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Questions answered by: Omar Zia, B.Sc., B.Ed, OCT High School Vice Principal
We live in a time where faith and faith-based identities are often shunned or purposefully misrepresented through a wide variety of media and people with positional power. Rather than allowing for this to be a hindrance, use this as a motivation to recognize and practice your faith. Practicing your faith and upholding your identity is a clear demonstration of one’s unwavering adherence to the truth of the Creator. Second, take time to learn about and practice the manners, morals, and character
of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) so that the beauty of the Islamic faith can radiate through your actions and interactions with the world and all who inhabit it. Third, you can speak with your teachers at school about including, in their instructional practice, the contributions of Muslim-identifying poets, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, architects and inventors—many of whom have shaped modern technology. In some social science classes there may be units of study which allow
you to share the impact of Islam on dismantling racism and anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism and how Islam teaches human beings to live together in peace, to accept other faiths as well as identities without prejudice. Another option to share your findings on the beauty of Islam is using social media—Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube are excellent platforms to communicate your ideas to a global audience.
How do I deal with controlling and overprotective parents? Perspective is important—how we see an issue is based on our social location in life. As children, we operate from a place of growing independence and learning about ourselves and the world is an essential part of this process. When our parents question or limit our exploration we may see it as controlling. Parents, on the other hand, operate from a place of responsibility and long-term planning; parents have many years of lived experience which guide them
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in teaching and protecting their children. So, how do teens and their parents work together? By building trust and learning to trust each other. Parents can lead this process by making their thinking transparent: sharing their personal narratives that impact how they make decisions about control or limitations and why they may feel the need to protect their children. Teens can help in this process by taking time to understand that their parents have their child’s
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How do we let people know the beauty and the truth of Islam?
best interests in mind—a parent’s desire to protect their children is not steeped in malice or misguidance. In short, have conversations with each other, genuinely learn each other’s thought process, and work together to learn and value more than one perspective. During these conversations, remember to use a framework of kindness and good treatment of each other, as has been advised in the Qur’an (17:23, 31:14)
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RAD MUSLIMS
Amina Asif BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN BIOLOGY & MACHINE LEARNING MARYAM SHAH, 17
In June of 2020, Amina Asif completed her Ph.D. in computer science and was one of the few people selected worldwide for postdoctoral research in England. She worked with Dr. Jennifer Doudna on her Nobel Prize-winning research on CRISPR/ Cas9 gene-editing systems. In February, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Asif and learn more about her research and how she came to pursue her Ph.D.
> Why did you decide to pursue postdoctoral studies? "You're not supposed to be only a good teacher if you're in academia, you're supposed to have a good research profile too. I did need to be a part of a good research team so that, at some stage in my life, I'd be able to develop or create my own research lab and just explore things that I am interested in. So these postdoctoral research positions are for allowing fresh Ph.D. graduates to explore further into their research areas and to get new research ideas and, on top of that, it helps them build a better research profile which can help them grow in the field and it helps them grow in their academic jobs as well. So nowadays, if someone is in academia, Ph.D. is just not enough; you need to have a good research profile post-Ph.D. as well." > What is the biggest challenge you've faced? "I like what I do, I am not very bad at it either, but I'm a very lazy person. I'm not one of those people with a very intense passion who'd pull all-nighters and keep working on stuff until they get results out of it. To give you an example, I can lie down and stare at the ceiling for hours and it wouldn't bother me. That is not the trait you'd look for in a successful academic. There is one other challenge too; I do get bored of things very easily and I have the attention span of a two-year-old. That's not very good if you have to code very long scripts for some experiments to run. And another thing that has caused certain problems for me is
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that I cannot memorize things. I have very poor memory, so if you teach me something and I get the gist of it I'll be able to explain it to someone else but I won't be able to remember the exact words.” > Any advice? "Don't just take things to your heart when they do not turn out the way you want them to. Ultimately, all will be fine. This simply won't matter in a year or so. And do not choose a field for the wrong reasons. In fact, don’t do anything in life for the wrong reasons. And by wrong reasons I mean like in a competition with someone, or trying not to let someone down. If that's where the motivation is coming from, that's the wrong reason. Just keep your intentions good, and everything will work out."
<"Do not choose a field for the wrong reasons. In fact, don’t do anything in life for the wrong reasons." >
HEAR ME OUT HALEEMA AHMED, 17
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e have all had those days. The days your self-confidence shatters once more. The days you embarrass yourself to astronomical levels. Yet, when these moments encapsulate your entire existence, problems larger than a bad hair day or poor math grade arise. Like most teenagers, I have had my fair share of these experiences, self-deprecating thoughts, and chronic stress. They have produced a conundrum of mental health crises in my brain with a label not always needed to identify its significance. I can feel it in my heart before I speak, think, or act. In these moments, schools recommend counsellors and therapists. Speak to absolute strangers? No, thank you. The obvious choice is to confide in someone you can trust. Someone who has known you for longer than you have known yourself. Speak to Throughout high school, I have my parents? Most definitely not. reached too many breaking points The immigrant story of trials and the frequency of these was only in a third-world country to venture exacerbated by the pandemic. Yet, over oceans for opportunity is not if you were to ask my parents how uncommon. The children bred from their daughter is doing, they would these travellers, say, “She is My peers may have fine! Getting like me, know what gratitude is, suppressed their struggles good grades, and yet, we also reading books, as I have but we will not know a different and watching pain. When your allow our children to do movies is all she parents’ adversity the same. does.” Without makes yours pale needing to in comparison, feelings of inadequacy step out of our homes, the children and isolation arise. How can I talk of immigrants live double lives to my parents about this when they suppressing our feelings and agitations have endured much worse? Do they to avoid angry and unproductive think I am just overreacting about confrontations with our parents. the “anxiety” I face? These questions For me, this stems beyond the remain unanswered. fact that my parents had arduous lives in India and worked from the ground up to provide for us. Disputes between relatives remain as gossip on
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the phone rather than materializing into progressive solutions for the sake of the family. The reasoning behind strict parenting was never discussed, just demanded. In this, parents lose the essence of what it means to care for a child. The trusting and confiding aspects. “Try reaching out to them and explaining how you feel” or other nonsensical solutions may be proposed. The only remedy is generational. My peers may have suppressed their struggles as I have but we will not allow our children to do the same. We must understand them even if we were never understood.
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