Quality not Quantity

Over this weekend I attended the ISNA Education Forum held at the Westin Hotel in Rosemont, IL (right outside of Chicago). There were approximately 400 people in attendance, all being educators (teachers, administrators, and Board members). This movement of Islamic schools in the US has been an interesting phenomenon of the 1990s. The institutions were built on the fear that Muslim children would lose their identity in public schools and as such, Islamic schools should be created to provide an alternative.

This is a potentially huge market for us in terms of retirement plans and endowment funds but it is still in its early stages. Many schools were created only after the mosque in a community was fully established. Thus, the average school is probably only 7 years old. In the future, this could grow to be even bigger than the market for Mosque endowments because there are always more employees in schools than in Mosques.

There were teachers from all over the country and from Canada (Vancouver) and it was nice to actually find someone from another city recognize where Bellingham was!!! :) I had tried to get a session to talk specifically about retirement plans and endowments, but the person in charge of the Program said he did not receive any of my emails. I don't know how true this is, but I have noticed this problem, specifically from AOL accounts in that my mail ends up in their bulk folder, which is subsequently deleted. I was told, however, that next year they would have a session on this. Maybe it is for the better that I did not have a session, as most of the attendees were worried more about how not to lose the youth!!!! I think this is a similar problem across religions, countries, and ethnicities. The older Islamic schools are having a major problem with the same things that public schools have with discipline, drugs, dating, etc. So the question to ask is, is the project of "Islamic schools" failing? I would still argue not, because the problems these schools are facing with the kids is still far better than the problems faced public schools. Despite this, there were some schools that did come and speak to me regarding retirement planning and endowments, most wanting to start on a small scale.

After the conference was over on Sunday, I gave a seminar at the Muslim Community Center in Chicago. This is one of the oldest and biggest mosques in Chicago which is actually a converted movie theater. At this seminar, I had the lowest attendance I have ever had to a seminar: 10 people. There was initially a confusion as to the time of the session where I thought (about 2 weeks ago) that it was going to be at 11 am. I was told that it was actually going to be at 2pm and as I found out after my talk, it would have been better to do it at the 11am time because it is more convenient for more people. To a certain extent, we are at the mercy of the individuals who are helping us organize these events and although I had in the back of my mind the feeling that 11 am would be better, there is no point arguing because it jeopardizes any future relationship. However, on the positive side, out of the 10 people, I had more people that ever actually fill out the application and hand it to me than I have ever had. Thus I did not feel as bad, since the "close" ratio was still high, and the purpose of my trip to Chicago was not solely this event but the Education Forum.

Till Next time,
Babi