Umer Toor Blog: Children

Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts

Class ka Shehzada

He, my cousin, claims: Mein class ka Shehzada hoon! (I'm the Prince of my class.)

The core religious emotion: Love

It's so sad to know that much of Europeans and Americans have been fed with this strange notion that Islam and Muslims are Bedouin Arabs who are up to destroying Western civilizations (when a part of it is influenced historically by Islamic culture as well), and are terrorists, never miss that designation, more than anything else. I do not blame any European and American for that or any other (including modernist/secularist Muslims!), for I blame their environment and age we live in. Many who have converted to Islam, a large majority has been affect deeply by some or any aspect of Islam that which involves some kind of beauty and serenity either in Islamic tenets or in Muslims, or in Islamic architecture. Despite that people have gross misconceptions, that's what I can say, even about the very outlook of Muslims. A German-Russian convert was telling people that Muslims don't look like dark skinned, dark eyes, black hairy people, b'cause a Muslim can be anyone. Yet here's a little photo-presentation of the children of the so-called 'fanatic' and 'isolated' Iranians, BBC and American media propaganda machinery is so obsessed with.

Courtesy: Flickr.

Questionnaire: Help needed!

Sociologist and education-theorist (to-be or not to-be) Mr. Umer Toor is talking to you. He is thinking to plan to commence on an independent research adventure involving bunch of school kids, the notorious 'tv' and a questionnaire form.

Well, the purpose of this "statistical" research - hopelessly - is to know the "TV consumption-patterns"/"viewing habits" of Pakistani children, age range 11-14; and to judge that whether parents need to excercise control over TV viewing of their kids (or nabalgaan) or not; and that whether should TV be banished or not (the last question is simple and research-proof), etc., etc.? Seriously.

I ask you to help me formulate survey questions that can dig up and extract right information from the subjects' mind. Questions have to be subtle, e.g., if I ask them: How many hours you watch TV? That's a VERY important question. But with this type of a question they're going to get lost in counting hours, and are susceptible to give inaccurate answers. But if I ask them that in which part(s) of the day they watch it, they'll instantly be able to recall it.

Finally. The results of the research are going to be very important for parents and society at large. I will be visiting different schools in Lahore. This is an opportunity for you to contribute to intellectual capital of humanity and Muslim ummah in particular. I want to assure myself again that it's not a class assignment, rather purely an intellectual pursuit.

What suggestions do you have?

Conduct Disorder

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans showed aggressive adolescents reacted strongly in two parts of the brain when watching pain inflicted on others. Arousal occurred in the ventral striatum, the area responsible for feeling empathy. But an even stronger reaction occurred in the amygdala, the area that responds to feeling rewarded. The scans caused researchers to hypothesize that aggressive youths may enjoy watching others in pain.

Credit: University of Chicago.

I came to know about child conduct disorder from some notes of my classmate on criminal psychology, and immediately I found it to be useful. I have some young friends who are like brothers to me, and whom I watch to recall my own near-past, always thinking how I can make their emaan and ihsan better than I had. Most people of my age seemed to have developed tastes and interests too vile, sterile, and loathsome in their speech, rhetoric, and actions that thoughts of associating myself with them seem to be remote - I look for innocence and above human fitra. And I sometime childishly wonder if it really exists? Alhamdulillah it does. I see it in these kids, free of all prejudices, hatred, skepticism, kufr, and what really not. However, some of these friends of mine seem to have symptoms of conduct disorder, which if persist can in later stages of their lives turn into a serious problem called anti-social personality disorder. Now I am up to detecting if they really have any kind of conduct disorder, so that they can be sent to some good psychiatrists, who believe in counseling (and not primarily in medication). People generally here are very ignorant of psychological problems.

I think of this activity as more important than my studies, which are concerned with my future. I like to think that I would be relieved to relive my brothers who are in grievances. I would be happier by making their families proud of them. I would be elated by freeing them from depressions. A momin feels the the pain of another as his own, so how can he let the pain cripple his own body. With these spirits our social life is regulated, based on mercy, compassion, care and profundity.

And. No appreciation of the matter, i.e., psychological problems, may be made if we do not show this version of classical school bullying...