Excerpt From:
Islamic
Home Schooling Advisory Network Newsletter
Volume
2 Issue 1
Thoughts
On Being
Assalamu Alaikum,
My
name is Sarah, I am seventeen years old and have been home educated since I was
nine. When my parents first started
talking about taking me out of school and teaching me at home, I thought they
were kidding. I only started to
actually take them seriously when I didn't return to school the following
September. At first my concerns
were about my friends as I quickly realised that I would not be seeing them
again, and I did not - at the time - have many friends outside of school. I soon
got used to not seeing my school friends and, Alhamdulillah, my parents were
very concerned about the 'social aspect' of being home educated and ensured that
I got out often to see the Muslim friends I had and to meet more people.
Alhamdulillah,
I have always been a very outgoing person and can make friends with relative
ease. I tend to meet most of my friends at Islamic Conferences, which I go to
whenever I can. Most of my friends think that it's brilliant that I'm home
educated and can see the obvious advantage from the Islamic perspective.
However, they - like most people - initially tend to be rather dismissive of my
opinion on academic subjects (until they get to know me) and think that I do
very little if any studying. This last paradigm doesn't seem to fade as easily
as the first. Many of my closest
friends think that I spend my time lazing around the house reading and watching
telly. Subhanallah! Admittedly, I
don't spend as much time studying or write as much as my school going
friends, but then I believe that the general quality of what I do produce is
better than the quality of my friends' work. After all, I give each piece of
work my best effort. And just because I enjoy watching a lot of documentaries (programmes
like BBC2's 'Horizon" are very educational) and love reading doesn't mean I
don't study.
During
my first year of studying at home my parents enforced a pretty strict routine,
adhering strictly to the National Curriculum. Then we had our first visit from
the LEA, and my parents eased up a bit because the advisor was so supportive and
nice. Gradually I became
more interested in learning so that by the time I was twelve I was teaching
myself. I had got over the learning-is-boring syndrome so prevalent in schools,
and had begun to read factual books. I had even - somehow - started writing
essays voluntarily. Now I generally try to pace my studies in the period between
July and December. Then, because I'm doing exams, I work like crazy from January
to June. This seems to work best for me, and I feel that trying to follow a
routine - for me, anyway - is more stressful and disruptive than not following
one. I study as and when I have to.
The advantage of this is that I am always (or nearly always) motivated to study
and interested in the subject. I try to study a minimum of five days a week, but
usually it is seven days a week.
Unfortunately
my mum still tends to nag me about my school work, but only when she worries
about it. She also has a tendency
to over-compensate for my lack of teacher/peer pressure during exam time. This,
as you can imagine, is all extremely frustrating.
The plus side has to be that I have a very close relationship with my mum
and we are good friends as well as a mother and daughter.
And, Alhamdulillah, both my parents have always been aware that
babysitting whilst studying don't really mix and have always ensured that I have
my room to myself while I'm studying.
Alhamdulillah,
I don't think that learning is a drag, which many people I know seem to feel,
and I think that this is a result of being home educated.
I also feel that I have matured faster than many of my friends and
consequently am far more confident about myself and less likely to follow fads.
When it comes to making decisions for myself, I do what I feel is best for me,
while my friends are more inclined to do whatever is fashionable.
I think I am also better able to talk to, and form friendships with
people of different ages.
Islamically,
I think home education has been beneficial for me because I am not in an
un-Islamic school environment, I tend to learn a lot about Islam by living it.
Also, I not only study Islamic Studies but it is a top priority subject
at that.
This
year I am studying extra GCSEs, as I decided late last year that I would like to
do medicine and have to do the extra subjects. Insha’Allah my aims for the immediate future is to finish
my GCSEs and then study one year A-levels (which are still an option) and then
take a gap year before going on to university.
Home education is subject to personal circumstances and not every family
is able to do it.
-Sarah Ait Chikh
***
Interview
with Hamza Khalid
Home
educated founder of a computer software company
What
do you think were the benefits of being home educated?
Home
comforts for a start. The place you
spend most of your day in should be happy and welcoming and make you feel safe.
Clean as well is a big thing for us as we are Muslims, so I don’t think
I would get on too well having to use the same toilets as outside people.
I hate it when I have to go to the loo outside anyway, so can you imagine
having to use a public toilet every day! Having
a snack in the middle of doing things is also very important to me!
Most
of my friends went to or still are at public schools and they never talk about
what goes on there, as if they black out that part of their day.
For myself I love to talk about what we have been doing as it’s always
interesting and usually something I feel passionate about.
Being
at home made it easier for me to learn as I have a slightly one tracked mind so
it would be very hard for me to fit into a school routine.
A couple of years ago we discovered I had Aspergers syndrome, and some
things have been quite hard for me to cope with along the way.
Although we did not have an idea what this was when I was growing up,
there were always difficulties which I think would have been badly handled by
anyone other than people who loved me and wanted me to overcome. I had more time
to do everything at my own pace and do the things I liked.
If
you only study things you like won’t you miss out on other things that are
necessary for you to learn?
In
my case my mum made sure that we got all the things we needed by making lessons
out of our own areas of interest.
For
myself I was always mad about lego and star trek so if we were doing spellings
my list would be something like:
borg
legoland
clingon
motorbike
vulcan
vehicle
spock
brick
enterprise
block
starfleet
base
command
wheel
If
it’s geography, it is very necessary to know where is a good place to land
your spaceship. You don’t want to
land in a mountainous area or in the middle of an ocean now do you?
Also
the natural resources of each country are a very useful thing to know if you
land somewhere and need a mineral or fuel of any type and the quickest way to
find the most abundant source!
Or
maths could be numbers of crew members on each flight deck, numbers of beings in
each species or hundreds of other different combinations so you can learn all
the concepts you need and still stay interested, like distance through galaxies
in proportion to speed.
Science
is always fun on its own so you don’t need to dress that up too much!
Especially as you come to realise that the Muslims had all the ideas and
the rest of the world pinched them!
History
could be the time line from the start of star trek to modern day through
different ages and captains. After
that you would have an idea of time and the concepts associated with history and
time. This is the most important
thing about history, that you can think in a time frame and grasp an overall
picture. For us we always related to Islamic history because it is so
fascinating and even more exciting because it is real.
You know that when you study the truth it is not going to change and then
you’ll have to learn something else. From
my mother’s work as a writer and researcher I know that not all history put
about in schools is real history and sometimes even it’s a lie, so how are you
going to know?
Why
do you think you completed your work before each age level time?
Well
of course it may take as much time as in school, but you finish quicker because
you can wake up in the middle of the night and do work you want to finish.
Can you imagine getting your teacher out of bed at 3 am in the morning!
Your parents don’t mind because they are up anyway. In our house there
is usually someone praying in the night or making suhur or doing some sort of
other emergency.
What
was or is the downside of home education?
Can’t think of much for this except that, people were
always asking what school you go to, and I got fed up saying I don’t go to any
school, and even though I had completed everything years before they still think
you are somehow deprived. They
would have long conversations with you about the things you were doing at home
and seemed to get the idea, then at the end they would say something like “It
is a pity you don’t go to school especially as you are so bright”.
I would like to make people understand that the reason we do so well is
because we are not going to school, but that is hard for most people to
understand.
What
advice would you give to parents thinking of home educating but who can’t
stand their kids being round their feet all day?
Well
they are probably round their feet all day because the children are used to
having a grown up telling them what to do all the time and they can’t think
for themselves. If you took them
out of school and taught them how to rely on their own initiative and talents
then they would go away and leave you alone!
OK
on another track. If you were in
charge of providing education for everyone how would you do that? (This is the
summary of a discussion we had in our family recently on this very question).
Well,
first of all I would make a clear statement of what I think education is.
I think it should mean learning the things you need to achieve the
purpose of your life. You see each
individual person is part of the Master Plan as I see it.
We have all been created for a purpose.
Initially your direction should be to discover your purpose and then
train for it so you can do it the best way you can.
I
think this would work in an opposite way to schooling because when you go to
school they do not try to discover who you are or what you are for they just
assume you are all the same and teach everyone the same things.
I would try to arrange for kids to try out different life choices and see
if they like it then if they liked it as an overall idea they could go into a
program designed to make them expert in that field.
As
an addition I think everyone should have some basic training in life skills
which I have found quite useful. I
would let say groups of children all live together with one house manager who is
an adult who actually likes the company of children and respects their
individuality. In these living
together sessions the children would run the household as a collective and all
take turns in having the shopping money, budgeting and cooking etc.
Bad choices of food would be a lesson in themselves when there is too
much of something and not enough of the other so they would soon realise the
need for budgeting and portioning things per person.
I
would have some growing going on also and different households growing different
things to trade with each other, so you could always get something to eat if the
budget manager was inefficient.
There
would be surprise drop ins from guests etc. and the house manager would advise
on the hospitality to be shown to them, just like real life, so you learn to
cope with the unexpected. People of
different faiths would all have households each and people of no faiths would
have the choice to either choose to be guests of other faith households (where
they agree to join in the running and managing in the way that faith operates)
or have a household of no faith for themselves and others who had the same
ideas. Just like in a real Muslim
State. I think the no faith people
would be quite curious to see how others operated and likewise there could be
exchanges between faith households so everyone learned respect for things that
are different from your own. When
you had learned how to cope properly and were very proficient at everything you
could leave.
In
our family we have a computer person, a weaponry historian, an artist, a potter
and a couple of undecided at the moment. But
even if they have such varied lives they can all at least do all the practical
things to live and cope when it is necessary.
At
what ages would these programs be put into use?
From
7-14 only. Islam says your child
must be allowed to play until 7, be taught things for life from 7 - 14 and be
your friend from 14 - 21. I think
this is very sensible because there is no pressure on little people.
I was reading when I was 4 but I know that is quite unusual and I have
brothers and sisters who did not read until past 7 so in a family you have the
whole range. I remember the room I used to have in our old flat and it makes me
feel warm and comfortable so it was obviously nice there whatever my mum used to
do with us! She said she used to
read to us a lot and do fun games and we just picked up from that.
My other brothers and sister had more or less the same things I think and
some picked up and some didn’t, so they should be allowed to take it or leave
it until they are 7.
Hamza
Khalid (Home educated person of 16 years)
Director of Waste of Ink - first computer software company established without copyright on any of its products. Website to be launched soon, watch this space Insha’Allah.
ISLAMIC
HOME SCHOOLING
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