Fostering Faithful Praxis: Tracing Educators’ Affective Turning Points in an Australian Islamic Teacher Education Program

Abstract

There has been a rise in Islamic schools in Australia, a trend similarly seen in other Western countries, and yet limited opportunities for teacher preparation on what it means to impart an Islamically grounded education. This study utilises qualitative research methods, specifically portraiture to shed light on the experiences of in-service Islamic school educators, with varied backgrounds and religious affiliations in a cohort of the Graduate Certificate in Education (Islamic Education) program in Australia. This faith-based teacher education program aims to foster “faithful praxis”, and recenter the Divine in teaching and learning. The research focused on analysing transformative affective shifts as reflected in the program’s final portfolios. Portraits of four participants reflect a reconceptualisation of education as a holistic process that aims to nurture the whole student: mind, body, and soul. The portraits also highlight awakening experiences that signify the role of reflexivity and self-reflection of the educator so that educational renewal is of the whole collective in the school community. Implications of this study signify the role of spirituality in teaching and learning and the importance of moving beyond conventional and secular models of teacher education programs.

1. Introduction

The nation-wide teaching crisis in Australia is real and is equally impacting Australian Islamic schools. Fewer university students are choosing teaching as a profession [1], attrition rates in the first year of teaching are on the rise [2], teacher burn-out and increasing attention to the area of educator wellbeing are growing areas of concern [3], and there is an urgent teacher shortage across the country [4] that is affecting all schools. Among the primary reasons proffered for attrition are unreasonable expectations placed on teachers and a loss of agency to be dynamic, spontaneous, and responsive in teaching. Indeed agency, autonomy, and voice are all critical enablers for the professional role of educators that are severely compromised if not quelled in a dominant era of education promoting “policy technologies of control and compliance” [5] (p. 296). Many educators speak of being increasingly consumed in administrative or bureaucratic demands within their role, robbing them of critical time and bandwidth, overshadowing and increasingly distancing them from the core aspects of their professional roles.

Neoliberal logics of efficiency, measurement, and effectiveness have also implicated Islamic schools and, by extension, the Islamic school educator. Given the continual scepticism of Islamic schools on the basis of Islamophobia, racialization, and an irrational fear of the Muslim “other” [6], on-going anti-Muslim discrimination, and a growing Muslim population striving to resist imposed identities as the “suspect citizen” [7], rather being the model minority, most Islamic schools double the undue pressures to perform. On one hand, neoliberalism’s policy of “choice” in schooling affords Islamic schools belonging within an independent school sector. On the other hand, schools and their leaders face dual pressures of performativity as validation of legitimate schooling credentials for the external, specifically to “allay societal suspicion but also help them compete for market position” [8] (p. 318); and for the internal, the effort to honour the loyalty and “choice” of Muslim parents who value distinct elements of an Islamic school [8], so long as this does not compromise academic performance [9]. These dual pressures of performativity are frequently devolved to Islamic school educators. Similar to other schooling contexts, this can translate to highly scripted teaching, the covering of curriculum, teaching to the test, a reductive focus on performance in external standardised testing, and a strong focus on reporting. The challenge for Islamic schools, similar to other faith-based schools, is that faith cannot be scripted, tests cannot measure religiosity, and reporting on faith development can never assess what is in the heart of a learner. This interplay between pressures of performativity while nurturing faith is an on-going struggle in faith-based schools. The result of this dilemma, at least for Australian Islamic schools, has been to separate the two: religious-studies teachers foster faith, and the larger team of teachers teach the national curriculum. In addition to this, a school-wide faith-enriched learning environment, or what might be referred to as the informal or hidden curriculum [10] of Islamic schools, certainly reinforces aspirations of faith formation. However, within this bifurcated model, the everyday rhythm of an Islamic school educator teaching key learning areas mandated by the national curriculum looks and feels quite similar to the work of an educator in a secular-state public school. Increasingly, this bifurcation has led many Islamic school educators to question their role and purpose of working in a faith-based school setting and has negatively affected their sense of agency and self-efficacy, or purpose and spiritual connectedness to their role.

This paper offers one attempt of an Australian-based postgraduate teacher-education program to address the dilemma of Islamic school educators’ sense of self-efficacy. The overarching research question informing this paper is the following: what does it mean to educate in an Australian Islamic school? The Graduate Certificate in Education (Islamic Education) was initiated by the first and third co-authors from the Centre for Islamic Thought and Education (CITE), at the University of South Australia (UniSA) in 2018, to help Islamic school educators grapple with this very question. What will be referred to as the “Grad Cert” in this paper, was established to fill a void in the postgraduate teacher education space for Australian Islamic school educators.

The Grad Cert was designed to achieve three overarching outcomes: (a) challenge the notion that education is neutral; (b) re-centre educational thought in the Islamic tradition to think about education anew; and (c) foster a deep reflexivity in educators about the potential for renewal, of themselves and their own practice, as well as the potential for collective Islamic schooling renewal, which would increase a sense of self-efficacy and, by virtue of this, a ‘faithful praxis’ toward the reinvigoration of a holistic faith-based education. This paper begins by establishing the theoretical grounding that informs the Grad Cert, including the conceptualisation of “faithful praxis” [11] (p. 15). We then turn to our methodology of analysing the final capstone course in the program, entailing a personal action-research project, captured within ‘faithful praxis’ portfolios of four 2023 graduates of the program. Using affect theory to analyse the portfolios and ‘portraiture’ to capture findings, we present four portraits of ‘affective turning points’ that the educators experienced during the Grad Cert. We close the paper with a discussion on the implications of fostering ‘faithful praxis’ as a response to the wavering sense of self-efficacy of educators in Australian Islamic schools.

2. Conceptualising Faithful Praxis: Theoretical Underpinnings

Cultivation of the inner self has always been paramount in education in the Islamic tradition [12], and it is widely accepted that the role of educators today has become highly technicised [13]. In an attempt to coherently outline our conceptualisation of faithful praxis, this section will begin with (a) establishing what we mean by ‘faithful’, and will then (b) outline our conception of praxis, and (c) explain the implications of faithful praxis for Australian Islamic School educators.

2.1. Conceptualising ‘Faithful’

Education in the Islamic tradition is a twofold process of drawing in and drawing out or breathing in and breathing out. The human being draws in from the metaphysical and physical worlds, which is the process of cultivation, but then breathes out into the world around us, and the latter is how human beings actualise the dispositions we have acquired, bringing out our interiority. Mahmoud [14] uses the analogy of a seed that draws in nutrients from the earth to then manifest its beauty when drawn out. This is the process of tarbiya or soul-making, which is reflective of the Islamic conception of education [15]. ‘Faithful’, for us, refers to the cultivating of our humanness—or what, in the Islamic tradition, is referred to as fitrah—“innate faithful goodness” [16] (p. 207). In the Islamic tradition, human beings are born with innate dispositions that, through cultivation, become manifest. If, as Muslims insist, Islam is a deen, a complete way of life, where every aspect of being is inextricably informed by faith beliefs and values, then should the Islamic school educator not question what makes the process of learning and teaching ‘faithful’ [17]?

For Australian Islamic school educators, what defines ‘faithful’ might be evident, but its enactment has been challenged through colonisation, the erasure of traditional worldviews, and the global dominance of secular liberalism [17]. The bifurcation of religious studies from national-curriculum key learning areas—or even the appending of Islam onto an unchallenged, uncritical, existing mandated national curriculum—reinforces the epistemic hegemony of secular liberalism and the myth of inferiority of traditional knowledge [17]. This argument of the marginalisation of Islamic epistemologies is not new; see [18,19,20]. Nor is the impact of bifurcation of the faithful and secular in contemporary K-12 Islamic schools; see [21,22,23,24].

Borrowing from the [25] conception of “epistemic multicentricity”, where epistemic hierarchies are challenged, [17] argues that Islamic epistemologies can then inform a renewal of educational thought and practice. For the Islamic school educator seeking to re-centre cultivating faithfulness, this requires first a willingness to challenge what is assumed to be “best practices” or what claims to represent “evidence-based” practice, from within paradigms that claim generalisability and yet do not fully recognise praxis beyond a secular frame, or that have in fact not considered or studied the Muslim learner or the unique context of an Islamic school with its distinct esoteric and transcendent aims and aspirations [26]. What are promoted as “best practices” in contemporary educational discourse are rooted in a particular neoliberal, positivist [27], and secular conception of education. Such “best practices” are informed by a different overarching purpose of schooling—one that is technical, instrumental, and functional [28]. For faithful education, there must be alignment between what Alkouatli [17] outlines as ontology (what one believes) in relation to epistemology (how one knows what they believe) and methodology (how one comes to know what they believe), and pedagogy (how one educates). A commitment to epistemic multicentricity then requires a commitment from educators in Islamic school settings to begin from ontology and not pedagogy (as a detached teaching technique or instructional strategies).

To capture our conceptualisation of ‘faithful’ we draw upon Alkouatli’s [17] “theoretical inner architecture,” illustrated in the Figure 1 below (from p. 202).

The work of an Islamic school educator is the “expressions of ontology, epistemology, and methodology…ontology as unequivocal holism, epistemology as divine knowledge in the heart, and methodology as engaged participation in Islamic practices” [17] (p. 201). This inner architecture reinforces the idea that contemporary, secular paradigms of education are insufficient in capturing the faithful work of an Islamic school educator who aspires to draw out in themselves and the students they teach, within a triangulated relationship with the Divine [26], that inner faithful goodness.

2.2. Conceptualisations of ‘Praxis’

Praxis is rooted in the intellectual contributions of Alasdair McIntyre [29], Paulo Freire [30] and Hannah Arendt [31], among others. In educational discourse, it is intended to reconnect with the moral, social and political nature of teaching and learning [32]. Praxis demands a rethinking and reimagining of education—interrogating what has become conventional practice informed by neoliberal logic of managerialism, accountability, and measurement. Practice, on the other hand, refers to daily routines and actions—the everyday practice of teachers entails teaching, learning, and relating, for example. Praxis is more than every type of practice. “Praxis is commonly conceptualised as the interaction between educational theory and classroom practice, but it also considers the complex interweaving of purpose, values, context, roles, and perspectives that inform both” [33], in [11] (p. 2). Praxis is further defined as “action based on deliberation about its potential consequences, and oriented by commitment to contribute positively and meaningfully to society, and to the good of humankind” [32].

For the purpose of our paper, of analysing the faithful praxis journey of Islamic school educators, we will employ Mahon et al.’s [32] three aspects of praxis: forming, self-forming, and transforming. Forming consists of the process of nurturing, thinking, and being reflexive, where an educator deliberates over how they teach in relation to their own beliefs, those of their learners, and the educative process, including their own lived experiences that inform their understandings of education. Forming for the Islamic school educator would then also include the ways in which Islam informs their sense of self. Self-forming is the process of teachers consolidating their understandings of self, learner, society, and existence, to consider the implications of their practice as educators that informs the philosophy and principles by which they educate. Lastly, transforming in praxis is the constructing and reconstructing of themselves—an on-going process of renewal—advancing a version of education that reflects their renewed vision for teaching and learning. In this sense, praxis is a process of reflexive meaning-making, mediating between their relationship with God, self, learner, and society.

2.3. Implications of Faithful Praxis for Islamic School Educators

Faithful praxis requires an affective turning back to the “ontological dimension of the being of the teacher…” [34] (p. 4). We would add, in tandem with and from an affective reflection upon, the ontology of the Muslim learner. For faithful praxis to occur, Islamic schools must resist the convention of constraining teacher autonomy and agency characterised by highly scripted teaching and hyper-accountability measures through monitoring of “performance”. Faithful praxis requires a relational approach to teacher professionalism, one that acknowledges the intellectual assets that students, parents, and teachers bring to the shaping of Islamic schools. Faithful praxis will require centring the relational, dialogic and embodied encounter between teachers and students—where educators are positioned as pedagogical innovators with intimate knowledge of their own context and communities in which they teach [35].

We acknowledge that essential to the relationship between “faithful” and “praxis” is the connectedness between a teacher’s spirituality and sense of self-efficacy. Barsh [36] argues that “teachers who recognise a spiritual connectedness with their work also perceive themselves as more effective” [36] (p. 186). Teacher beliefs are foundational to their pedagogy and, therefore, a teacher education program cannot change a teacher’s practice until their belief system about education is drawn out. We employ Palmer’s [37] definition of spirituality as the “human yearning to be connect”, quoted in [36] (p. 186) and Dembo and Gibson’s [38] definition of teacher self-efficacy as “the extent to which teachers believe they can affect student learning”, quoted in [36] (p. 186). If the purpose of education in Islamic schools is to cultivate the inner self, then a teacher’s spiritual development is paramount, but the correlation between a teacher’s spiritual development and that of the learner must also be reflected in teacher standards and teacher development. As the intellectual is naturally integrated or unified with the spiritual within an Islamic epistemology, the “heart-to-heart” interaction and educative process between educator and learner, triangulated with the Divine [26], so deeply valued within education in the Islamic tradition, must also be recentred.

Faithful praxis requires an “active teacher professionalism” [34] that includes the following: (a) strengthening teacher agency, (b) a teaching culture where professional growth is paramount, distinct from performativity surveillance and dominant cultures of teacher evaluation; (c) teachers making professional judgements to meet the needs of learners; and (d) an emphasis on teacher responsibility over accountability. Australian Islamic schools have an opportunity to not simply prove they can compete academically, as “measured” narrowly on standardised testing regimes, but rather an opportunity to contribute. Australian Islamic schools are lively sites of hope and healing for the field of education— drawing from the Islamic tradition in ways that offer innovative educational theory and practice that addresses the deep educational challenges of today.

Faithful praxis is a call toward all teachers growing toward becoming exemplary teachers. And this entails an “audacious reflexivity” that is “by teachers, for teachers, and about the teaching profession” [34] (p. 7). For us, faithful praxis gets teachers thinking deeply about their school and their classroom [34], but in relation to their beliefs, sense of purpose, values, and aspirations.

3. Methodology and Research Design

In this phenomenological study, we draw on our use of a combination of qualitative research methods to examine the critical awakening experiences of four participants in a postgraduate teacher certificate program in Australia. In essence, we strive to analyse the emergent transformative shifts in the participants’ ontological, epistemological and affective turns that result in transformation and illumination. Drawing from the Islamic tradition, we chose the word hidaya as reflective of this state, which can be translated as guidance or illumination. To capture the experiences of the participants, we use narrative portraiture [39] to authentically and holistically depict the experiences and stories, shedding light on one of the tenets of portraiture methodology that aims to capture expressions of goodness (p. 9). When we refer to critical awakening experiences [40], we allude to transformative “AHA” moments that lead to cognitive and affective changes, including beliefs and values in teaching and learning that alter the professional identity, self-awareness, and pedagogical approaches and practices of the participants. We aim to examine how and if these critical awakening experiences lead to epistemological shifts in the participants in alignment with the program’s aim to foster the conceptualisation of faithful praxis. The Grad Cert defines faithful praxis as a pedagogy and a process that “transcends the meaningful interplay between educational theory and practice; it is also a process through which theory is implemented, embodied, and actualised” [41]. In this sense, the Grad Cert is more about what it means to be an educator in an Islamic school setting, or in other words thinking about educational philosophy in the Islamic tradition, than about Islamic education in the conventional sense of religious studies. The rich tapestry of theological and orientational diversity that exists within Muslim communities therefore plays out in how educators define their sense of faithful praxis.

In terms of participant selection, we utilised a purposeful sampling strategy in selecting four of the fourteen cohort participants that completed the Grad Cert in 2023. The cohort participants held different roles in different schools and institutions, some being teachers and others in middle- and senior-leadership roles. We narrowed the focus on the middle leadership roles, and from that pool, we selected two participants who identify as Muslim and two who do not identify as Muslim, to provide a diversity of perspectives. The four participants were from two partner schools in the program. This provides a varied institutional and faith-based context. Informed consent forms and anonymity agreements were sent to the participants with detailed information about the study. The participants’ identities were anonymised and protected in our study.

We analysed the program participants’ reflective portfolio writings completed as part of the postgraduate certificate program, and coded the data using constant comparative analysis in iterative cycles codes, categories, and themes emerging from the data. This then led the way to the narrative process of shaping the portraits of the participants. Finally, we conducted a cross-comparative case analysis to uncover and shed light on broader themes and identify common threads and patterns across the portraits. The data provide a descriptive evaluation of each educator’s journey of critical epistemic reflexivity and the impact of the teacher certificate program on their faithful praxis epistemological and pedagogical practices. The reflective and contemplative process aims to help educators evaluate their own practices and self-efficacy. In terms of critical awakening experiences as part of the reflective process, the reflective exercises may prompt questioning norms in education with a critical and transformative lens, such as decolonisation of educational thought. One of our rationales for portraiture, which captures larger reflective textual accounts of the participants’ authentic voice, over fragmented data in the form of pieces of text, was our commitment to the awakening of our participants’ identity and voice as essential [42] for critical reflexivity and reflection around praxis.

Qualitative research methods, in this case portraiture and phenomenological methods, push against the constraints of the positivist paradigm. As researchers, we hold roles within the Islamic schooling community, which equips us with an emic perspective to examine the nuance of the data. It helps us conduct a contextualised and in-depth analysis. We also recognize and acknowledge that no research is free of bias and personal perceptions and dispositions. As researchers, we aim to navigate the balance between our emic perspectives as insiders in the Islamic schooling community, and etic perspectives that provide broader insights and utilise systematic and stringent data analysis procedures.

4. Data Analysis

We began the analysis by collecting the documents from the four participants, based on the selection criteria that we have outlined in the Methodology section. Consent forms were collected from all participants, permission was granted to access and analyse the reflective portfolios, and ethics protocols were followed. All the participants were middle leaders in large Islamic schools in Australia, and had varied experiences and backgrounds. As part of the course description, the program gives the participants flexibility in selecting the modalities, or how they choose to portray and share their reflective experiences. Some portfolios were in the form of video recordings, others narrative poetry, while others were in the form of narratives on different platforms, in an effort to provide non-scripted and varied perspectives.

We began the comprehensive data analysis by compiling all the available reflective text in a single document for each participant. For the participants whose reflections were in the form of video recordings, we transcribed all the recordings to ensure that we captured all their reflections and nuances. We created a single document with all the text for each participant to allow for a holistic view and analysis.

In the subsequent steps of the data analysis, we conducted initial coding of the text to identify recurring categories and themes for each participant. We conducted this process in iterative cycles by reading and re-reading the text several times. Furthermore, we highlighted significant statements, phrases, and concepts that reflected transformation, “critical awakening moments”, and “affective shifts”, as well as challenges and surprises the participants shared. In the final step of the data analysis, we synthesised the coded data and re-read the reflective text for each participant to construct the portraits. We utilised the Portraiture methodology to construct a holistic portrait for each participant. In this process, we aimed to capture their reflective journeys as we interweaved together the participant’s backgrounds, the key experiences they shared, challenges, and the impact of Islamic pedagogy on their praxis. We incorporated the voices of participants through direct quotes to enhance authenticity. Our collective etic and emic perspectives aided the holistic analysis and nuances of the data.

5. Portraits

5.1. Portrait 1: Nadia

Nadia is a Muslim middle leader at a large Islamic school in Australia. She presented her portfolio in a poetic, personal, and deeply reflective format. She navigates her reflection with vulnerability as she shares her journey throughout the years in a multitude of landscapes: cultural, educational, spiritual, and awakening experiences with Islamic pedagogy. Nadia taps into her memory as she recalls painful and poignant memories from her childhood schooling that were tangled and painted with the brushes of colonialism, instability due to several migrations, and, also, the kindness of specific individuals that impacted her: the sting of a ruler and the kindness of a nun. The participant navigates through the rest of her formative schooling experience as a young adult by learning new languages, seeing the world beyond cultural boundaries, and connecting with nature. Her university experience opened her eyes to alternative ways of viewing the world, such as critical theories, and solidified her career choice of becoming a teacher. Her Islamic school teaching journey was transformative in shaping her character and identity, as she saw alignment with her purpose and faith. In addition, motherhood introduced a new dimension for her, as it deepened her gratitude and sense of responsibility (amanah, higher meta-purpose), and her realization and alignment of the many different roles. Her yearning for beneficial knowledge led her to the course in Islamic Pedagogy. She shares several awakening moments and realisations in the course, influenced by the readings and the interactions with the instructors, which led her to realise that education transcends grades and awards and shifted her approach to a holistic one that shapes the mind, body, and soul. Her deeper understanding of Islamic Pedagogy deepened in her self-reflection, as she details in the following excerpt:

“I am from the moment I discover,

The Islamic model of the soul,

And everything starts to make sense.

Why behaviour can’t be

Controlled

Why our responsibility for our self

Rests with

Our-self

Why as a teacher I must be

A role-model

And a guide

And learn to reflect

And self-correct

Constantly

Why I can’t force

Transformation

But can plant Seeds

Hoping they will one day

Flourish

Further down a learners’ path

In their journey

Towards Allah.”

Nadia’s portrait paints a picture of wholeness and realignment with self, faith, and teaching. She presents a portrait of continuous growth, self-discovery and reflection and an aspiration to become a better teacher and better self.

5.2. Portrait 2: Sara

Portrait two features Sara, a Muslim middle leader at one of the largest multi-campus Islamic schools in Australia. Her background and training in science are evident in her reflective portfolio, in which she reflects on her journey in a systematic and chronological manner. As a science teacher and part of a science team at her school, she shares the challenges of the pressure to meet the competitive nature of academic deadlines and curriculum demands, which often result in student disengagement and a lack of meaningful learning experiences. As she reflected on what she had learned and read from the Islamic Pedagogy courses, incremental paradigm shifts resulted. These incremental paradigm shifts also resulted in incremental implementations, beginning with changing the seating arrangement in her classroom from traditional rows to collaborative cluster seating, as a means of experimenting with her pedagogy. She also grappled with the students’ perceptions and conditioning of the traditional ways of teaching and learning, as shared in the following excerpt from her portfolio presentation:

“So, reflecting on my own teaching practice through the Islamic Pedagogy course, I decided to implement what I had learned and just, you know, the first thing I was able to do was honestly just change those seating arrangements. Here I ensured that it was active and collaborative learning. You know, the students were a bit surprised that I had these into groups, and I still recall the first thing one of the students said was, ‘Miss, what are we in primary again?’”

Sara continued to reflect on her teaching practice and implemented more profound changes, such as redesigning lessons towards faithful praxis. She began asking more resounding questions about the purpose of education. As the courses progressed, more in-depth critical questions were posed, and critical awakening experiences became evident, from changing seating arrangements and initial forays experimenting pedagogically, to reflecting inward, as she shares in the following excerpt from her recorded presentation in the portfolio:

“This was an overview of what I worked on and the importance of going back to looking inwards. So if I wanted to reflect on my own thinking when I actually look at this whole project or this whole course is that I walked in thinking that, oh, it’s going to be something about the students, but to be honest, at the end of the day, it was about me and me changing my thinking, my purpose, my attitude to teaching. So, for me to actually help my students reach, you know, go through Tazkirah [purification or refinement of one’s heart, as a spiritual practice] and reach that stage, I need to do the same with them and I need to help them look inwards.”

Sara shared challenges as she continuously had to reassess her teaching, examine what implementation of holistic learning and Islamic Pedagogy meant practically in the classroom, and her triumphs as she shared her transformative teaching at a conference on Islamic Pedagogy.

5.3. Portrait 3: Helen

Portrait Three illustrates the reflective journey of Helen, an experienced educator and coordinator at a prominent Islamic school in Australia. In her reflection, she shares the importance of her family in her life as it solidifies her purpose and calling of being an educator. She identifies outside of the Muslim faith and was introduced to the Islamic faith traditions when she took a practicum in a Muslim country in Asia. She has since then been working in an Islamic school, and through the many years of tenure, she has observed the compartmentalization of education, where religious studies and secular studies were not integrated. Enrolling in the Graduate Certificate in Islamic Pedagogy catalysed the transformation of her teaching, and she began to reflect on the implementation of Islamic Pedagogy as an Islamic school educator outside of the Muslim faith. The initial questions that came from her students were surprising, as she shares in her reflection:

“I was surprised to learn that despite the young age of my learners [Prep or first year of schooling in Australia, for learners 5 years of age], they already compartmentalised ‘Islamic learning’ as being the responsibility of their Islamic Studies teacher and reached the understanding that we cannot combine any Islamic content into Geography as they are different subjects. They also expressed concern that someone who could not speak Arabic could not help them to learn about Islam and become better Muslims as they could not teach them to read the Quran, again linking their understanding to the separate subjects of Arabic, Quran and Islamic Studies.”

As she progressed in the program, Helen began to rethink her educational philosophy beyond the learning styles that were part of her pre-service coursework. The idea of Islamic Pedagogy fostering holistic education, educating the mind, body, and soul, deeply resonated with her and resulted in a transformation in her teaching. As she began re-designing her lessons, she observed the shift in student engagement and meaning-making. She incorporated reflection in her studies and created opportunities for students to become more God-conscious.

“All of our students are on a journey to return to fitrah [natural disposition, of knowing the Creator] and is our role as educators to aide our students in this journey.”

In her reflection, she shared that being part of the program and implementing Islamic Pedagogy increased her enthusiasm as a teacher and coordinator. She also shared challenges that she faced in the implementation of Islamic Pedagogy and her concerns regarding sustainability, as she shares in the following excerpt:

“This action research has encouraged me and created an enthusiasm about programming that I have not experienced in years. It has also raised questions that I need to work to answer in the near future; primarily, how can I ensure the sustainability of the implementation of Islamic Pedagogy?”

Collegial discussions revealed that there is a disconnect between what the educators want to implement and what the school expects, such as switching to observational assessments that take more time to complete. She shares the importance of involving all stakeholders to ensure the sustainability and continuum of Islamic Pedagogy.

5.4. Portrait 4: Lisa

Portrait four captures the journey of Lisa, a passionate teacher and department leader. Although she has been in a teaching career for less than ten years, her passion drove her to pursue a leadership position soon after embarking on her tenure. She shares that teaching has always been her dream and calling, evident in her reflection. Being an Islamic school educator outside of the Muslim faith, she shares her reflections on how the Islamic Pedagogy courses made an impact on her praxis. Lisa found grounding and conviction in her pedagogical practices by linking Islamic pedagogical principles (i.e., pedagogical principles, as emergent theory drawn from an overarching Islamic Pedagogy, as a distinct philosophy) to previous educational ideas and theories known to her, such as the importance of flexibility, inquiry-based learning, and collaboration.

“To conceptualise Islamic Pedagogy, I would state that it is the way in which the educational values and principles are rooted in Islam. Within the classroom, this would look like a clear understanding of the origin of knowing and using this as a foundation of theory and practice, therefore what we should build upon as teachers. With the idea that theory and practice go hand in hand, our understanding of both elements should be continually developed, as strong practice emanates strong theory.”

A critical awakening moment that resonated with Lisa was the course discussions on Indigenous knowledge. She connected the concept of Indigenous to Islamic knowledge and ways of knowing, in contrast to dominant Western ways of knowing. This reflection reinforced her commitment to culturally responsive pedagogies and the importance of creating a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students to thrive. She believes in teacher training inclusive of culturally responsive pedagogies. It is important to note that this participant did not make deep personal connections aside from how the learnings directly relate to her praxis and educational theories.

In one of her reflective writings, where she shared her educational manifesto, she emphasised how Islamic Pedagogy courses were transformative for her and crystallised her understanding of education: education is not centred only around academics, but around nurturing the whole child. She characterises how this reflective manifesto is a living document for her, and she will continue to reflect on and revisit it. Within her leadership role, she is in a position to bridge the gap and facilitate dialogue with colleagues to streamline the understanding regarding implementing Islamic pedagogical principles. She adopts a pragmatic and realistic approach, in that for sustainable changes to take effect, they have to be reflected within the school’s mission, vision, and system as a whole.

“More than anything, I am aware that it will require collective effort to produce positive change. Like all changes within a school setting, nothing is done easily or ‘overnight’, but I endeavour to continue supporting all colleagues throughout the process within my current role to ensure that a positive and supportive learning environment is achieved for all students.”

6. Discussion: Affective Turning Points

Nadia and Sara’s portraits reflect an affective turn back to the ontological dimension of being an educator—not just any educator, but a “Muslim educator” or an “educator within an Islamic Pedagogy” mediated by the ontological concept of tawhid invoking unity, wholeness, and Oneness of God [21]. Nadia’s portrait reflects the coherence or unification of her personal and professional identity that she sought, when she says: “I am from the moment I discover, The Islamic model of the soul, And everything starts to makes sense”. On the other hand, Sara entered the program focused on her learners over herself (see [43] for a description of the obsession in contemporary schools with learners and learnification), because that is what teachers are generally trained to do. But for Islamic school settings that are theocentric in their aims, Sara experienced an affective awakening where she realises, in her words, “it was about me and me changing my thinking, my purpose, my attitude to teaching”. Similarly, she made the realisation that the turn inward begins with her if she is to expect the same from her learners. Sara acknowledges that she needs to “go through tazkiyah (self-development) and reach that stage”—the same as the students—and “I need to help them look inwards”. In Sara’s case, there is both the affective ontological turn and, equally, a turn towards an authentic ontological reflection of her learners. It is this turn inward toward one’s own beliefs about education, themselves, and the world around them that fosters epistemic reflexivity and greater consciousness of purpose as the basis for faithful praxis. Committed to the inward turn, committed to transformation of self—or the “who that educates”—committed to processes of muhasabah (introspection) as integrated personal and professional processes for growth and refinement, Nadia and Sara’s portraits reflect affective turning points in their personal and professional lives. Their faithful praxis portfolios illustrate how they traverse through phases of forming, self-forming, and transforming [32] to reconstruct themselves, and who now also present as learners reflecting their full amanah (God-given trust as educators) within an Islamic Pedagogy.

The distinction between Helen and Lisa, both Islamic school educators outside of the Muslim faith, is also fascinating. Helen sees no problem with situating her educational praxis within an Islamic paradigm or establishing Islamic Pedagogy as the foundation of her praxis as an educator in an Islamic school. She actively accepts responsibility within her renewed understanding of her own role in engaging students in spiritual formation by helping students relate the course to their own spiritual and religious lives [36] (p. 187). Some might question whether an educator who does not announce belief or embody a whole-of-life practice can nurture spirituality as understood within an Islamic episteme. However, she is clearly neither passive nor a blocker or a hindrance to the faith aims of the school, and she evidently considers her role within the broader whole school effort and environment, which makes us question the following: is she not contributing to the fitraic ecologies and environment of her school? Is she not enabling her students’ awareness and openness to a higher purpose when she says “All of our students are on a journey to return to fitrah and is our role as educators to aide our students in this journey”. Given that there are many Australian Islamic school educators who do not identify as Muslim, Helen’s willingness to actively foster a higher purpose and awareness reinforces for us the fact that educators who do not announce themselves as being within the faith can still contribute to a learner’s consciousness of it.

Lisa, on the other hand, does recognise cognitively Islamic Pedagogy as an overarching philosophy rather than just technique, but does not reveal a move to situate her praxis within it. Rather, Lisa borrows from her own situatedness and considers alignment in a way that makes sense for her. Lisa certainly drew inspiration from critical readings of the field that helped her make the “critical turn”, and it was from this situatedness that she tentatively experimented with integration of aspects of Islamic Pedagogy. Lisa undoubtedly connects to a deeper purpose and a recognition of the higher purpose of Islamic schools, but does so within an altruistic sweet spot on the basis of social justice logic—i.e., this being the right thing to do because it aligns with the school’s vision and the life worlds of her learners. There was undoubtedly a shift in Lisa and Helen, but distinct from the awakening toward the transcendent higher purpose of Islamic schooling as experienced by Nadia and Sara.

Circling back to Nadia’s poem, we feel it reveals evidence of one of the program’s major overriding objectives: to establish Islamic Pedagogy as a distinct philosophy of education, as the renewed foundation for educational praxis, and by virtue of this, fostering a higher sense of purpose. The very use of a poem as a form of expression conjures a special place within the Islamic tradition. There is a silent theology within Islamic arts, and poetry has traditionally been a higher form of expression of both beauty and profundity for Muslims [44,45]. Nadia’s poem felt like an expression of her situatedness within the Islamic paradigm. Her poem was an emergent and yet substantive reflection of her renewed and restructured ontological and epistemological architecture:

“I am from the moment I discover,

The Islamic model of the soul,

And everything starts to make sense.”

The above passage reflects her affective ontological turn, which is that her whole self teaches and her learners comprise whole human beings. This realisation for Nadia fosters the coherence that faithful praxis requires where purpose and pedagogy intersect as both a philosophical and methodological construct of alignment [46] (p. 17). Then comes her epistemological turn, when “everything starts to make sense”, and she continues:

“Why behaviour can’t be

Controlled

Why our responsibility for our self

Rests with

Our-self”

Nadia’s “ah-ha” moment is an internalisation about unmediated pedagogy [26], where the relationship between educator, learner and Creator are triangulated and intertwined. It was an awakening not through power or coercion or control of policy mandates and top-down expectations of teachers, but one of connection and the centrality of deep relationality between learner and educator and educator and higher purpose. In part of Nadia’s poem, she writes about the realisation that her role as a teacher requires her to be “A role-model; And a guide; And learn to reflect; And self-correct; Constantly”. Her words reflect a reconstruction of herself as a process of on-going renewal and an openness to epistemic reflexivity that is key to faithful praxis.

One of the biggest awakenings Sara experienced was her awakening to the relational domain of her pedagogy [47]. This shift reconstructed the nature of the encounter with her learners and within her role with students with additional needs, as wellbeing coordinator, from an authoritative transactional encounter narrowed to learners’ progress according to curriculum outcomes or compliance to a relational embodied encounter whereby a renewed purpose is informing her practice. For Sara, it was a shift from the dominant, positivist frame of needing ‘teaching strategies’ to a willingness to philosophically engage with what it means to be an Islamic school educator. Commonly, teachers who reduce teaching and learning to a bag of tricks, minus underpinning theory for praxis, flounder when faced with new and complex teaching contexts because such positivist approaches assume that teaching and learning is generalisable [48]. Both Helen and Lisa made similar shifts exhibiting a willingness to not reduce Islamic Pedagogy to a list of strategies but engaging in the theoretical grounding necessary for a strong commitment to praxis.

Among the necessary provisions teachers require to be audaciously reflexive is time [34]. We increasingly feel that the schools that are encouraging and supporting their staff to enrol in the Grad Cert are beginning to appreciate the impact that time for professional dialogue and reflexivity is having on the staff culture of their schools, in what the stimulus paper for the field of Australian Islamic Schools agitates towards, renewed cultures of inquiry and renewed cultures around practice [46].

Professionally, all four participants were promoted to higher responsibilities during their journey in the program. Nadia was promoted from being a Year 6 classroom teacher and coordinator to the Head of Curriculum for Years 3–6. Sara was a secondary science teacher who was promoted to the campus sub-committee leading whole-school renewal. Helen, formerly a stage 1 coordinator and Year 1 classroom educator was promoted to Assistant Head of Lower Primary Teaching and Learning and Student Welfare. And Lisa, formerly a Year 5 teacher, was promoted to primary curriculum coordinator P-6. These promotions reflect for us the fact that the four of them continue a process of personal and professional growth. While each of them has been instrumental in leading learning at their respective schools and bringing colleagues along in the journey, their own journeys continue through supporting the growth of colleagues.

7. Conclusions

Many Muslim parents in Western countries are seeking alternative education options for their children. For Islamic schools in Australia, this has resulted in the need to grow and expand to accommodate the growing waitlists [46]. Similar growth patterns have also been observed in other Western countries, as Muslim communities report similar challenges of neoliberal policies and the non-inclusion of the spiritual dimension in teaching and learning. It is important to note that Islamic schools do not operate in a vacuum, and they experience similar challenges faced by schools in their respective countries and worldwide. Some examples of challenges include teacher capacity, teacher efficacy, retention, attrition, and agency. It is also important to note that teacher education programs often reflect trends in neoliberal discourses in education and do not recognise the spiritual dimension of teaching and learning as an integral part of education.

In this paper, we have utilised qualitative research methods of Portraiture Methodology [39] to capture the authentic experiences of four participants on a postgraduate certificate program in Islamic Pedagogy in Australia: the Graduate Certification of Education (Islamic Education). This program was designed to fill the gap in the lack of faith-based teacher education programs in Australia and is offered by the Centre of Islamic Thought and Education [41]. We examined critical awakening moments and transformative shifts in the participants’ ontological, epistemological and affective turns that resulted in transformation and illumination in their faithful praxis. We selected a representative sample that consisted of middle-school leaders from a cohort from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.

The program aims to cultivate faithful praxis and build capacity in teachers as an alternative program, considering that the majority of teacher education programs disregard the spiritual dimension of teaching and learning. “Faithful Praxis” is a term that we repeatedly reference in our paper. It is rooted and underpinned in the Islamic tradition and embodies the Islamic perspective of pedagogical renewal. This term embodies holistic growth in all aspects of teaching and learning: the student, the teacher, and the school as a community. It is grounded in the Islamic term, fitrah: the innate goodness, recognising that each child has the capacity to grow and flourish. It also showcases the importance of the application of theory as a methodology that is transformative and continuously evolving: forming, self-forming, and transforming.

The qualitative portraits represent the reflexive journeys of Nadia, Sara, Helen and Lisa in the Graduate Certificate Program in Islamic Pedagogy. The portraits paint a picture of their journeys, affective turns, and transformative experiences. One of the common themes we observed across the four portraits is the collective recognition or reaffirmation of the importance of educating the whole child: mind, body, and soul. It was evident from the reflections that the program was transformative for all the participants, in different capacities. The reflective journey for each participant led to incremental changes in renewal. The transformation evolved into more profound pedagogical and affective shifts as the participants progressed in the program. The varied backgrounds and religious affiliations of the four participants impacted and influenced their initial perceptions and their experiences with Islamic Pedagogy. It is evident from the reflections that each journey is different, and the reflections differ. Some of the participant reflections were poetic and personal, while others were more systematic and focused on the professional teaching role. The portraits represent each participant’s unique challenges, from student engagement to the constraints of the standardised educational systems, and also signify the profound impact of a holistic education program that nurtures spirituality and is culturally relevant.