This is the email that has most recently been circulated regarding the Family Retreat this summer and the general idea behaind the Puebla Learning Community. Please feel free to make a comment or a contribution.
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Suppose that many Muslims in the UK today are concerned about the education their children or grandchildren are receiving. Suppose that there are many different initiatives beginning to create new curriculums, new styles of school: home-schooling, small schools, Islamic Waldorf and Montessori schools and others. Suppose that organisations are beginning to build an infrastructure of conferences, publications and websites around the theme of education and teacher training in the Muslim community.
Now suppose that the answer lies, not in tinkering with and trying to improve British State education system, or even adopting a system already developed by someone else, but in combining the traditional understanding of Islamic spirituality with the most advanced developments in European philosophy within a practical context of participative action research and learning community development.
Suppose, further, that in adopting this approach, not only can the education of children be made more relevant and successful, but a new and dynamic approach created to establishing the deen of Islam, avoiding the twin pitfalls of ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘innovation’?
All of this is in fact happening now.
Abdullah Trevathan is already well known as the director of the Islamic Retreat, recently the subject of a BBC series. He was, for many years, the Headteacher of Islamia Primary School, the UK’s first, government funded Islamic school. He is currently a senior lecturer in Religious Education at Roehampton University and is preparing his PhD on the work of Ibn al Arabi, al Shaykh al Akbar in comparison with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.
Ibrahim Lawson has been the Headteacher of 4 different Islamic schools and has conducted research for the National College for School Leadership on leadership in Islamic schools. He is currently preparing a PhD in action research in education.
Together, they are planning the development of an innovative approach to Islamic schooling and teacher training. The first public event will be a week long retreat program this summer for families and educational professionals at which the practical groundwork will be laid inshallah for a new form of participative, Islamic learning community.
If you are interested in finding out more, contact them at enquiries@theretreat-online.com or pueblalc@gmail.com. Visit also their blog at http://pueblalearningcommunity.blogspot.com/
Beyond the 'Islamic School'
Email us at pueblalc@gmail.com
About the Puebla Learning Community
The Puebla Learning Community is a collaboration between Abdullah Trevathan and Ibrahim Lawson and their families. Their aim is to create the possibility of an authentic learning community which provides all its members, children and adults, with the opportunity to acquire and practice the knowledges and skills needed to fulfil our individual and shared potential for Islam, Iman and Ihsan. At some point, this project may have a physical presence in Southern Spain (see photo above). They invite everyone who is genuinely interested in collaborating in this project to contribute to the ongoing inquiry: what is the best we can do to establish an authentic process of education for ourselves and our children?
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