9 Tips for Surviving School

Praise be to Allah, whose praise should precede every writing and speech,

And may blessings be upon Prophet (S.A.W) and his family.

I received a mail today. It read:

Although this is for the Western school going youth but some of us might find it applicable in some contexts within our society.

What followed was an article, 9 Tips for Surviving School. I have produced excerpt of it. Read the whole article here. I found it very useful, and I wish if schools publish such articles in their magazine.

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"Surviving school as a Muslim youth in the West is not easy. The social requirement upon youth to not only excel in studies but also to exhibit ideal, Islamic behavior outside and inside the home makes leading a healthy student life a truly daunting task. With the combined social pressures of school, family, and friends many youth wonder if it is even possible to balance school and Islam. Sadly, the question is now being increasingly asked: “Is it even feasible to practice Islam in the West?”

It is important to remember that today’s problems are not new nor are their solutions impossible to find. While admittedly the situation of students in the West is far from ideal, all hope is not lost. Here are some quick and simple tips to help the average Muslim student survive school:

1. Find a good social circle: The most driving influence in the life of a student is his social circle, upon which he depends for fulfilling his social and recreational needs. Depending on one’s group of friends, a person is likely to make strikingly different choices in life. A good friend is one who can entertain you and at the same time bring you closer to Allah. If you cannot discuss serious, personal, or religious issues with a colleague, it is likely that your relationship with him is shallow and improvident. Pick friends whose company will improve your character and provide you focus and direction in life. Do not be afraid to lose friends in pursuit of saving your iman. In the end, it is your religion that has priority.

2. Halal-ify your home: Half of a successful student life involves improving the environment outside the house, while the other half depends on having a healthy and Islamically-conducive home. In order to make your home free from distractions, create a quiet and comfortable workspace for yourself. Avoid at all costs the proximity of a television and the internet. Limit your useless activities on the computer by placing it in a high-traffic room. Try to spend as less time alone as possible. Study with someone nearby who will not distract you from your work but will also prevent your mind from wandering and engaging in harmful activities.

3. Spend quality time with family: An important aspect of improving the home environment is improving one’s relationship with family. Avoid domestic quarrels and familial disputes by spending quality time with parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, etc… Take out a half-hour daily to sit and converse with parents. Let them know what you do outside the home and you will gain their trust. Talk to them about your problems and personal dilemmas even if the solutions they provide seem wrong. If individuals inside the home seem unapproachable, look for counsel outside the direct family. Most importantly, if you yourself are an older sibling, make the effort to be a good adviser and counselor for your younger brothers and sisters.

4. Guard your gaze: The most common cause for loss of focus and poor memory is negligence in guarding the gaze. When a student’s mind wants to concentrate on reading, lectures, or work, his evil gaze forces it to daydream about sports, movies, cars, the opposite gender, etc… Avoid these distractions by looking down in the hallways at school and spending as little time as possible in mixed settings. Free yourself from television and internet addiction by simply ridding yourself of access to them. Have a parent regulate and supervise your internet usage through parental control software. Share your passwords with family members to avoid the possibility of engaging in illicit relationships." [Cont'd]

'The Global Islamic Guidelines for Education'

In a post on this blog I urged Muslims to see how education's engine is being used by evil forces - global education premises are being written by those who don't even know the right purpose of their life. And called them to action. Because the audience of this blog is limited I got one Reply/response to the 'challenge', but because its Singular, manifesting unity of Allah, it is powerful. Please read 6 Global Islamic Guidelines for Education here by RhodoraOnline here.

Kirana Bar School is alive

This is the third week of Kirana Bar School, Sargodha that my father has established. The website is under construction but workable: www.kbps.edu.pk/

I have been talking of education on this blog, which is not the central theme of the blog, at least as I intended. Because I am immersed in it, that's became little obsessed with it. I'd keep you update of the school,.

The mission statement is simple: Our aim is to come up with a holistic educational model which would bring peace to world. Its ideal: Love of Allah and Prophet.

Cutting edge innovation in whole school set-up is urgently needed. We allow every one to counsel us given our criteria!

Meeting Minutes: School-think

Today, I had another successful meeting with a young and yet very energetic, motivated and dynamic medical student, who was schooled back in Saudi Arabia, on school I am building these days. He showed great enthusiasm in this project, the aim of which is to provide an Islamic educational model as an alternative to some of the best educational institutions / models / systems /experience in the whole world. He has even agreed to prepare a manual for Biology department to revolutionize or at least overhaul the way teaching is done and the way books are written. He wants to see our school as the best Islamic school for the community of my city.

The best part was the way schooling is done in Saudi A. It's fascinating to know how conceptual, activity-based and highly-biased-towards-developing-thinking-skills it is. So we benchmarking it: We need the books taught there and the it's taught, and all co-curricular activities are done. (Need to make database of all benchmarks.)

Here, I'd like to discuss some random points that he shared informally with me:

• The Think-Tank teachers are given permanent job.
• The books we write on INDUCTION based, i.e., make students interpret and derive results from the data, rather than making knowledge narrow through the use of deduction.
• Moral Training in Morning (MTM): Back in his school, every morning students would prepare speeches/skits/any other way of presenting lessons based on Quran + Hadith + Discussion(-based); powered by a student affairs, or something, committee (consisting of a few teachers + students) who prepare the program. SO instead of having teachers give boring sermons on stage, students enact situations to teach moral lessons from Islam and hadith that is very interesting for pupils*.
• Encouraging salah/prayers: We can encourage pupils to pray, apart from making Zuhar prayer compulsory for 10/10+ pupils, by asking teachers to motivate students to prayer two rakah prayer during mid-day break in school-mosque.
• NO WRITTEN HOMEWORK that makes children dull. Rather we make students do work (activity based) in the classroom. And all homework we give is like task-work or like puzzles, for which there are no ZERO marks; every answer is appreciated, but the right answer is more appreciated.
• Islamic studies taught in Saudi A. is not a single subject but many subjects: During 3 years (at some level) they teach us whole Quran 10 surahs/year for which there's a proper exam; Tafseer of 3 paras of Quran; Memorization of 100 hadith/fiqh points.

School Policy Questions

1. Do you appreciate the idea of making school teacher do publishable, applicable research to bring innovation and quality to school education?

2. Do you think there should an educational advisor who is the key hidden person in the evaluation of teachers and students, program setter, synthesizer of all parts of a school system who does not reside in the school and is physically not a part of the running system?

Critical Quality Checks for new Islamic Schools in Pakistan

I met an Islamic scholar who teaches at various leading universities of Pakistan. He is not an educationists in the strict sense of the term, as he doesn't relate himself with formally initiating educational programs, like school, etc. Nonetheless, he provided us with critical remarks on the dilemmas a new Islamic school maker may face and contingencies/solutions to the issues. I's impressed by the far-sightedness of the scholar. And with pessimism I hope to innovate, grow and do things people deny as possibilities. List of quality-checks which sort of contain the ways to tackle the issues:

• You cannot impose Islamic teachings by ignoring other sciences outside religious studies at school level, because in doing so, you'd be a long-term failure. (A school is best when it serves the Ideals of the system that produces institutions. Producing
• A faculty lacking spiritual qualities would fail to inculcate Islamic values
• Without a long-term investment of a few crores, it would not produce sustainable quality
• Don't make it a business at least for a few years, as a contingency to the challenges of this field
• You cannot have a bias towards East or West which is outside abode of Islam - if it is of high-quality, benchmark it. Truth is that West has created standards today
• There are parent reservations, because religious studies are not in these days
• Feed-back from these who are serving in this field
• Don't think of starting it unless you've a whole team of teachers, who are spiritually steadfast and professionally proficient.