Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Something that is never mentioned when comparing school systems between west and Pak is the student population. In Pak, it seems like its the children of privelege that go to school. And middle class. Many, many children do not go to school at all. In the west, children are required by law to attend school, at least till age 16. So there is a much bigger mix of students in western schools. If, in Pak, ALL the children went to school, I think you'd see more of the school violence and other tragedies like we've seen here. Although I disagree with gun-ownership rights in the USA, I havent known many gun owners at all....yet in Pak, almost every home has more than one firearm.

Anyway, back to school violence. The types of children who commit these crimes are almost invariably those from broken homes or under-priveleged etc. THOSE types of children are almost invariably NOT students in Pak.

A good topic for another thread I think.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Peace Mamof3

An analogy comes to mind ... when plants are seedlings and when they become shoots and break through with pale green heads they are not placed out in the winds and rain to be drenched or trodden over. Rather when many seeds germinate they are separated from others and nurtured in nurseries and when strong enough to go out they are then placed out.

Schools is the nurturing process of young children, they should be inherently safe. The home is far safer than the school and the nurturing should be done at all levels ... morals, ethics, compassion as well as targets to meet maths, science and english crtieria. But schools have and never in the past been places where children should socialise because that will pollute their nurturing process. In the past children were not allowed to speak to one another in class but these days they are playing networks games together during their IT classes.

There is something of a gem in traditional learning but unfortunately that has gone from our schooling systems so we must resort where possible to teach our kids at home.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Peace Mamaof3

Pakistani education infrastructure and Western state education infrastructure are two sides of the same of coin of inappropriate schooling! Some of the points above are incongruent why should it be that if all children in Pak went to school we would see school violence? From what I understand the ghettos in America have similar problems with school truancy ... The biggest tradegy is the lack of charity and compassion in society that allows stark dichotomies to exist in both Pak and some areas of the West. If the home is the fortress of the person then it is so for more reasons than the physical sense. It with parents who want more for their children will be a haven for their minds and souls too. Socialisation can be met with focussed outdoor activities such as swimming, atheletics, community groups and local youth politics. This way we can best control on the type of people we want our children socialising with.

InshaAllah we can all meet these easy requirements.

October Has Started But.......
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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

well put, brother Psyah.
ALL youth needs focus and attention in a safe and nurturing environment, no matter which part of the world they are from. i will add in more later, inshallah.

best,
Dushwari

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

psyah -

the seedling analogy seems good but if you think it through, it is downright dangerous.

Kids have to be exposed to good and bad; parents and teachers are there to teach them how to make the correct choices between good and bad.

Kids grow up without knowing anything other than 'good' they will have a problem when their parents are gone and they have to fend for themselves.

Kids absolutely should be focussed into certain extra-curricular activities but if their social interaction is limited to that, again you end up rearing monotype kids with limited social skills.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

^thats exactly what I was trying to say, SC. I quite agree with you - I'd rather my boyz start learning how to make good choices NOW and on their own. They are all so very young but also so able to figure out right from wrong with help from me, dad and teachers. If they had to figure this out on their own in their later years - with all the raging hormones etc...I dont know about the outcome, kwim? Its hard sometimes but I let them go with guidance and a prayer and so far they usually make the right choices. And when they DON'T, they learn a lesson from it. Inshallah, this will keep on working and if it seems to be failing well THEN I'd consider home-schooling but for now, it just doesnt seem to be the best choice.

What has been your best and worst moment on GS?
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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

^ ofcourse it is a balancing game, all parenting is and we are all learning. Role model of good parents is absolutely helpful too.

As yours, my kid has been making some fantastic choices on her own and the best feeling in the world is when she choses to come and ask for advise.

That said, I know some home-schooled kids who are very smart too and don't seem to be the worse for it. But they are all from non-desi households and have active social life outside of family functions and 'conducted' community activities.

Knowing what I know of immigrat muslim households (yes I am being a bit presumptive here and don't mean any insult), the biggest danger I see in home schooling is several fold:

  • furtherance of non-integration with mainstream even after 2nd generation; this is really really unhealthy

  • under achievement - goals set are non-competitive and even if they achieve all goals set, it still is sub par

  • resentment - do not ignore this. most kids resent this level of control and that eats into them.

Out of love for their parents, or fear or wanting to avoid confrontation, they may not rebel now but please do not take all fun out of their childhood by only providing them what you think ought to be fun. That is what ends up happening. You end up trying to live your "wish list" through them, conveniently forgetting your and their environments are and will always will be very different

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

A good lunch hour read. :-)

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Peace StirCrasy

I actually thought it through first before coming up with the analogy. By the way I am pro-integration but I am not pro-assimilation. In fact the expanse I place between these two positions is indeed a vast one. Kids do not have to be exposed to good and bad in a manner where it can harm them. They need to be given effective insight into good and bad and this can be done in a safe guise.

I also think and agree with people who say children have a good ability to determine right from wrong, unfortunately it is us parents who somethimes do not know any better. Sometimes we let our experiences cloud our judgements. For example we may make mistakes and we recover from our falls, but this does not mean we allow our children to make those same tumbles in life, just so they can tread the same path as us. We were fine so will they be. The idea of further generations in the progress of humanity is so we can learn not from our mistakes, but have the wisdom not to make the same mistakes that our forefathers have made.

Schooling should not be focussed on attempting to develop relationships with people. Children may have some abilities but one ability they do not have from a young age is to determine good and bad company and they are more likely to listen to their dangerous urges when young too. When we see our children walk towards the flames we do stop them or do we let them burn themselves just so they can learn a lesson? No ... humans can learn by analogy and from a distance and that will preserve them too. There are other dangers too such as if and when children do things that they know is bad but they enjoy doing them. They will learn how to lie and deceive and do those things that are harmful but fun all because of the types of people they are allowed to socialise with. If we cannot control the company our children are with in school it is better not to send them to school at all.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Peace StirCrasy

Homeschooling is to serve the purpose of removing the formality in education and making it a fun process for children. In fact homeschooling is so closely tied with the levels of progress of a developing mind it is uncanny to see all the parallels there. Children need psychomotor development, affective development, and then cognitive development. The psychomotor aspects are from a very young age and by the time children approach affection seeking times they are sent to school. Rather we want to provide a lot of affection and teach through fun means to our children we do not want them to develop the idea that some other person is the one to respect or get information from and we are just people who give food and shelter.

As a Muslim we believe in the advice of our prophet Muhammad (SAW) who said to give love to our children for the first 7 years. This coincides with the fact that no formal education is given until that age in most European countries. UK is one exception and children are now being required to do tests from as early as 6 years old.

Many of the social points are really only relevant after a certain age at school. I would say it is much safer to homeschool prior to and until the age of about 10 years. However, my wife and myself are hoping to homeschool until our children have reached ages 14-15.

The type of homeschooling is totally in our control also. We are going to undertake the classics styles, which emphasise grammar, rhetoric and logic, but these aspects have been removed from our schooling system. People are being processed like robots on a conveyor belt. Furthermore, I am going to engage my children in ethics and philosophy and this will hopefully put them on the path to being successful people from a young age.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Nobody is seeing the big problem here? Muslim parents are homeschooling for all the wrong reasons?

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

No. I couldn't find any wrong or unacceptable reason for homeschooling given by Muslim parents in the article, please clearly point out what did you find wrong?

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

^ Sure.

[quote]
Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes.

"Some men don't l! ike it when you wear American clothes — they don't think it is a good thing for girls," said Miss Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade level in this agricultural center some 70 miles east of San Francisco. "You have to be respectable."
**
But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi's, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life.**
[/quote]
....

[quote]

** In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi.**
**
Some 80 percent of the city's 2,500 Muslims are Pakistani, and many are interrelated villagers who try to recreate the conservative social atmosphere back home. A decade ago many girls were simply shipped back to their villages once they reached adolescence. **

"Their families want them to retain their culture and not become Americanized," said Roberta Wall, the principal of the district-run Independent School, which supervises home schooling in Lodi and where home-schooled students attend weekly hourlong tutorials.
**
Of more than 90 Pakistani or other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who are enrolled in the Lodi district, 38 are being home-schooled. By contrast, just 7 of the 107 boys are being home-schooled,** and usually the reason is that they were falling behind academically.

As soon as they finish their schooling, the girls are married off, often to cousins brought in from their families' old villages.

The parents "want their girls safe at home and away from evil things like boys, drinking and drugs," said Kristine Leach, a veteran teacher with the Independent School.

The girls follow the regular high school curriculum, squeezing in study time among housework, cooking, praying and reading the Koran. The teachers at the weekly tutorials occasionally crack jokes of the "what, are your brothers' arms broken?" variety, but in general they tread lightly, sensing that their students obey family and tradition because they have no alternative.

"I do miss my friends," Miss Bibi said of fellow students with whom she once attended public school. "We would hang out and do fun things, help each other with our homework."
[/quote]

[quote]

Mrs. Asghar, the Stockton woman who argues against home schooling, takes exception to the idea of removing girls from school to preserve family honor, calling it a barrier to assimilation.

"People who think like this are stuck in a time capsule," she said. "When kids know more than their parents, the parents lose control. I think that is a fear in all of us."

Aishah Bashir, now an 18-year-old Independent School student, was sent back to Pakistan when she was 12 and stayed till she was 16. She had no education there.

Asked about home schooling, she said it was the best choice. But she admitted that the choice was not hers and, asked if she would home-school her own daughter, stared mutely at the floor. Finally she said quietly: "When I have a daughter, I want her to learn more than me. I want her to be more educated."
[/quote]

Does that help?

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives

Don't you cook for your father or husband and in future for your sons or do you eat outside everyday and don't you keep your house clean?

But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi's, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life.
What's wrong in protecting your daughters from corruption of the society?

In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi.
Above is the opinion of the writer of this article, lets see what the girl has to say herself:
"I do miss my friends," Miss Bibi said of fellow students with whom she once attended public school. "We would hang out and do fun things, help each other with our homework."

But being schooled apart does have its benefit, she added. "We don't want anyone to point a finger at us," she said, "to say that we are bad."

Some 80 percent of the city's 2,500 Muslims are Pakistani, and many are interrelated villagers who try to recreate the conservative social atmosphere back home. A decade ago many girls were simply shipped back to their villages once they reached adolescence.
And this paragraph has nothing to do with homeschooling or homeschooling families.

Of more than 90 Pakistani or other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who are enrolled in the Lodi district, 38 are being home-schooled. By contrast, just 7 of the 107 boys are being home-schooled,
And?

Aishah Bashir, now an 18-year-old Independent School student, was sent back to Pakistan when she was 12 and stayed till she was 16. She had no education there.

Again how is that related to home schooling?

The article also states:

Parents who home-school tend to be converts, Mrs. Khan-Mukhtar said. Immigrant parents she has encountered generally oppose the idea, seeing educational opportunities in America as a main reason for coming.

And I think it's quite right because all the immigrants from Pakistan I know are either ignorant villagers ......or from cities, educated and highly westernized and both type of immigrants have their reasons to not home school their children.
The ignorant villagers can't even teach their kids and the others like to be western and liberal.

Also I can see a statement from Nabila Hanson (who's also sister of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, organizer of Kinza Academy and our counselor for home schooling) in this article:
"There is a tendency to make home-schoolers look like antisocial fanatics who don't want their kids in the system," said **Nabila Hanson, who argues that most home-schoolers, like herself, make an extra effort to find their children opportunities for sports, music or field trips with other people. **

I totally agree with her, I'll be trying to find and arrange as many opportunities as I can for my children's social skills, exploration and fitness activities.

I would like to see how media can diss the idea of home schooling presented by many non muslim American teachers and intellectuals like John Taylor Gatto (who thinks schools are dangerous places for children), Neil Postman and Dorothy Sayers etc.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Hareem there are always two sides to every story, some advocating and some nay-saying. Choosing home-schooling can be a great choice - IF its done right. It can also be a really poor choice when its not. If a girl is raised in the west but kept hidden at home to shield her from the "evils" of western society, the parents had better make dam certain that the girl is OK with that choice. Because once she turns 18, she's free and legal to do whatever she wants. And a girl who is at that age, completely unfamiliar with but very determined to discover all the freedoms and choices - both good and bad - that she can make....well thats kind of a recipe for disaster yeah?

I have to mention again a Muslim Egyptian family that lives in our community which is predominantly christian. The daughter and mother cover their hair, the son at age 5 has no problem explaining to his friends what is "halaal" and what is "haraam", on Eid the mom goes to their classes and gives a little presentation on Eid. They are very respected members of the community, they are respected followers of their religion and they set a beautiful example for others. Their children are very well-behaved, they know right from wrong and stay away from things they know are bad. Public schooling CAN be bad and it can be difficult, just as home-schooling can. It takes parental AND community support I think to make either one work well.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

**I do believe that home schooling has its benefits and that the majority of parents who do home school do it with the best intentions and subsequently good results. **let's get that clear. However, I see a huge problem in parents wanting to keep their daughters away from that society by not even educating them. Then what is the point of them being in that country?

Who do you really want to meet off GS?
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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

.

The Random Thread
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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

It’s not that simple and if ur pakistani you’d know that very well. Not sure about here but at least in Pak, guys are never expeted to do a thing around then house. Even at a young age, when both are going to school, girls are expected to do more housework than boys. If I ever have sons inshallah, ill try to make sure they help around the house.

By not letting them go to school, period? If you instill your children with proper values at the age when they are most vulnerable, they should be able to make the right decision when they are put into a certain situatoin (or how to avoid certain situations to begin with). Point being: they should be able to make the right decision themselves. Keeping em at home is never going to help them if and when they ever get out into the world.

So instead of trying to fight hte problem of racism and discrimination as indicated by Bibi saying she doesnt want people to point fingers and say they’re bad, the better solution is to just run away and hide instead of face problems head-on? ****

“Home-schooling” is a “new” alternative to just shipping their daughters back to Pak when they hit a certain age.

Why just homeschool the majority of girls and a small number of boys? It’s the typical paki mentality, girls are to be protected and locked up while boys can go out and have fun and live relatively normal lives.

That’s good :k: its a tough job but its worth every bit of effort

Who do you really want to meet off GS?
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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

I agree.

I'd choose the first option.

This isn't called homeschooling.

We don't know if the article is talking about the number of girls and boys from same households or from different families.
If only girls are being kept and taught at home and their brothers aren't then it is wrong, boys have the same need and right for being protected till certain age.

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Re: Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling, NYT article?

Yes, thats right.

Koreans and The Dog at Dinner