All school curricula includes the tangible content that is taught through lessons and the intangible content that is learned from the intentional or unintentional class community and school-wide culture. There are three main ways that Islamic schools approach Islamic content and values: appended curriculum, informal policies, and curriculum integration.
In the appended approach, which is by far the most common, schools use the mainstream secular curriculum along with separate Arabic, Quran and Islamic studies classes. This method isolates the tools, such as Arabic, from the study of Islamic knowledge. It can lead children to compartmentalize teachings, and to learn to view religious content as irrelevant to 'real' life. They may come to believe the secular curriculum, which is more dominant, consistent and overreaching, is better equipped in helping them make sense of the world. They are likely to end up with two incompatible worldviews.
In informal policies, there is often a focus on character or value-based education and Muslim culture. By relying on general principles, schools hope to circumvent the issues that arise from isolating the Quranic and other Islamic sciences from the rest of the student's schooling experience. These policies are meant to introduce Islamic teachings through informal opportunities and teaching moments. This could look like, for example, highlighting the importance of Muslim 'scientists' and their inventions in a science or social studies class, calculating the distance between Safa and Marwa in a math class, or assigning a school-wide monthly character trait. Since this approach is constrained within the secular curriculum, it is inherently very difficult for schools to organize a cohesive, consistent, and meaningful Islamic education over the span of a student's school life.
The third approach, curriculum integration, is the most recent and most ambitious attempt to integrate Islamic principles, values and teachings into modern schooling. Schools redesign the curriculum at the level of lesson plans, objectives, and assessments for the purpose of providing deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. In principle, curriculum integration offers several advantages over the other two approaches. However, in practice, most schools run into insurmountable difficulties in attempting to implement it sustainably and effectively across the grades.
It is not just the tangible secular curriculum that is problematic. Schools also have to grapple with the intangible culture inherent in the design of the modern schooling system. It quickly becomes very clear that conventional schooling, as is, cannot accommodate other perspectives, at least not in a cohesive and meaningful way.
