Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling

Here is an article that appeared in the March 26th edition of the New York Times--Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling

LODI, Calif. — Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.

David Kadlubowski for The New York Times

Karima, right, with her sisters, Kiram, 8, and Kadhima, 14, playing with yo-yos in a study break at their Phoenix home.

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 like 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.” Continue the article...

And here is my response...

I was delighted to find a New York Times article that was emailed to me yesterday; entitled “Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling.” As a homeschooler and a Muslim I was looking forward to the insight and depth that normally accompanies N.Y. Times articles. But unfortunately that was not the case; instead I was appalled by the blatant “spin” that was prevalent throughout the entire article.

If asked, home schoolers—be they Muslim or other--would cite educational freedoms, efficiency, and time management as some of the main reasons for home schooling. There is no denying that within the Muslim community religion does serve to influence a parent’s decision to home school. For the most part that decision is not undertaken to radicalize, isolate or render a child socially retarded, but, rather to shield them from the current trend of moral decline, erosion of societal values, increased violence, and physical/psychological abuses that have become an unfortunate reality of many of our public education systems.

Truly effective home schooling develops the minds of thinking and articulate students who are able to process facts into arguments and communicate those arguments clearly and persuasively. Therefore, for education to be effective, it must go beyond merely conveying facts. One of the goals of home schooling is to transcend the myopic approach of adhering strictly to academic issues and systematic testing that is based solely upon compulsory educational standards. Returning to the ‘primary objective’ of education is what motivates home schooling parents. And that primary objective is to provide the tools and opportunity for students to develop into complete human beings who can engage the world with intelligence, insight, integrity, virtue and compassion in a safe and wholesome environment.

It is not until the nearly the end of the article, that mention is made of any educational achievements for Muslims who have “Turned to Home Schooling.” The article identifies a Chinese Muslim immigrant family who chose to home school, and whose son is currently in the process of applying to medical school.

The article makes mention of a few of the reasons why Muslims home school, such as the parent who paid a visit to a kindergarten were each pupil had assembled a scrapbook titled “Why I like Pigs,” or the young Pakistani-American, Hajra Bibi, who as the article states, “like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls,” are forced to stop “attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.” And the reason for this, “Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives...” This is the same senseless rhetoric, which Maury Schaffer spewed on 60 minutes, when he labeled a beard worn by Muslim men as radical facial hair, and interpreted Muslim males wearing traditional white tunics as sign of their willingness to commit an act of martyrdom.

If the Bibi’s have chosen to home school because they are in need of a "domestic servant," then it should be clearly stated that is has no basis in Islam and is a cultural practice prevalent among rural South Asian immigrants.

Such an action contradicts the Prophetic tradition that addresses the idea of education—Prophetic traditions are the secondary source of Islamic law after the Qur'an--which encourages the pursuit of knowledge by both genders. The tradition states, “Seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim (male and female).” The correlation that the author draws between Muslims home schooling and this family’s choice to remove their daughter from school and subsequent “banishment to housework and cooking" at the age puberty, is not only a gross misrepresentation, but is a dangerous stereotyping that seeks to further alienate and portray all Muslims in a an unfavorable light.

The false portrayal of Muslim home schoolers continues in the article, “Many Muslim parents contacted for this article were reluctant to talk, saying Muslim home-schoolers were often portrayed as religious extremists. That view is partly fueled by the fact that Adam Gadahn, an American-born spokesman for Al Qaeda, was home-schooled in rural California.”

Yes, Adan Gadahn was home schooled, but he did not convert to Islam until the age of 17, an age when most homeschooled students have completed their studies and are well into preparing for their college application process. So, what does a Jewish kid born in Oregon, whose Grandfather was a prominent surgeon and on the Board of Directors of the Anti-Defamation League; and whose paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, was an editor for The Chronicle Christian Newspaper, who played Little League baseball and participated in Christian home school support groups, have to do with the reluctance of Muslims to speak about home schooling, or have any relevance, connection or correlation to this article? The answer is clear: absolutely nothing! It is also interesting that the three hyperlinks in the article—which are all related to Adam Gadahn—are irrelevant and serve no purpose addressing the topic of Muslim home schooing. The first hyperlink is for Al-Qaeda, the second is for state of California and the third the is for the F.B.I. We can understand the second link, as a Mr. Gadahn was home schooled in California and some of the families interviewed in the article reside in California. But what is the logic of adding a hyperlink for Al-Qaeda and the F.B.I. in an article that is supposed to be about Muslims turning to home schooling? Again, the answer is clear: absolutely nothing!

The article stated that, “Parents who home-school tend to be converts (to Islam),” yet throughout the entire article a single reference is made to a convert with regard to Muslim home schooling. Asking Muslims who are either under-qualified or not qualified at all to represent and convey an Islamic perspective, is tactic that has consistently been used in the media’s approach towards, “understanding Islam.”

The rhetoric builds to a climax at the end of article:

• “In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi (California).”

• “Their families want them to retain their culture and not become Americanized,”

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

• “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.”

The article finishes by conjuring up an image of an oppressed, coerced and reluctant girl who is: “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.”

Anyone who knows anything about Islam understands that “staring mutely at the floor” is known as iqrar. A term in Islamic jurisprudence, which is an act--to stabilize or to accommodate something which is fluctuating between acknowledgment and denial and, it is a form of evidence in any given matter.

As a journalist it is incumbent upon one to collect and confirm unbiased information and subjectively report on the reality of the issue at hand. Sensationalism in a time of heightened polarization and a perceived “us vs. them,” is not only unhealthy, but dangerous and serves to only exacerbate the current state of misrepresentation and prejudice between cultures.

From Where Do We Get Our Culture?

While reading about the concept of a Classical Education, I came across what I feel is an extremely relevant concept with regard to culture and civilization.

The concept is, "the student learns that our Culture and Civilizations is an outgrowth of the classical, medieval and reformation world. Modern students must learn that our culture was not purchased for them by their parents at the mall."

I am a firm believer that we are products of our environment, and what we surround ourselves with has a lasting effect on who we are and how we think.

Recently, I was working with a child, and we were discussing the usage and spelling of a few words such as valley, and crane. When I asked the child "do you know the meaning of the word valley?" the child replied, with complete confidence, "of course, that is when the man comes out and parks your car for you."
The second word, crane was a bit more difficult, because it is a homonym, and can only be understood through its contextual usage. Fair play, but, when then child looks around, and without hesitation blurts out, "of course I know what a crane is, everybody knows what a crane is, look on top of all of the buildings, those are cranes!"

This exchange immediately brought to mind two books, "The Price of Privilege" and "Last Child in the Woods-Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder Syndrome."
The first book, "The Price of Privilege" addresses the concepts of parenting in the age of affluence, and the need for parents to teach children how to manage emotions and impulses, form healthy relationships, think for themselves, and become useful, well adjusted, and moral human beings.
The second book, "Last Child in the Woods" sets out to link the absence of nature in the lives of today's wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends: the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

As parents we must constantly be aware of what our children are telling us, because it is nothing more than their reiterating what we are telling them. Let's constantly remind ourselves of our responsibility to our children, and never forget, "we reap what we sow!"

War Against Intelligence

“According to a 1993 national survey by the Educational Testing Service
of 26,000 adults with an average of 12.4 years of schooling, only 3.5% of the sample had the literacy skills to do traditional college level work.”-- Bruce N. Shortt, The Harsh Truth About Public Schools

Are your children bright? Most kids are. Chances are that you see their intelligence and strengths. You are aware of their interests and inclinations. You sent them off to school at a young age with the hope that the school would inform them of needed facts and knowledge as well as encourage their strengths and feed their interests. However, the public schools no longer do what parents expect, and that fact is the reason for the school wars.

Today’s schools have reduced the content of all instruction by about four grade levels, compared to fifty years ago. Teachers are now “facilitators” while the children reach “consensus” about their subjects. The CAPT test, Connecticut’s high school “exit exam,” is based on material offered only up to eighth grade. The courses, textbooks and tests have been dumbed down to that level. International testing shows that, compared to students in other advance countries, “The longer our students are in school, the lower their comparative performance,” says Gordon Ambach, former head of the Council of Chief State School Officers. He should know.

It gets worse: The schools have changed in purpose from education to political and social indoctrination, with “equality” as the goal. Schools don’t care how much children learn, they are primarily interested in what kids “are like.” The school’s goal is to transform children’s varied attitudes, values and opinions from those of traditional families to those desired by the government. The government seeks to turn a population of diverse children into a mass of predictable citizens who know the same things and believe the same things, with no one ahead or behind too far. That is why today’s public schools spend lots of our money trying to raise the bottom children up to the middle mass, but nothing to help high-achievers. In fact, they are designed to prevent the brightest kids from reaching their full potential. Now you know why “one-size-fits-all” and “dumbing down” are the major policies of public schools. The only way they can achieve “equality” of outcomes is by lowering their standards.

Today, the schools have a far different agenda for our children from the one we expect of them. They are failing to provide the children with the needed basic skills, knowledge and information, but, worse, they are interested in finding children’s weaknesses and psychological “needs” instead of their strengths and interests. The school system makes the basic assumption that all children have “disabilities” and need the school to provide “treatments” for them. The result is that school has become therapeutic and psychological even to the point of requiring many children to take mind-altering drugs such as Ritalin, in order to control their behavior.

The school system has several reasons to do this – all of which work directly against most parents’ hopes and wishes for their children. The government is seeking to mould the citizens of our country into a docile, easily controlled mass that can be employed or will become soldiers who do exactly what they are told to do, and nothing else. What does this all mean? It means that government school is no longer for the benefit of children. It is for the benefit of a government that seeks to control, instead of being controlled by, the people.

Unfortunately for America, our country needs well-educated people now, not dumbed-down people. There lies the School Wars, pitting the government school establishment against the rest of us. Government school offers Artificial Stupidity – turning bright kids into ignorant robots; our children need the exact opposite. The schools are turning intelligent children into stupid adults by the millions simply by not offering them what they need, while offering them large quantities of what they do not need, or want. I believe the situation is well described by Thomas Sowell: “In an age of artificial intelligence, too many of our schools are producing artificial stupidity.”