Nurturing that which nurtures us
What is athl?
Athl is an open access database of highly engaging, bilingual learning resources that center and celebrate the students and cultures that make up the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa). Our mission is to enliven our classrooms with responsive and vibrant resources that engage our youth with learning about themselves and their communities. We hope this will spark connection, compassion, and ultimately, meaningful contributions to a collective future in which success and cultural sustenance go hand in hand. Athl supplements the often exclusionary curricula of the region, leaving our students without any meaningful representation in their own classrooms largely due to a paucity of available resources. In response, our framework takes up the everyday familiar realities of our students in an effort to promote authentic academic engagement, include them as valued members of their own vibrant knowledge community, and to excite them about their futures.
Identity
Identity sits at the heart of our curricular framework. Our core component of identity encompasses different dimensions of culture and community like family, reciprocity, intergenerational wisdom, language, art, music, sport, story, ecology, and food. Our database of lessons will offer varied opportunities for students across the SWANA region to learn about themselves and others in their communities by centering these different dimensions of identity. By prioritizing responsive, holistic and place-based practices, we are making sure that our students are not only included in the curriculum, which is too rare of an occurrence, but are explicitly being supported in developing a sense of self and community, and a desire to participate.
Dynamic
It is important that our definition of culture remains dynamic, open to the evolution of youth practices and responsive to the needs of our students. Along the way we will uncover, develop and transcribe approaches to learning that serve to engage our students, building on the processes and schema that act as their lenses to the world. This is in line with one of our core objectives of valuing inherent wisdom by harnessing the brilliance that already exists.
Sustaining
It is our heartfelt belief that all people derive purpose, joy and connectivity from everyday performances of identity and culture, and educational research, old and new, has proven this time and time again (cite bucholz). Countless studies have recorded the increased engagement and motivation students feel when their perspectives, literacies and communities are meaningfully included in daily learning experiences. The research is filled with stories of students taking ownership of their own learning, breaking down the artificial walls between school and the world and beginning to step into their agency as learners and actors in their communities. Learn more button?
What’s in a name?
Tamarix aphylla, or Athl in Arabic, is important to us as a symbol of our commitment to a place-based approach. Athl is a shrub or tree that is native to the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. It is very well adapted to the conditions here: tolerant of our salty and sandy soil, and with a remarkably deep root system, allowing it to flourish in the desert conditions. Athl has medicinal properties that have been harnessed for centuries. Its qualities reflect our ethos: we need not look outside of ourselves for wisdom, joy or resilience.
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