Re: Public, Private, Islamic or Homeschooling
Brother Umair
If you’re interested in homeschooling your kids inshaAllah then make sure that your future wife shares similar views because it’s usually the mother who does most of the work in home educating the children.
Besides, choosing a method and a syllabus can be a tough job too but now there are so many homeshcoolers and numbers are still increasing in America and UK that it’s not a big problem anymore. The method we chose for our kids is classical, you can read more about it on wiki…Classical education movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And syllabus is from Kinza Academy.Kinza Academy: Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Muslim Children Books & Content of Character Copybook.
If we want our kids to become scholars like Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad and Zaid Shakir then we need to take the responsibility of educating our kids as there are less chances for a child to become a scholar who goes to a secular school.
Islamic schools like other schools follow the national curriculum so there’s not much difference except the enviornment will be islamic.
If you need I can suggest few good books to read regarding home education.
Here’s an article from Kinza Academy’s website, hope you’ll like it.
Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, a leading Muslim authority on Muslims living in non-Muslim lands, has said many times that Muslim parents should not put there children into secular educational institutions. Studies conducted within the Christian community have shown that 75% of Christian children educated in public schools have abandoned the beliefs of their parents by the time they graduate. This is precisely why Muslim parents are not supposed to put their children into secular programs, which include all public schools. What is an education worth if in the process of allegedly acquiring one, a child’s faith is lost?
Academically, the most common reason to homeschool in America is the obvious failure of the modern educational system to produce educated people. The 1993 National Adult Literacy Survey found that one in every five adults was illiterate. The illiteracy rate continues to escalate and has become a national embarrassment for the American government.
Departments of Education in such states as Alaska, Tennessee, and Washington have conducted studies that found that the typical homeschooled student comes out ahead on every significant measurement. Achievement tests have found that homeschoolers average as much as 30 percent higher than both public and private school students. Many elite universities, such as Harvard and Yale, have recognized the excellence of a homeschooled student’s education and are actively recruiting students at home-schooling conferences and fairs.
Many parents are concerned about their child’s character development. With the tendency on school playgrounds towards peer pressure, bullying, and cliques, it is difficult to encourage the finer qualities in a growing child such as kindness, justice, and compassion. Equally difficult to foster is self-motivation. In the modern school, where the love of learning is cut off at the root, children lose the ability for self-motivation and become dependent on outside factors to stimulate them. In adulthood, this translates into the subequent need for entertainment, amusement, and diversion from what should be a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
On both public and private campuses, there is the increasing problem of children being exposed to violence, drugs, and sex at very early ages. With children now committing the crimes of adults, molestation, rape and murder by other children in school is a growing and alarming concern for parents. Schools are no longer safe places for children, and this is a reality we must first escape and then end.
Another important aspect of homeschooling that is often overlooked is the bonding that takes place between the child, the parent, and his/her siblings. Homeschooled children spend much more time with their parents and siblings–time that gives way to forming deeper bonds and more meaningful relationships with their family members. A healthy family realtionship sets the stage for the child’s ability to form lasting relationships outside of the home, which is essential if one is to get along in the world.
There is an amusing concern about homeschooled children being prone to anti-social behavior, the irony being that homeschooled children are in fact, better socialized than their public schooled peers. Homeschooled children are not confined to classrooms for eight hours a day where every other person in that room, apart from the teacher, is a child of the same age. On the contrary, home-schooled children are always interacting with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends, members of their local community and other children of all ages. They develop a wide range of social skills and are able to engage with people regardless of their age. Based on many studies, the poor socialization factor that is often associated with homeschooling has proven to be nothing more than a demeaning cliche unsupported by fact.
There are many perks that come with homeschooling: Home-schooled families, not the state, choose their own curriclum; homeschooled families, not the state, choose their school’s daily and hourly schedule; homeschooled families, not the state, choose their days off and vacation times; and homeschooled children, though better educated, actually have more time in the day to study Quran, learn Arabic and other languages, excel at a sport, become involved in community activities, and form meaningful relationships.
The benefits to homeschooling are many, and if we are to have healthy, lasting relationships with our children and raise independently thinking, self-motivated, educated, just, and compassionate people, homeschooling as an educational option must be seriously considered by all parents who are able to teach their children at home. If you are unable to teach your child at home, please consider establishing a one-room schoolhouse with several other families. These are the only two options that uphold a traditional approach to education.
