Miriam asked me to share one of my experiences with burqa-clad students that fuels my belief in the appropriateness of the ban on burqas in Western societies. Feel free to weigh in.
I had a burqa-wearing student in my Beginners language course at my very first university. This is a very interactive course where students are expected to speak to each other, enact scenes, move around the classroom, and interact with each other in a variety of ways. The burqa student, let’s call her A., sat in a corner during the entire semester and didn’t participate a single time. I never heard her (I assume, but who really knows?) voice. It is difficult as it is to create an environment in the classroom where students are not inhibited to speak in a new language. A silent, shrouded presence in the classroom definitely didn’t help. I always try to help students relax by telling them that everybody makes mistakes and that nobody will laugh at them because everybody is in the same boat. In this case, these arguments were a waste of time.
During the exams in these courses, students are supposed to place their IDs on their desks while they are writing the exam. An invigilator walks around and compares the ID with the face of the student writing the exam. This procedure is especially crucial for language classes because there have been cases when students sneaked a native speaker to take the exam in their place.
I was confronted by a group of angry students from my course who demanded an explanation as to why A.’s identity didn’t have to be verified. One student aggressively told me that the next time he will come to the exam in a mask and we will just have to trust that it’s him and not his best friend from Mexico. I had no idea how to explain why one of the students was being given a preferential treatment during the entire course, as well as during the exams.
At that time, I was only learning how to be a college-level teacher. All I did in response was mumble incoherently and feel uncomfortable. Today, I know how I should have handled this issue.
What would you do in such a situation?
Clarissa's Blog 
This is indeed a tricky situation. I honestly have no idea what I would do.
That said, I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be appropriate for the burqa-clad student to, say, step into the professor’s office and show her face so that you know who it is. Aren’t they allowed to let other women see their faces? Or no?
LikeLike
Honestly, I have no idea. Nobody attempted to resolve the issue in any way. I was just a lowly instructor at that time. I didn’t even have the authority to address outright plagiarism. Nor did I have a office of my own. So I just floundered.
LikeLike
Well, the only way I can see to reconcile the needs of Western society with the rights of Muslims to wear burqas is to create situations when they absolutely have to show their faces. This is one such situation. I don’t agree with you that they should be banned entirely, but only as long as observant Muslims are willing to compromise in this way.
LikeLike
If A’s identity didn’t have to be verified, I would assume that it was University policy. I would have talked with a supervisor about what are the official rules about it, and then refer complaining students to such rule. If no such a rule exist, I would ask my supervisor what to do and then do whatever he/she says.
I do not support the banning of burquas, because I think that it ends up harming those Muslim women more (they won’t even get a chance at an education), but I think you should demand that they uncover in certain situations (airports, exams, etc). You can also arrange for a woman to be the one to see her face in a private place. It’s a drag for the professor, but in the specific case of an exam, not worse than students that take their exams in a different place because of learning disabilities and then you have to acommodate them to do the listening part (or worse, student athletes that can take the exam at a a later day).
LikeLike
“I do not support the banning of burquas, because I think that it ends up harming those Muslim women more (they won’t even get a chance at an education)”
-That’s not my problem. I believe it is very paternalistic to deny such women the capacity to make a choice as to whether they value a burqa more than they value an education.
LikeLike
The problem is that many times, they don’t have the power to make that choice.
LikeLike
If Muslim women are interested in women’s liberation, I’m sure they are intelligent and capable enough to fight for it. It is not my duty to engage in such fight for them unasked.
LikeLike
What power does a 13 year old Muslim girl in France have if her father withdraws her from public school because of the burqa ban and either makes her stay at home or sends her to a religious school?
LikeLike
I believe that there should be an obligatory, free public education for all children. Parents who keep their children away from school for any reason should have social services visit them and resolve the issue. Of course, immigrants should be warned at the border that this is how things work.
LikeLike
This all sounds very well but, as I shared on Miriam’s blog, such policies do not work. I was once stuck in line for hours at the Medicare office (it’s a governmental office in Canada where I was renewing my card). A group of burqaed women screamed the place down because they were politely asked to photograph for the ID (in a private room, of course) with their faces uncovered.
Then there was the situation – that I also discussed before – when such women lobbied for the expulsion of men from the governmental birth preparation classes. I could keep listing cases for hours here. In the US, we simply don’t get these problems (yet) because there isn’t a significant burqaed population. In France and Belgium, where the ban was introduced people have already experienced the entire range of these issues.
It’s easy to be tolerant when this is not part of your daily reality.
LikeLike
“It’s easy to be tolerant when this is not part of your daily reality.”
Speak for yourself. There is absolutely no way dealing with purdah or burqa is a part of your literal daily reality in a way it is mine, or of non-Muslims in south Asia. This is merely a case of reactionary dislike and fear of the unfamiliar on your part. I appreciate and share your concern about the deep-rooted patriarchy of the burqa, but clearly you don’t appreciate your own culture’s concept of social justice.
“I want my country to do to them what their society does to me”* is a valid personal opinion, but to demand my government implement my prejudices as law would be to dance down the Tea Party route.
*ref. your previous post, many moons ago, about the necessity of Muslim women adopting western clothing norms as you would don coverings in an Islamic land.
LikeLike
If those policies do not work, it’s because authorities don’t want to enforce them.
“I was once stuck in line for hours at the Medicare office (it’s a governmental office in Canada where I was renewing my card). A group of burqaed women screamed the place down because they were politely asked to photograph for the ID (in a private room, of course) with their faces uncovered. ” If the Canadian goverment has a law requiring it, then it should be enforced. If not, either pass such a law or don’t (in which case those protests are inevitable).
LikeLike
We almost had sharia law instituted in Canada (on the government’s recommendation, of course), so it’s pretty clear that the government is unwilling to mess with the whole thing.
LikeLike
If class participation is required for the course and she didn’t participate at all, she gets a 0 for that portion of the grade. Just like any lazy student would. As for the ID part, like Spanish Prof said, you could arrange for a woman to see her face and make sure it is the same person.
I don’t understand what’s so earth-shattering complex about this situation. If a jeans-wearing student didn’t do a single assignment and didn’t participate in the class at all, even after repeated warnings, would you go ahead and give him a failing grade or try to have jeans banned in the classroom?
LikeLike
…earth-shatteringLY complex…
LikeLike
The participation grade in that course was only 15%. As I said, I was an instructor then and creating the syllabus was not my responsibility. As for arranging for a woman to check the ID, please read my other comments in this thread.
I do not give students individual warnings as to whether they should participate or not.
LikeLike
The participation grade in that course was only 15%.
– Then she gets a 0 for that part. Simple.
LikeLike
Thank you, I’m aware. 🙂 Did I ever mention that I had problems with grading this part of the student’s coursework?
I don’t know, maybe I lost my verbal skills today. The issue that I’m addressing with this post is that other students were massively unhappy both during the course and during the exams. This is the problem that I referred to by “how would you handle this?” Maybe I should have titled the post “How would you explain this to students?”
LikeLike
As I recall, the one time I had this situation, I was already taking up enough handwritten homework that it was clear that the person who did the homework was the same person as the one who took the tests, from the handwriting. Of course, I never had a student complaint about it.
LikeLike
To ensure greater fairness in grading, we graded other sections’ exams. Also, this policy was instituted because students complained that profs recognized their hand-writing and vented personal grievances.
It’s Canada. Students always protest about something. 🙂
LikeLike
I feel the invigilator should have asked the burka wearing student outside the exam room. So the student could remove the burka in private, with the time added onto the exam end.
if the student truly felt that only a woman could verify her face and id (according to a cple of uk niqabwearers ive heard interviewed, such a security check at a bank, jewellery store etc can be performed by a man) then that would be trickier and more timeconsuming, assuming you couldn’t do it
LikeLike
We don’t know what the student felt and had no way of finding out.
LikeLike
Again, I don’t see what sitting in class and not participating has to do with a burqa–I have plenty of non-burqa clad students who do this. I have also had burqa-clad students who were quite chatty. I doubt removing her burqa would have made her talk. Maybe she didn’t understand anything? Maybe she was shy? Maybe she had no interest in being there? Surely you have had other non-participating students, right? Universities make accommodations for test-taking situations all the time, so I don’t see how it would be particularly difficult to have a female ID checker in a private area. In the US in any case, there are female gyms, and separate sex ed classes and the like, so it’s not as though separate gender activities are unheard of. As for the other students being upset, this to me seems like their problem rather than yours. For questions on policies, refer them to the administration as it is clearly not something you as a teacher have control over.
Here is a similar example from a colleague’s language class: One of the students is autistic and remains silent in class. The other students don’t want to work with him because his way of interacting with people and his mannerisms are “freaky” and this bothers them. However, the largest portion of the class is pairwork, and speaking is an important part of language skills. In this case, the solution was to have this student work with the TA for all groupwork. The TA wasn’t bothered by the student’s way of interacting, the other students didn’t have to work with him, the student was happy because he got a language partner who knew a lot more than the other students, and the teacher was happy because the student talked. (Now that I’m typing this, maybe you should do a post on autism and participation in the language classroom, separate from the burqa issues obviously).
To return to the burqa student, from the post it seemed to me that the problem was she didn’t participate, which you attribute to wearing a burqa, and you wanted her to participate. From the comments, it seems that the students were upset that she didn’t participate (or only that she didn’t have her ID checked?) and this was a problem for you. I am happy to offer suggestions for what to do, but I am confused as to wear exactly the problem lies.
LikeLike
“Again, I don’t see what sitting in class and not participating has to do with a burqa–I have plenty of non-burqa clad students who do this. I have also had burqa-clad students who were quite chatty. I doubt removing her burqa would have made her talk.”
-I think I explained about the particulars of the language class dynamics. We even had to create areas separated from public view in the language lab. People feel very inhibited when trying to talk in a foreign language.
“Maybe she didn’t understand anything? Maybe she was shy? Maybe she had no interest in being there?”
-Thank you! That’s my point. I have no way of gauging this or even knowing if it’s the same person sitting there day to day. Which really messes up my ability to teach the course effectively. I remind you that it’s not a lecture or a math class. Language teaching is very special.
‘Surely you have had other non-participating students, right?”
-Do you really not see the difference between a student who simply doesn’t participate of one whose face is covered?
“In the US in any case, there are female gyms, and separate sex ed classes and the like, so it’s not as though separate gender activities are unheard of.”
-At the university??? If so, this should be outlawed immediately. It doesn’t exist at my school, though.
“Now that I’m typing this, maybe you should do a post on autism and participation in the language classroom, separate from the burqa issues obviously”
-I already have. I didn’t find a way to address the issue and the blog readers also failed to offer any solutions. All I can say is that the solution you describe is unworkable if the goal is to teach one to speak a foreign language. Unfortunately.
“To return to the burqa student, from the post it seemed to me that the problem was she didn’t participate”
– No, it wasn’t. I have quite a few students who refuse to participate and, other than giving them a zero for this part of the grade, I don’t see a problem. In the post, I think I explained very clearly what the problem was. We all felt inhibited because we had no way of gauging the person’s reactions. Once again, people who are speaking a new language are terrified of being judged and laughed at. They need a reassurance that this doesn’t happen. Which is not possible with a shrouded person there.
LikeLike
What I find very curious in this whole discussion is that participants have questioned absolutely everything about the situation: my grading policies, the university policies, the invigilation practices, the reaction of the students, etc.
Nobody, however, has dared to ask a question: why was it so necessary for this person – who is obviously liberated enough to attend university – to sit there covered up. This tells me that we are not ready to see A. as fully human. Why should her choice of attire mean that we all need to adapt? If I came to class wearing a mask, people would just ask me to remove it and that would be the end of it. Here, however, nobody even envisions the possibility of asking the student to make some kind of accommodation for the sake of her environment.
And that is kind of sad. This is precisely why I say (together with Zizek, of course) that pseudo-liberal tolerance harbors nothing but contempt.
LikeLike
I see A. as fully human. The reason why everybody talk about the specific details of the situation and not about A’s reasons to be fully covered is, I think, that you explain a situation and then asked your readers to comment what would we have done in your place.
LikeLike
And if I told a story of a student who, say, kept bringing loud music to class which distracted everybody from the learning process? What would the suggestions be like then? 🙂
What if a student came to class in a bikini and that was the distracting factor? Or in a huge carnival attire and a mask and stayed this way for the entire semester?
I’m just wondering if people would see the situation any differently.
LikeLike
I’ll have to go with Spanish Prof on this one. Also, I’m absolutely amazed that you did not even attempt to speak to this student once, or if you did you excluded it from your narrative with the assertion that you have no idea what this student thought because she absolutely never spoke.
They way I see this situation is that a deeply bigoted instructor offloaded systemic allowances/failures and her abdication of her own initiative onto a student with explicit cultural difference.
LikeLike
“Also, I’m absolutely amazed that you did not even attempt to speak to this student once, or if you did you excluded it from your narrative with the assertion that you have no idea what this student thought because she absolutely never spoke.
They way I see this situation is that a deeply bigoted instructor offloaded systemic allowances/failures and her abdication of her own initiative onto a student with explicit cultural difference.”
As I have already explained in this very thread I never talk to any students individually to tell them to participate. I make regular general announcements about the importance of participating but never single anybody out. Everybody is free to make their own choice as to whether to participate or not.
Is this policy the one you refer to as bigoted? Or were you simply not paying attention to the discussion before starting to accuse?
LikeLike
In the first case, I would intervene because it is a distraction. The noise would disrupt the class. It is written on the syllabus. On the other two cases, I would ask my department chair about it, and do what he instructed. If there is no policy against it, I don’t have a problem. Honestly. If a student complained, I would send him/ her to talk with the Chair.
LikeLike
Why didn’t you try to talk with her RE not participating and try to get acquainted a bit, if she bothered you so much?
LikeLike
I’ll have to go with el and Spanish Prof on this one. Also, I’m absolutely amazed that you did not even attempt to speak to this student once, or if you did you excluded it from your narrative with the assertion that you have no idea what this student thought because she absolutely never spoke.
They way I see this situation is that a deeply bigoted instructor offloaded systemic allowances/failures and her abdication of her own initiative onto a student with explicit cultural difference.
LikeLike
Damn, the earlier ‘error’ actually resulted in a post. Please remove the version that comes right after Spanish Prof’s.
LikeLike
In my last comment I wrote and then deleted the sentence, in which I speculated the aggressive students were driven by dislike of Muslims. I don’t even fully believe they really thought somebody else would take the exam for her, that it was the real source of the anger, and anyway this concern would be 100% solved by another woman comparing her face with ID in the women’s room 5 minutes before the exam and then escorting her to the exam’s room. I don’t understand why this wasn’t done. Clarissa, would you do it now?
I noticed something more:
I had no idea how to explain why one of the students was being given a preferential treatment during the entire course, as well as during the exams.
What? Didn’t she get zero on her 15% of participation, the same as any other student would? From what I understand “a preferential treatment” is being let to sit in the classroom despite her clothes making others uncomfortable. She could’ve *laughed* at them? OMG. Imo, the students should grow up. “Suffering” people unlike themselves will be the least of their worries after graduation. I immigrated to Israel at the age of 13(!), much less than your students, and somehow learned to talk despite making funny and slightly humiliating mistakes, like my school teacher saying “No, the word “sort” is written differently, you wrote “sex” ” (a true story). Even now I sometimes make a small mistake, so what? I think “she laughs at us” was the combination of excuse for dislike and being spoiled children. Honestly.
My tone can sometimes be aggressive, it isn’t against you, Clarissa, but I would’ve told all this to your angry students and yes tried to check her identity (and told angry students this too, so they would have zero excuse for their behaviour).
LikeLike
“this concern would be 100% solved by another woman comparing her face with ID in the women’s room 5 minutes before the exam and then escorting her to the exam’s room. I don’t understand why this wasn’t done.”
I have a strong feeling that people are not reading the discussion at all before commenting. Do I need to retell the story about the Medicare office?
“She could’ve *laughed* at them? OMG. Imo, the students should grow up.”
Again, as I already mentioned in this very thread, this is a central part of any language teaching. Please see earlier in the discussion my explanation of how we had to modify the language lab because the students felt embarrassed. It’s kind of annoying when people who have no idea how to teach languages are starting to OMG my explanations of what matters in the process.
“I think “she laughs at us” was the combination of excuse for dislike and being spoiled children. ”
-Oh, thank you for telling me! Years of taking courses on the methodology of teaching languages, and now el comes and explains it all. Yippee! 🙂
LikeLike
“Oh, thank you for telling me! Years of taking courses on the methodology of teaching languages, and now el comes and explains it all. Yippee!”
Sorry, I did get too excited.
A couple of thoughts:
RE the Medicare office story – you don’t know whether she would make a scene. If she would, imo the university policies should’ve forbidden her take the exam. Besides, there is nothing in Islam preventing her showing her face to another woman. Was the photographer a man?
I didn’t OMG your explanations, I OMG your students’ behavior, which doesn’t depend on you. My experience was studying English at school, studying Hebrew and going with my mother to Hebrew courses for adults (unofficially) the summer after repatriation. I’ve honestly never seen immigrant children like me or my classmates at English lessons being that shy.
LikeLike
There is nothing in Islam requiring anybody to wear a burqa. This is absolutely not about Islam.
LikeLike
To explain more why I became so angry at “they’re shy to learn a language” is both because of my own experience (and of countless other immigrant children, who learn language in much worse and pressing environment than your students – saw it in Israel) and because of my mother. First, she had to fight a lot to become a school teacher here, instead of cleaning a supermarket or working in a kindergarten. She has a second degree in math, but since the word “teacher” isn’t written in her diploma, she had lots of problems. Second, sometimes she makes mistakes even now, more than 10 years after. When one fool laughed at her mistake (usually in weak classes with bad students), she calmly said “yes, I am an immigrant, if I make mistake, tell me what’s wrong”. At both stages had she been “shy” she wouldn’t achieve anything. Some immigrants really don’t, work bad jobs and hate their lives. I saw it. At what age are your students expected to grow a spine? May be you should tell them my family’s story (without names) to get some proportions of their difficulties. Or somebody else’s story. If they don’t start practicing now, the spine wouldn’t magically appear a moment after graduation and in current job market they’ll need it badly.
May be in Israel university studens are more mature since everybody has to go to the army with much more pressures, even in not combat units.
LikeLike
“To explain more why I became so angry at “they’re shy to learn a language” is both because of my own experience (and of countless other immigrant children, who learn language in much worse and pressing environment than your students – saw it in Israel) and because of my mother.”
-This so reminds me of the whole “I gave birth in the hay, while these spoiled young generations insist on a hospital.” Also, it’s kind of like the “we walked in the snow 10 miles barefoot to get an education.” 🙂 🙂
“At what age are your students expected to grow a spine? May be you should tell them my family’s story (without names) to get some proportions of their difficulties.”
-I have to say that your understanding of what an educator does is very . . . eccentric, so to say. 🙂 What you suggest is pretty much the worst thing anybody can do as a teacher.
LikeLike
*What you suggest is pretty much the worst thing anybody can do as a teacher.*
May be I expressed it wrong? OK, second try: an upbeat story of you learning another language and letting go of your shyness, with humorous (but not sexual like mine!) anecdotes of funny mistakes, with “we’re all together here to enjoy the journey, even the mistakes” as a cherry on the cake’s top? How is that? 🙂
A bit aside, do they have shyness problem in other areas of their lives too? Seriously, won’t it hurt them afterwards?
LikeLike
I’m not their psychoanalyst, you know, so I have no idea about the other aspects of their lives. There are many ways of breaking the ice in the classroom and creating a safe, comfortable environment. Most of these ways are non-verbal in nature. The problem with telling stories with a hidden message is that students lose all respect for such a teacher very soon. We are not talking about kindergarten age students here, of course. Never pontificate or tell stories with a moral lesson is one of the first rules of effective teaching. I do give a little speech about how the mistakes are normal and acceptable at the very beginning of the course, but not after that.
LikeLike
Just wanted to add that I really think “tough love” can be very, very helpful for some students, more truly helpful than anything else can be and seems some of your students are of this sort.
Also, my mother and I had to speak immediately in some *very* stressful situations with native speakers, your students speak with other learners. May be hearing a story, forcing them to put it in proportion, would help with shyness.
LikeLike
el, seriously, it’s like giving instructions to a surgeon how to operate. Not a good idea, my friend.
LikeLike
Here’s how I would have handled this particular situation if I were the prof. Since spoken participation is mandatory, even the burqa clad woman has to speak — so absolutely no pass on that. If I think I’m going to have people sit in corners, I’m going to assign exercise partners. A burqa not supposed to physically stop someone from speaking. Ever see those documentaries of women going through Afghani markets? (Though really, you do sound different through layers of cloth, and probably there are other prohibitions about speaking.)
For exam security, she has to speak into a tape recorder before hand. That will be her id along with her picture of her burqa. If she can’t talk, or her voice doesn’t match the tape recorder, she’s not admitted to the exam.
Fundies of all stripes annoy me so much.
I’d say even fundies with excessive restrictions on women’s freedoms deserve access to education. And really, it is women who get the brunt of all of it.
LikeLike
“-Do you really not see the difference between a student who simply doesn’t participate of one whose face is covered? ”
No, I don’t. Perhaps this is the root of my question on this. Nor can I understand why students would find the garment distracting over the course of an entire semester (I can understand the first few days if they’d never seen it before–goes for carnival masks and bikinis too, which like Spanish Prof I would be fine with). If you were unable to judge her reactions with the burqa (not an impossible thing either in my experience) why didn’t you talk to her to find out as other commenters suggest? Or did you and what happened?
Basically, since I have had and seen multiple students who participated with a burqa (in language classes), this doesn’t seem like a burqa issue to me.
(Also, there are separate sex ed classes in public schools, and obviously all kinds of separate stuff in private universities. I didn’t think my colleague’s autism solution was great in the long term either, which is why I was interested in your take on it. On the other hand, I don’t think the autistic student should have been removed from the class or “cured” or whatever to make the other students more comfortable)
LikeLike
What would you have done if she sat in a corner with no burqa with her arms folded glaring at students when they spoke and refusing to speak herself?
Wouldn’t the glaring have the same disruptive effect on students’ confidence?
LikeLike
My students all had parents, so I’m pretty sure they were very used to glaring and being glared at. 🙂 🙂
LikeLike
As a female, I would have taken her into a private room and compared her ID with her face and then escorted her to the exam desk. If I had been a male invigliator, I would have asked a female colleague.
I do, actually, believe that women should have the civil right to wear Islamic dress if they want. In my opinion, though, that does not mean they can sit in a language class and never participate in the group and then accuse the instructor of religious harassment. I’ve also been in a situation where someone with a disability lied outright about some of the physical requirements of a job and then screamed discrimination once they got the job and announced that, oh by the way, their colleagues were going to have to do the tasks they agreed to do. That’s not on, in my opinion.
LikeLike
I still haven’t had a student with face-covering garment as a Spanish prof, but I will, since I work at an urban community college. We don’t have proctors, so I can be sure the students who show up to take the test are legitimate. But in this situation I would ask the dept. chair, or the Dean of Student Affairs, for guidance early in the semester. Surely it’s come up before — how do you give credit to a silent student in a class where speaking and participation is part of the grade? That’s also to make sure it’s on the record that I sought clarification not because the other students think the grading is unfair, but because the student wearing the burqa might complain if I gave her a low grade. And I guess I would also tell her during the semester that by not participating she wasn’t earning as high a grade as she could. It’s a hassle, for sure.
To the students who complained to me I would say that they each earn their own grade. That they should each do their best. Period. If I needed to I would say there are student privacy regulations and end the discussion with the students.
This is a long thread, and I haven’t been able to read every comment. But I don’t think you said…how would you handle it now?
LikeLike
Finally, somebody asked. 🙂 If students approached me about something like this nowadays, I would tell them, “Why are you talking about this to me? Go talk do your classmate, to the Dean, to the Provost. My task is to teach which I did. Everything else should be taken up with somebody else.”
People keep offering suggestions where I need to verify the student’s identity, I need to issue some sort of warnings to her, I need to ask the supervisors on how to handle this. In my opinion, that is unfair. This is not part of my job description. I refuse to waste my time and energy on solving problems arising out of someone’s clothing choices. I’m not a fashion advisor. I’m an educator. I come, I teach, I go away.
LikeLike