Excerpt From:
Islamic
Home Schooling Advisory Network Newsletter
Volume 1 Issue 4 (November 2001)
WHAT
IS AN EDUCATION?
To begin, let’s define some
terms and dispel a few myths:
1) Learning occurs naturally whether you want
it to or not (that’s why wise mothers watch the company their children keep).
2) Education describes efforts that are
largely self-initiated for the purpose of taking charge of your own life and
living in a world that you thoroughly understand and participate in. It is hard
work to be educated, as it involves self-determination and discipline to gather
data and make judgements and assessments.
3) Schooling is done in an environment
dictated by procedures and sequences, controlled by others and for the purposes
of others. There is a value to
schooling only if the teachers are people who struggle to understand you as an
individual and have your best interests at heart; that is why any schooling that
a child needs must be done by a parent or close carer with no vested interest.
Children are schooled in order to work, full stop.
When you start confusing education with schooling a very subtle thought process
takes place and the two completely different concepts merge. An education is a
process which is life long and gradually teaches a person to understand
themselves and the world they live in. Schooling is for a fixed period with a
piece of paper at the end with a number on it. The number you get will be
according to your ability to memorise information and repeat it back,
determining where in the system you will be used. It is ridiculous and naïve to
think that one can change this process by participating in it. At best some
sympathetic noises will be made to placate you and make you think you are being
heard, the ‘keep your kids here and we’ll work together’ kind of thing.
Then at worst you will be told that your child is the problem - no one else
complains, so what is wrong with him and you for that matter?
It is easy to be schooled, even brilliantly
schooled, because all you have to do is to hand yourself over to someone, and
they will decide what you learn and what the rules are. The purpose behind
modern schooling is to be indoctrinated into consuming and producing.
It teaches children through subtle indoctrination and peer pressure that
something you can buy has more value than something you can make.
This is so they grow up needing bought things and go to work in the
systems that produce them.
4) Information vs.
Knowledge:
Of course there is a vast difference between
information and knowledge but how often do the two get confused?
Knowledge is free and open to anyone who wants to
understand the world around them and where they fit into it, and how to
understand themselves. Information is what you need to get up to the higher
levels in the factory system. Based on your ability to pay for it you can have
as much information as you want. The higher up the system you go means the more
products you can attain, and hence the better you are as a consumer. In this
system, the best people have the most products. That is because they have used
the process to their advantage but are not knowledgeable people. If you look at
the vast amounts of wealth controlled by business people today you will see that
although these people have lots of products they have very little knowledge.
Information is often passed off as knowledge.
Usually that information is about the consumer/producer system – there is a
subtle indoctrination of all school children to persuade them to want products
and go into a system that produces them. Information usually has to be paid for
in the end. This indoctrination is often called education.
An education is free and based on your ability to
find it you can have as much of it as you can. Why would a system based on
turning out productive, conforming, authority accepting cogs suddenly decide to
start turning out individuals who understand themselves and the world around
them? Those individuals might start changing the system, co-operating and living
in harmony based on a fair trade exchange system without the sophisticated magic
of money…and then what would happen?
So,
how do we encourage ourselves and our children to work towards education?
1)
Develop Self Awareness:
a) Know
your personal identity. Learn as much as possible about your families,
relatives, ancestors, family trees, situations, and stories.
b) Profile
yourself against your relatives. Work out what talents and weaknesses you
have from genetics and traits. Spend
a few moments every day wondering which part of you is similar to each relative.
c)
Know your history, as it is the tapestry against which your life
plays. People with a deep knowledge of history are dangerous because they can
think in context.
d)
Study the physical world within your reach. This includes botany,
chemistry, biology, zoology, geography, analysing housing/business/people,
cultures and market research.
e) Have
knowledge of the world of work. Aim for an intelligent selection of
vocations. A high paid job where you are miserable or fighting against your
principles is not what you need because the money you get is not enough
compensation for destroying yourself.
f) Study
the philosophies and psychologies of human interaction. There are
differences between families and friends, between friends and companions,
companions and comrades, and love relationships. These ought to be based on
thousands of years of human history.
g) Learn
the intricacies of making a home, which is like a laboratory of efficiency
in producing well-balanced individuals. Make the difference between a home and a
place you just sleep and eat in. Acknowledge the difference between boys and
girls. Know what the obligations, challenges and duties of a strong man and
woman are, and what they are expected to shoulder.
h) Be
aware of the transience of life. This is a need to understand the challenge
of loss, ageing, death and that life is a circuit.
i) Develop
awareness of the soul, the spirit and things beyond the metaphysical and
that it is not subject to scientific investigation.
j) Plan
for the next life. An educated person maintains a balance between their
actions in this life and their hope for the next life.
Once these various awareness’s are
awakened you are able to see the shape of an educated person as it emerges from
the chaos of ignorance. This person is a self-determining person. This is a
process of becoming. You never quite get there but as a person you are always
getting better and in this state you are always arriving.
2) An
educated person knows the ways of the human heart so well that they are hard to
cheat or fool. An educated person
learns when to trust strangers and does not confer that kind of trust on people
indiscriminately.
3) An
educated person knows their Deen and the rights they have within it and how to
defend them.
4) An
educated person possesses useful knowledge; how to feed, clothe and shelter
themselves. If they don’t know things, they know where to find out.
5) An
educated person knows the dynamics of healthy relationships.
6) An
educated person can discover truth without following the leads of experts.
Always reserve some scepticism so that you are able to compare accounts.
7) An
educated person has the capacity to make new things e.g. new experiences, new
ideas or how to make something out of something else.
8) An
educated person possesses a blue print of personal values.
Most people make up their lives on the spot and don’t have any
principles to guide them at all. An educated person knows at all times who he/she is and they
have a philosophy that has been clarified throughout their lifetime, as Islam is
an on-going process. We make
mistakes but as we strive we become better and more strong in our principles,
not less.
9) An
educated person does not see time hanging heavily on their hands.
If they find themselves alone they are not at a loss as to what to do
with their time.
10) An
educated person understands and accepts why death and aging are necessary.
With grateful acknowledgment to John Taylor Gatto.
- Caroline Maryam Ward 21/08/01
ISLAMIC
HOME SCHOOLING
ADVISORY
NETWORK
-IHSAN-
PO Box 30671, London, E1 OTG, ENGLAND
Phone/Fax: 020 8851 1866