is exactly how I feel in my class. I completely understand that the system is designed to fail people of minority groups and support those that have the financial resources and are white. This

being said, the course is hardly teaching me how to interact with students of different faiths, cultures, and races. It isn’t even really teaching me how to teach them. The same thing keeps getting repeated through all lessons – relate to the students using their experiences, shared experiences, and your own knowledge about the world they live in. To be fair, this could all be chalked up to fault of the professor, however it is still a fear that I have. What happens if I enter the classroom, encounter a diverse population of students and have no clue how to teach them? I suspect that I would have a similar experience to Patel. Drafting lessons, giving them, and then spending hours revising them. Patel quickly realizes that it doesn’t matter why his students have dropped out or read at a 5th grade level. The students know why the system is screwed up. What they need is the ability to do math, write professionally, and read well. Nothing more. It makes me curious to see what my future students will need (it should be noted at this point that I am an Education major if you couldn’t tell by now). This chapter also included the beginnings of the Interfaith Youth Corps. An interesting aspect to Patel for me is his emphasis on residential communities. Wherever he goes, he is constantly establishing communities. Whether it is Tuesday night potlucks or Sunday night discussions about Stone Soup (the first residential living community for activists in Chicago), Patel has this innate desire to establish actual physical communities. This leads to the Interfaith Youth Corps. As he was talking about this, I was very intrigued. He talked about how there were no residential communities that were based on service that had a focus on interfaith. Since interfaith has always been a point of interest for me, I found this idea very fascinating. I think that it is absolutely necessary to have an organization like this with the specific basis of interfaith, and especially with youth. Patel’s whole point is that young people are completely open to many ideas, and it is important to put opportunities in front of them that will benefit

them and the world they live in. I look forward to learning more about this organization and seeing Patel’s journey as a young (raised Muslim, current Buddhist?) adult in this book.