Ismail Kamdar – Home Schooling and the Future of Education
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An educational program is being held in a virtual session on March 27th, emphasizing the difficulty of pursuing homeschooling for children. The program offers four options, including public schools, private schools, and homeschooling. The challenges faced by homeschooling parents are discussed, including lack of accountability, connection with the creator of the world, and the challenges of learning in a healthy and rewarding way. The course costs $12,000 and is designed for working professionals with a focus on digital marketing, with a monthly payment of $12.50 until the course is completed.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah AR Rahman AR Rahim.
Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh My dear brothers and sisters, I'm seconder big a student of IOU and office bearer of the IOU Riyadh brothers student committee. On behalf of IOU under IOU RIA brothers committee. I extend a warm welcome to you all, for joining us on this online event, organised by IUU Riyadh brothers student committee to enlighten ourselves on the very important topic, homeschooling and the future of education.
Today's agenda is as follows. We'll begin our program Inshallah, with the lecture of the topic homeschooling and the future of education by Chef is my camera. This will be followed by a 10 minute question and answer session on the topic of homeschooling. Following this, we'll have a presentation on Introduction to Islamic online university, and various online Islamic courses it offers by our brother sizer.
This will be followed again by question and answer five minutes time.
And this session will be for five minutes time on Islamic online university. keeping in view, the present day education system and the moral values amongst the youngsters in the society touching the lowest day by day, we feel the necessity of subjecting our children to homeschooling. To avoid many of the dangers our children may be exposed to, due to normal schooling which will have influence rather negative influence over the children without their or our knowledge in the long run.
The dangers of the old school outside schooling will be they may propagate atheism as a religious concepts against Islamic teachings. Students may be made to lose sense of accountability of their actions on the last day
encouraging on Islamic activities. As far as the teachers are concerned, there are hidden beliefs comes out and will have an influence over the children even if the teach maths or any other worldly subject. Children from different backgrounds, different standards of Islam will do different impression among other students.
With homeschooling the parents can have better control over the children.
The sharing is all for all parents to consider the benefits of homeschooling, the parents can still use the tools of homeschooling to teach our children Islam at home with many options like
taking the culture of memorization.
From Islam, finding ways to develop strong Islamic identity while learning maths, history and other subjects choosing to focus more on Islamic census. Ultimately, we as parents are responsible for our upbringing of our children and their education. Let me at this point introduce Sheikh Ismail combat. Sheikh is my commander began his study of Islam at the age of 6030.
He has been actively involved in Islamic work since the age of 16. You smile check it smile calm that graduated from the Alinea program and completed his BA in Islamic Studies at international university Open University in 2014. He specializes in the fields of faith, seed and history, the author of over a dozen books in the fields of Islamic Studies and personal development. He served as a senior lecturer as well as the faculty manager of IOU from February 2020 and to until October 2020. He currently works as a research manager at Yaqeen Institute. He is the founder of Islamic self help and the research manager at akin Institute. Over the past decade, Islamic Sheikh Ismail
has served as a school teacher, administrator in multiple schools in South Africa and India. He has also delivered lectures and workshops in many locations locally and abroad and appeared in many radio stations across the country. He has also served as radio presenter at Radio
I'm sorry for several years, until late 2016. In 2011, Sheikh is while discovered the importance of personal development, and noticed a lack of Islamic literature dedicated to this field. After consuming dozens of books and courses on the topic, he decided decided to start this blog.
The focus of this blog is articles and books related to the field of Islamic self help. Sheikh Sheikh Ismail Kamdar is the author of having fun the halal the entertainment in Islam, getting the baraka and Islamic guide to time management, best of creation and Islamic guide to self confidence in homeschooling 101 Among other titles, now I would like to hand over to Sheikh is my camera to commence his lecture base.
Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
hamdulillahi rabbil Allah Alameen wa salatu salam ala Nabil Karim, Allah, Allah, he was heavy as mine, I want to thank you all for having me here. And for giving me this opportunity to present to you on a topic that is very close to my heart.
hamdulillah I've been homeschooling my kids for almost 10 years now. And when people ask me, What's my experience as homeschool, homeschooling my responses, it's, at the same time, the hardest thing I've ever done,
and the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
I think that's the nature of the world. Right? That anything that's that's rewarding anything that, that in the long term benefits us in the moment, it's the hardest thing to do.
And so, when it comes to homeschooling, you know, a lot of people asked me for advice. And I usually am very frank about the fact that it's difficult. It is very, very difficult. But more difficult than homeschooling your children is dealing with the consequences of them getting a wrong education,
that is a lot more difficult in the long run.
In life, we have to make choices, and the choices we make. Some of them would be immediate pain for long term benefit. Others would be immediate convenience for long term pain.
And I look at the choice between homeschooling and public schooling in the same way.
Homeschooling is difficulty now benefits your children for the rest of their life. Public School is a gamble. It's convenience. Now, for many, many families, it's long term consequences that last a lifetime.
So what I want to share with you today is some of the reasons why I believe that we have to rethink our education system. And in the meanwhile, while we rethinking the education system. Our best alternative in the meanwhile, is homeschooling.
And I want to begin with a personal story. How do I get there? So my story actually goes back to when I was a teenager, I began my study of Islam at the age of 13, which means I had to drop out of school. And I wanted to pursue full time Islamic studies, but I wanted to complete school at the same time. So back then there were no online schools. Back then even the word homeschooling wasn't as common. So I completed school through correspondence, which means I would receive the curriculum to the post and who do the work from home, and somebody should oppose. And I completed my high school in that way. Now, fast forward a decade later. I'm a young man with young children. And I'm
beginning to wonder, you know, Which school do I send them to?
And I see the fitna of school getting worse.
Now Hamdulillah, I benefited from doing high school at home.
I did High School at home I did my university with IU Chow was never in a high school environment. I was in a university environment. I benefited from being saved from Vietnam. Really both at the high school and university level. I benefited from being saved from fitna and I wanted the same for my kids. I wanted them to get the same quality education that I did without having to go through that fitna at such a young age.
So I began to explore options. And I began to look at all the different options available in my community. And I boiled down options in most communities to four I think most of you are dealing with these four options, right? public schools, private schools, private Islamic schools, or homeschool.
Those are the four options that most of us have somebody have more somebody have this, but I think in most communities either of our four options, you either put your child in public school, which is the cheapest and the most convenient
If you put them in a private school, which is expensive than the quality education, or you put them in a private Islamic school, which is ultra expensive, but they're getting both Islamic and worldly education, or you homeschool them, which is time consuming, and very difficult.
And after dealing with any families, who went through all these different routes and listening to the experience to actually set in a variety of families and learn from the experiences, we came to the conclusion that out of these four options, homeschooling is the best. And if you can't homeschool, then Islamic school, if you can't Islamic school, then private school. And if you can't private school, public school is the last option. Now again, this this changes from country to country, every community and country is different. So in the West, this is this is the order that I would put it that we living in a Muslim country, it may be very different Sharla may be living in a
good country, a good Muslim country, the public schools, maybe, you know, good enough. But I'm talking about the experience of someone living in a non Muslim country as a minority.
That is the conclusion I came to is that out of these four options, homeschooling is the hardest, but it's the one that produces the best results. At the end, the way I came to this conclusion was that I spoke to many families that had homeschool their kids, and I met the kids as well. And I was amazed by by the kinds of people whose children were growing into that these were teenagers were good o'clock with other strong Aqeedah they were they had goals they had a vision, they do very well just didn't have bad habits of any sort. enjoyed learning which which Ivonne strange is going to school kills him love of learning. So I decided to give you the tribe. And nine and a half years
ago, I started homeschooling my eldest son will be in grade 10 soon. And hamdulillah we've been homeschooling since then I have four kids, who will be homeschooled all of them. And I can see now a decade later, that for me personally, this has been the best decision of my life. But it's also been the most difficult thing I've ever done, that homeschooling is harder than working a job. It's harder than anything else because you are parenting 24/7 You have to be a parent that certain hours of the day and it educated other times of the day, and even the principal and other times of the day. So this is my journey. This is how I got into homeschooling. And what I want to share with you
today is what is homeschooling? What are some of the methods of homeschooling,
why you should consider homeschooling and then just a few tips on how to make it work. So what is homeschooling homeschooling simply means that your child received the education
outside of the school system, right. So this includes a variety of methodologies.
The most common form of homeschooling is where the parents teach the children the school curriculum at home. So whatever the schools are teaching, the parents teach it to the kids at home. But this is not the only method. Right I mentioned when I was younger it corresponds to which is true the post does still exist. My older kids are doing online school, right where they studying at home from their laptop drops to an online school like how you're selling to an online university. It's also a type of homeschooling you get more radical forms of homeschooling like unschooling, so unschooling is where you leave the child's education entirely to them, that when they need to learn something
they learned, right, it's a more radical form. But surprisingly, it works quite well, for some families. You have other types like global School, where the family decides to travel two or three years, and learn about the world together. So there's no classes, no curriculums, you just traveling the world and learning about the history and culture language of each civilization that you that you visit.
And in many, many other ways, so what what homeschooling does is it broadens your understanding of what education can
have what children are capable of learning. And this is something that is missing in the school system today. So I used to be a school teacher, when I was in my early 20s.
And my experience as a school teacher really crushed my spirit in the education system as a whole.
And that's one of the reasons I chose to homeschool.
Because there are certain things about the school system today that are that just don't work. It just doesn't work. I'm talking about from an Islamic perspective and a world needs perspective. So what do I mean by a worldly perspective? Well, the system we use in school today is outdated.
It's an outdated model of teaching and learning. This system of education was invented 200 years ago, and it hasn't changed at all.
But in those 200 years, we have this factory style buildings with a bell and wood, people lined up according to the age groups, where people are all expected to study the same thing, regardless of the level of intelligence or how mature they are for the age, or what the level what the interests are, or what the style of learning is all expected to study the same things where kids are forced into this building, with some sometimes with bizarre rules to study, you know, topics that may not benefit them for 13 years.
13 years is a long time.
So some of the things I find wrong with school today is that the system itself is outdated.
Number two, it's too long.
You really don't need 13 years, to get a basic education. Really you don't want the internet, with YouTube with with the availability of ebooks with all of this. Nobody needs 13 years to get a basic education thing to think about, right? If you've been to school, how much of those 13 years of education actually benefited you, I would say for the average person, it's four or five years, four or five years. Another problem that came from school being 13 years long, is extending childhood.
So biologically, psychologically, and Islamically.
Childhood ends up on puberty.
When somebody hits puberty, they are a young adults. And historically, when somebody would hit puberty, they would start working, or they would get to get a job or start a career. They would go out in military campaigns, they would get married, they would start life.
But to make school last a few years longer, people came up with this idea that oh childhood only ends when you're 18.
Right? Very arbitrary number 18. Some countries say 16. Some say 21. Right now we have people who are 25. And they're saying I'm still a child. When does it end Islamically ends when you hit puberty, I believe the school system should have been redesigned, so that when somebody hits puberty, they can start life as an adult.
That extending childhood has damaged an entire generation that we see today this this concept of the man child phenomenon. This never existed in history, where we have 1000s of young men in their 20s and 30s was overgrown children. The school system is partly to blame for that. So with bad parenting, but the school system does play a role in blame for that
Islamically some of the problems with the school system is that the non Muslim schools
have become more lens of propaganda and education. So maybe 40 or 50 years ago, the schools would focus on mathematics and English and Science. But now we know from a very young age, they are pushing the alphabet people just propaganda, you know, calling for homosexuality and lesbianism and, and * and *. And do you really want your child exposed to this vote at the young age? Think about the other parent do you really want to expose your child to such filthy ideologies?
before they've even formed the ability to to think for themselves. That's the age where childhood expands. They are soaking in what the teachers teach them. And your job as a Muslim parent is to make sure that age the right things are being put in their mind to just take them and dumped them in a non Muslim environment where all of this filth is being pumped into their brains. This is bad parenting.
If you had didn't have a choice is bad parenting. If you had a choice if you didn't have a choice, and you know, we all helped you out via find a way out of it. But really, we should not and cannot neglect our child's need to have an Islamic education first.
The second problem Islamically with the school systems today is that for many of us, it has become outsourcing parenting.
Many parents today don't teach their children anything at all. I've had school teachers complain to me that children's come to school. They don't even know how to put their own pants on. They don't even know how to make a stranger. They don't even know basic manners. Their parents taught them nothing. They expect the schools to teach them everything. This is lazy parenting. The parent is the first teacher especially the mother is the first teacher. It is the parents job to educate the children. What education they get from other people is secondary. So we've gone backwards, Islamic Islamically you're supposed to be studying with your parents first. And then when you're older, you
go and study with mentors and apprentices and authorities and show you that's the Islamic way. The modern system is the parents play no role in it.
Teaching, and they outsource everything to the kuffaar.
Huge, huge problem, you are doing a great disservice to a child if
we say the education begins in the lap of the mother.
And this is where homeschooling comes in homeschooling allows you to embrace that role as your child's primary source of education. And to hold on to it for as long as needed, until your child is ready to take control of their own education.
It allows for flexibility, it allows a child to pursue their own interests, to to study using the methods of study that work for them. It allows them to work at their own pace, if they a bit slow, and that's fine, you can you know, do math in one grade lower level, if they want more advanced math, it's fine. You can do maths, though at one grade higher level, not stuck in the system, they can work at their own pace, they can grow at their own pace. And you as a parent can now observe how they are growing. You can observe if they're growing in the right direction, it's not happening away from you, it's happening in front of your eyes.
And this to me, homeschooling to me is the natural method of education, the natural method of education, because for the bulk of human history, children learn primarily from their parents.
That children, right up to the age of 10, would learn primarily from the mother.
And then, when they were older, they would learn certain things from their father, certain things from the teachers in the community, from a mentor from an elder, but Uncle, but the parents with the base, the mother and the father, with the patient, the education,
that that would be what would reflect on them when they go out and learn from somebody else. If somebody would leave home at the age of 12, or 13, and go and study, you know, at a madrasa and the teachers will look at the clock and say your parents taught you well, because it was understood that the parents are the first match. So that appearance of the first school. Homeschooling allows you to embrace that role as the primary madressa, the primary source of education, so that whatever else your child learns in life for anybody else, they build upon what you taught them first.
Now, some of the benefits of homeschooling and I just went through some of them, the child has control or you know, of studying what what, what interests them, and they can study at their own pace. But so the other benefits that come with homeschooling is that you can make Islam the primary focus. So everything else is built around Islam. So your child begins to see Islam as the primary focus of their life. And one of the problems I've had with some Islamic schools is that Islamic Studies is just there as a token subject. So they can say the Islamic school, but he's not given the same level of attention or priority as the other subjects. So the children go into that school begin
to see Islamic studies as this token subject. And you begin to see Islam as the citing, not as important as math or English or anything else. But when you're homeschooling, you can make Islam number one, and everything else builds and fits around Islam, that Islam is your way of life. It is your model of thinking, it is the way you perceive the rest of the world, the way you deal with languages, the way you deal with math, the way you deal with science, the way you deal with your job with your feel of your profession, whatever it is, it's all from within the framework of Islam, that Islam comes first.
And this is why when the child is very young, when you just reach the age, you didn't start understanding things, four or five years old, you focus on o'clock. You focus on other things you focus on on basic beliefs, because this is the age where they need to absorb all of that first. So when they get older, when they are six or seven, now they're learning to read and write. They are learning maths, they are learning basic science, they are learning it having already absorbed the basic Aqeedah o'clock and on top of Islam.
So they are building on a foundation of Islam instead of trying to put Islam around everything else. And you can have this level of control if you are homeschooling.
So homeschooling to me, it's not a solution for everyone. But it's a solution that works for many today.
Ideally, if we talk about the future of education, ideally, I believe and this is actually something that I hope to work on the next decade, not now. My kids are older, and my homeschooling journey is done. But something I wish to work on in the future is a 21st century model of education. Something that's five to seven years long. That replaces the current system that's up to date that involves the internet and involves modern methods of teaching and learning and where moral and religious education becomes the core. Everything else is built upon what we read
The need is a whole new education system to meet the needs of Muslims in the 21st century. But it's going to take 10 or 20 years to produce something like that. In the meanwhile, while we are waiting for that, those of us whose children are growing up now these children will be adults. By that time.
The best option we have is to homeschool.
And this may not be an option for everybody. Because some of you may be in such a situation where the mother and father both have to work because of, you know, the difficult economic crisis that many people are in. Sometimes mother and father are both forced to work and there's nobody to homeschool the child. You know, sometimes you might be in a situation where one parent lives far away, and the other can't manage on their own, they have to send their child to school, you may be living in a country where it's illegal to homeschool, there are countries where it's illegal to homeschool, you have to be aware of that. So some people don't have a choice.
But if you have a choice, if you have the time, the resources, the ability, the legality, then I highly recommend, at least from the age of five until 12 to homeschool your child
because that's when you build their foundation. That's when you shape the clock and adapt and the EMA and Dakwah. That's when you have them grown to the kind of person you want them to be.
And so I highly, highly recommend homeschooling for kids at that age.
Want to end up now with some tips on homeschooling. Those of you who have started this journey of Saturn starting soon. So your parents, you've got your six year old, your seven year old, maybe taking a 10 or 12 year old out of school to start homeschooling them. You don't know what to do. You stressed out you've never been the teacher before. Right? What do you do? What do you do? Here's a few tips. Number one, give yourself a break. Don't expect to get it right the first time. Anything you're doing for the first time you're going to mess it up, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn from your mistakes. Don't be too hard on yourself as a teacher. rather learn. As your
children are learning you also learn learn new teaching methods, learn classroom management, learn how to maintain the attention, learn what study style and teaching styles, work with them. Learn how long they can, they can manage for which method of homeschooling works best for them. So give yourself a break, and take some time to learn how to do. Because it's not something that everybody that comes naturally to everybody does to some people.
I just need to learn.
To take it easy on yourself. Don't Don't give up. I always too many parents give up too easily that they start homeschooling and within a month you say that's not for me.
You didn't give it a chance, I will see at least six months to a year committed or at least six months, two years here, I'm going to give this chance. And yes, the first two or three months are going to be chaotic. I'm going to give you a proper chance six months to a year. And it's still not working out by the end of the year putting it back in school. Right, but at least give it a proper chance during that year. Some of the things you want to do during that year to ensure that you are doing the best job possible is you
you should try different methods of education. So don't limit yourself to the school system. That you just take the school system and mimic it and hope that doesn't work for everyone. And if you if you feel the school system is outdated and wasting time, then just doing what they do. What's the point of it right except maybe for keeping them away from from from the filthy environments that some schools up.
You want to try different methods, you want to see which system of homeschooling works best for your family. So you may try schooling at home. You may try something but let's put more unstructured like like unschooling, you may try online schooling, you may try educating them through YouTube videos, or to games, try different things. Because every child is different. Every family is different. This is another reason why I believe homeschooling works better is because every child is different. And homeschooling allows you to cater to the needs and the style of your child that they learn in a way that works best for them. So if one of your children is a a reader, they love to read books, you can
just buy them a library of all the books of all the topics you want them to learn. And they will consume those books on their own. And they will learn all those topics. If one of your kids love YouTube videos, you just make a playlist of all the videos you want them to watch on the topics you want them to know. And they will learn all that knowledge to watching those YouTube videos. Right if one of your children learns best to doing things, you put together a list of projects and we're going to build this you're going to try that we're going to bake this you're going to cook this and you do it with them and they learn the skills on the go.
Point is you can shape it around their learning style. So you need to
experiments to figure out what works for them. You have to do experiments to figure out which learning style works for your child, which learning style, which teaching style works best for them.
Another thing you need to do to make it work out for yourself is to get in contact with other homeschools. It's very important to have support. And you can't do this on your own. It's very, very hard to have mentors or friends or teachers who can advise you to encourage you who can give you tips, this is very important. So I highly advise forming a homeschooling community that you can't do it locally, do it online, but have people in your life that you can reach out to for advice.
Finally,
the final point I mentioned, and we'll close off on this point, is reassess every year, whether it's the best thing for you because times change and things change and your children and your situation changes. So perhaps you are living in in August of that. So you chose to homeschool. But during the year you're migrated to Java to a Muslim that and now you're happy with the quality of the schools and the environment of the schools. So now you can reassess and say you know what, this, that's an alternative school? Or maybe the opposite happened? Maybe you decided, no, we're living in a good Muslim country. So I'm sending my son to school. But within the year, you're not happy with it with
the curriculum or the way it's thought or your child is losing the love of learning? Are they getting caught up in that company. So you reassess, and you and you choose to start homeschooling. The point is you don't have to commit to this decision for life. If you choose to send your child to school, you can undo that decision. Right, you can decide later in life, hold on, this is not working, let's try homeschool. Likewise, if you committed to homeschooling, and maybe your life situation has changed, the quality of school has changed, or new schools have come up with new methods of teaching, and you want to try it, you can change your decision. Many people think that
once you make this decision, you stuck with it for life. Now, it's stuff like that. So a lot of freedom, a lot of flexibility, up to you every year to access what is best for your family and your children.
So my advice to parents to close off is to think long term, think long term. Understand that your children is a man of work. And they are not going to be with you for very long, you will be surprised how quickly children grow up. I feel like I just became a parent a few years ago, my eldest is already 15. So a young man
that quickly, children grow up very quickly. That period of time is 15 years or 12 years of education. It will pass you by quickly. Don't want to just go with the flow. You don't want to just do what everybody else is doing. You have to have a vision. You have to think long term, my son, my daughter, what kind of person do I want him to grow up to be?
No, the Aqeedah the UCLA? Could they manage the understanding of their religion? Their their work ethic, the agent, the love of learning? How do I nurture this? What's the best way to do that?
And what you might find what I found is that homeschooling is the best way to do it.
If you do come to that conclusion, now you commit. You see, this is our vision. This is what we want to achieve at the end of this this journey once our child is grown up, this is the best way to get there. We are going to do it. Even though it is hard. We're going to do it even though it is time consuming. We are going to do it even though
it means the next 12 years of our life, we are going to make a lot of sacrifices so that our child gets the best education. At the end of the day, it is a long term investment into your child's future. Children who are homeschooled in general, grew up to be children who love learning more. They have a stronger love of learning. They grew up to be more independent learners. So they're able to teach themselves and study things on their own without somebody forcing them to do so. They grow up to being what more well adjusted with better character and manners and they end up maturing faster. So you will find the average homeschool child by the age of 13 or 14 they are a young adult
the way they think. You know thinking like children you know they thinking like young adults, you will find that homeschool children and homeschool Islamically in general. It helps them to have stronger Eman, stronger taqwa and a better sense of the Ummah, that they are part of an Omar.
So homeschooling to me, is the best way forward. And these are just some of my thoughts on the topic, the future of education. You know, it's something that we need to think about together, we have to come up with new education models that work. In the meanwhile, homeschooling is the best option that we have. We ask Allah for guidance we ask Allah to allow us to fulfill this amount of care
renting and we ask Allah to make the next generation of Islam righteous leaders Subhana rahbek Robert is at the NYSC phone are salam ala mousseline well Hamdulillah.
JazakAllah hair and shaky smile calm there for enlightening us about the importance of homeschooling.
We hope we pray to Allah hope all the listeners will benefit in both the worlds by implementing the same in our lives for our children, as per our capabilities inshallah.
Inshallah will now start the question and answer session. Brothers and sisters are requested to send their questions related to the topic of the homeschooling through chatbox will read out the questions and by the brothers and sisters and shake his smile calm, they will answer the questions, Inshallah, going to include your name and location along with your questions in case if we run out of time, and are able to address your questions, please email your questions to our email address providing the invitation. Please go ahead with the questions your sister's
Okay, I see one question. Yeah, how many hours a day should be spent homeschooling?
i This is a important question. Okay, this depends on you. It depends on your child speed of learning. It depends on on a variety of factors. But on average, on average, the average homeschooling family that I have met for their worldly subjects like English, math, science, the lower grades, you need two hours a day, the higher grades,
you actually don't need more than that. School waste a lot of time, really into school, they waste a lot of time, when you homeschool, you'll find you don't need that much time. So for the worldly subjects, we need like two to four hours, and then maybe two hours for the Islamic subjects. So what what what we do in my home is that from 8am, to midday, our kids study English math, science, computers, business, all of that. And then from 2pm to 4pm, they study Quran, that is,
memorization of surahs, Aqeedah feet, etc. So we limited to five, six hours a day, if you include the Islamic subjects and the worldly subjects, some people do even less, some people are able to do their worldly subjects in two hours in Islamic studies in one hour, especially when they are young, they're like six or seven years old, you really need just three or four hours altogether. But as you get a bit older, then you know, you may need more time because some subjects will need more time. So even then, three or four hours for school and one to two hours for Islamiat is enough, inshallah already depends on your child's speed of learning.
There is a question shaker smile.
Are there any Islamic online schools currently available?
It depends on which country you are living in. Right. So my kids are starting to an online school.
It's an Islamic one based in South Africa, I will know which countries it's available in. But deals are popping up more and more especially because of the pandemic. A lot of online. Islamic schools did open up in many different countries. So the problem is most of them are localized, they are focused on the curriculum of the country that they are based in. So I will know which country the question is coming from. You have to look locally and see that any of your schools, you know launch maybe a online version of their school gym pandemic,
because it's highly likely that still running that has become an online school of its own. So yeah, there are some but it's a new thing. It's an emerging field. Like online schools are an emerging field and perhaps in the next five years, they'll be more.
Okay, do we have any other questions?
There is one more question. I have children of different age groups. And it is difficult for us to teach them individually. Any advice?
Okay, so this is where time management comes in. I
highly recommend if you're going to homeschool study time management, because that that that's going to help you develop the skill set that you need to juggle these various subjects at different grade levels. So what works for me is having set times for each child, so this is what I would do, right? The eldest, I would say to them in the morning, give them the maths work, teach them, you know, the latest math concept five or 10 minutes until they understand it. Give them 30 minutes of busy work so they can practice and see if they understood the concept while they are studying and doing that work. Teach the next child, give them their work and do that. You know, so by the time you're done
teaching each child they
first child comes to you to say the math is done. So now you teach that child English, and you give him the English word for the day. So this way you divided and what you'll find is not not every subject, you have to divide. Because one of the problems with school is they assume that children learn based on age, but they don't like adults, you can learn enqueue. So yes, for English or math, you may have to work based on the grade. But for other subjects, you can still teach them collectively, you can still put your kids together and teach them starting up the profits. You can put them together and teach them o'clock and up and purification of the soul. And basic Aqeedah
Yeah, the older kids may have deeper questions, the younger kids may have more basic questions, but they can still learn this together. And it helps to build new habit helps people brotherly love between the siblings when they actually studying something together. And it helps the younger ones to grow faster, because they listening to the questions of the older ones that, you know, they, they want to be like the elder brother, so they mature faster, and they develop the vocab faster. So again, it depends on the subject. certain subjects, you can teach them as a group, other subjects, you just need a time management system that works for you. Right, where you teach a child with 10
minutes each, and then give them some work to do on their own while you're teaching the next child. That's what worked for me and Inshallah, maybe it will work for you too.
There's one more question,
kindly share an Islamic curriculum, or Islamic academic program for children ages four and above.
So there is no set curriculum that I can think of.
One of the problems we have right now is that this is all an emerging field. So there's no one curriculum that I would recommend. I myself have pulled from everywhere, like, I don't have a set curriculum for my kids. I literally grab books that benefitted me and teach those books to my kids. And there will be different books at different levels. Having said that, the age four, I really don't see H core as age four, for dedicated education like this right, homeschooling
my philosophy of education, is that right? Until the age of five, children learn to play, they learn from play. So at that age, you don't sit with them and teach them reading, writing bad, I feel this is unnatural. Let them play, you surround you with resources that are educational games that they can learn to read and write from, you know, Islamic videos that they can pick up the surahs into us for things that are playing focus, but through play, they're learning the surahs, that was reading writing numbers, they're learning it in a fun way. That's what's more natural at that age. So I only recommend doing formal education with your child, when they are at the age where they feel ready,
where they come to you and say, Can you teach me which is either five or six later, seven. Right? And you know, this is why Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam told us teach your child to pray when they're seven, because that's when they're ready. Until then they learn through playing, you know, they observe you, they mimic you, they copy you, but that's the age when they actually start to understand, okay, you know, this is the record, this is the Sunnah, and this is the booster. That's the only age when they can finally start understanding that. So general advice, don't try to start education too early. That's one of the problems with the modern system. They push education too
early, and they killed a child in the child. So the child who's at the age where they want to run and jump and play is forced to sit in a classroom and study and you're not ready for that yet. Rather, let him run, let him jump, let them play, let him learn to exploring and having fun. And when they are five or six years old stuff for one or two hours a day sent to them and teach them the basics. There is no set curriculum. Now this is something for now we have to wing it. If you want to teach them o'clock grab a book of Rihanna Selena just open to her nieces and ready to them and discuss it to them, you know, if you want to teach them Aqeedah you know, take some of the actually
books on Akita for small children that have been written recently. But again, there's no set curriculum, but there are books that you can find.
But really, at this point in time, parents have to make their own particular because nothing, nothing that I have found.
Let's just put it this way. I have tried over a dozen Islamic curriculum. So homeschooling, I'm not happy with any of them. That's why I wouldn't recommend any of them. Right? We still trying to figure it out. We're still trying to work it out. Maybe within the next five years, something will come about that I could recommend
Okay, any more questions?
The question is, Where can I look for more resources on homeschooling?
So there are many resources online homeschooling. I personally have a online course and ebook on this topic. I do have another online course starting next month with Albula Academy, which will be a six month training program and how to homeschool. Right so we have this online course myself and sister Bella Khan from IU are teaching it, where we will be teaching
parents on how to homeschool your child, this is going to be a six month program every Saturday starting in October. So that's probably going to be the best resources available on this topic. Allah knows best what other ones, there are some older ones, but not to show up. And they still around remember sister Doris awanee, who used to be involved in IU back in the day, she had produced some excellent books and videos on this topic. In fact, she was the one who convinced me to homeschool when I was younger, and the websites and blogs, right go to the if you head out to Muslim blogs, you will find many Muslim mothers who are homeschooling and have blogs where they document
the homeschooling journey and what's working for them. And, you know, you can get ideas from them. I also have some blogs on Islamic self help.com. Go to my website, type in homeschooling in the search bar and get my cost my ebook and a variety of blog posts I've written on how to do this. And hopefully that will benefit you as well. But if you're looking for like a proper method of learning how to homeschool, upcoming costs or blog Academy Shala that that will be one of the best resources that you can get hold off on this topic.
Shouldn't should there is one more question. Is there a forum or blog for Muslim homeschoolers to share their experiences? And etc? Questions or not?
I don't know. There might be. But I don't know, most homeschoolers. I know. You see, the problem is that every five years it's a different generation of homeschoolers, right? So the folks who I learned to homeschool from, they've moved on to other things with their lives, because their kids are all grown up now. And now I'm teaching this in six or seven years time, I'm going to move on to other things that somebody else is going to teach you this. Because you only want to be homeschooling for like 12 years of your life. So I don't know if there's any community online. For this. I have a feeling the younger generation probably have produced online forums. I'm just not
aware of it. Right, because I started homeschooling 10 years ago, maybe the next five in the past five years, somebody set one up. I'm just not aware of it. So I think you should look online research speak to younger homeschoolers, those who just started in the past two or three years. And maybe, maybe there is some resource like this, it's just I personally am not aware of it.
There are two more questions, shares, I hope they are relevant to your topic. One is from what age we let our children do heaps of Quran
when they're ready, right when they are ready.
Like it's different for every child. But on average,
the average person I know who became hobbies or not one myself, but those who I know who became happy as they studied hits between the ages of six and 12, six and 12. That's like that was considered like timeframe, if you don't complete your hips in that time, it gets very hard afterwards. So that's just from my personal experience. A lot of my friends are Hafez and I knew when we were studying, we had this idea that we don't do it between the ages of six and 12 is going to be very difficult. Fortunately, by the age of 12, I hadn't done it so I started my alyvia program the age of 13 instead, right? But daily that's like the time they were kids minds are like sponges
and they are just absorbing things. So use that time to put them to absorb the Quran. They could start as young as four or five depending on how good the memory is, at the younger age, maybe just by having Quran playing in the background to the memorizing but between the ages of six and 12 is the is the time where most people who you know today as harvest that's the time of day to day lives, right between the ages of six and 12.
And another question shake my son, age 3.5 is not clear Speaker.
I want him to memorize Quran How do I start with him advice I need
Okay, so I don't know if I'm the right person to advise on this.
Because you may want to see a speech therapist or maybe just for another year, maybe for another year because some children I personally know people who only started speaking clearly when they were four or five years old. And now as adults, they are availa amazing people. Some people it just develops later. That's why I say leave it until your child is ready. Right so a three and a half year old doesn't need to be memorizing Quran which we are way too young. Don't don't feel this pressure. I love people have this pressure that you know I've got
To start everything, so they have the two year old who's like learning to read and write the two year old, memorize the Quran relax. Like I said earlier, let him play until they are four or five years old, they're never going to get that part of their life back again, just relax and let them enjoy their part of them. When they are four or five years old, or even six years old, then you start formal education. But the three and a half year old should not be pressurized to memorize the Quran, they are way too young. At that age, they should be playing and enjoying life and learning natural light. And that means they learned some Quran from yearning Et Al Hamdulillah. But don't
pressurize them to do hips at that age. It's not natural to be studying formally at that age.
And one question I have shared,
we generally parents, nowadays people have a mindset of, if a child or student goes to outside schooling, it will become more tough, and he'll be used to things because he is exposed to many friends, circle teachers and all those things. If it is homeschooling, he may not be. So this this is my personal mindset about whatever it is. What do you say about that? So I see that's a misconception that's not related to homeschooling that's related to parenting. By choice, parents are afraid of work, and they keeping the child in the house all the time cut off from the work, then yes, a child might grow up either. When most home schoolers are neglected. My kids go 14 Holocaust,
they go out to the fears they go for soccer training, they go for martial arts training, they're hanging out with the neighbors, children, they have social social lives, right? Most homeschool kids do homeschool doesn't mean your child is locked up in your home. 24/7 like go into a pandemic or lockdown? No, homeschooled simply means the primary education is done by the parents, but your child is still going to head out, they still going to go for Islamic programs in the community, they still going to attend Halaqaat they still going to go for for martial arts is still going to go for soccer, football, they're still going to spend time with their neighbors, with their cousins with
other children in the community, they're still going to be involved with other people socially, you're still gonna have the online friends as well. You're not cutting them off from the world, you're just training them better on how to handle it.
Look at it this way. Putting a six year old in a public school is sending somebody out into a into a monsoon without an umbrella, then they're not ready for all that bombardment of homosexuality and all the other folks at that age. But when you homeschooling your child, you are building within them the character and the manners and the Aqeedah that they need to be a filter for the rest of the world. And then you relax a bit about the rest of the world. So your kids are at the neighbor's house, you know, you're relaxed, you know, I told my kids well, you know, they're going to do what's right. Your kids are going for the teen Holika you relax, you need them, you pick them up with data,
you know, you taught them what's right. So really, that's not a homeschooling issue. That's a parenting issue. I did meet kids like that. They will also homeschool. But you were raised by parents who are afraid of the world. Most homeschooling families allow the children to have very active social lives and they help them to have very active social lives. It's just that the primary education is done by the parents right I hope that answers your question.
Okay, unfortunately
now the question and answer session is over.
brothers or sisters,
we now move on to the presentation of aw
and the various courses it offers by our brother
no brothers and sisters, we would like to move on further for the presentation of IOU and various courses did offers and the presentation will be done by our brother Syed Hamid. I invited Siva to start his presentation inshallah.
Bismillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah for Allah Allah He was happy to join my bad while I was with him Alicia Donna rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim.
Dear brothers and sisters Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. The peace and blessings of Allah has been beyond all of you.
I am Muhammad Ali. I'm a student of IU and a chairperson of, of IU grad brothers during committee. On behalf of I would like to give an introduction of our International Open University previously called Islamic online university.
Before I begin, I would like to recite an iron from the cold Glorious Quran which emphasize the important point which will draw a picture
with there is a need of education. Right education. Oh the Mallanna shitara Jean Smilla Rahmanir Rahim
in Allahu Allah irama becoming a Rama be unfussy him
meaning indeed Allah will not change the condition of people until the chain with in themselves.
If we see today throughout the world, we are facing endless problem challenges where we see no solution to them. I'll mention few of them only
got corruption, hunger, poverty, wealth inequality, depth
held in developing countries, materialism, war pandemic severe moral evils such as human trafficking, and torture.
The main reason for all the problems we are facing today is due to our worldly attachment, losing the sense of accountability and the connection with the Creator Allah subhana wa Tada. Though marvelous developments are made in technology, human being is still suffering with these problems. The solution to this problem can never be achieved until and unless his connection with the Creator Allah subhanaw taala is realized and strengthened.
Unless we have the knowledge and the understanding of the creator of Allah subhanaw taala and our relationship with Him and implement the understanding, we can never be successful, neither in this worldly life no in the Hereafter.
This is the reason I mentioned in the beginning. I am from the Glorious Quran, I would like to repeat in Allah Allah era, my becoming the hero must be unforeseen.
Which means again, indeed, Allah will not change the condition of people until the chain what is in terms of
therefore, Dr. Bilal Philips embarked on a mission to get the change in ourself by imparting the knowledge authentic Islamic knowledge through the media of internet solely to please Allah subhanaw taala Hamdulillah he founded this university with the vision chain, the nation through education.
At this point, I would like to say a few words about Dr. Bill Phillips before I move on to the presentation of Islamic online University, Dr. Bella Phillips. He is a Jamaican Islamic scholar reverted to Islam in early 70. He did his bachelor from the Medina, a Saudi Arab and master from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and PhD from United Kingdom.
He thought Arabic and Islamic Studies in the highest schools and university for 20 years. He set up Slavic Studies Department at various universities, He has authored and published over 50 books, mashallah, he's one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the one world today.
Dr. Bilal Philips founded this university, which keep us connected with Allah subhanho wa taala. Through our D study, all of its programs are being fought
in an Islamic perspective, regardless of whether it's its contemporary programs such as information technology, business administration, or an Islamic program,
Dr. Blau Phillips started this university with a mission making authentic Islamic knowledge readily available to the world through the medium of internet solely for God's pleasure is a noble and dignified mission worthy
of sacrifice one's energy or means for
let's look into the principle of IO on which it operates.
Authenticity Are you curriculum is based on correct and offend
technology. It's based on the principle of Quran and Sunnah only.
Accessibility, you can study online from any part of the world, wherever you may be, and whenever you wish is for anyone at any place at any time. Affordability fees for higher degree program are comparatively low and affordable to benefit individuals, communities and humanity in general,
community or you has a high level of diversity, you could be part of global community of over 600,000 students from over 229 countries. No student is prevented from study at our yo regardless of his religion and race.
Islamic ethics I you strive to stop members, teachers, students wanting truth at the highest standard of personal integrity, honesty and responsibility as a Muslim first,
quality and application or you provide a top quality online academic experience to provide Islamic authentic knowledge and to face contemporary challenges of the 21st century. I also offer other contemporary programs such as Business Administration, information technology, psychology,
or you assess and reevaluate every aspect of it Academy Pro models on ongoing basis.
Let's look into the history of
International Open University
in 2017, iron launch and Islamic online university with 23 free diploma courses and had over 1500 students registered
into the den Are you offer Bachelor of Arts in Islamic Studies degree program? Over 30,000 students from 137 countries were registered
in 2014 phony department will open Department of Education Department of Islamic economics, banking and finance, Department of Psychology and the Department of Arabic linguist to link Arbic language and linguistics.
I received a university license for Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Science Technology in the Gambia.
I begin offering a B is via Beslan Islamic Studies program in Russian language.
In 2015, are you open to addition department to offer Bester degree program in this administration and Information Technology Islamics Studies Department began to offer
a master's in Islamic studies.
In 2017, I began offering the the bachelor in Islamic Studies program in Bahasa and all the languages
the 1 million African scholarship initiative was launched in 2017 to provide free bachelor's degree scholarships to underprivileged African youth SubhanAllah.
Into Psalm 21, I launch a PhD in Islamic sciences
and handler today, it has 600,000 students from 229 countries minister, let's look into the program of whichever you offer.
Higher offers long studies program up to the PhD level and higher diploma as well.
I offer Islamic Economics program up to the bachelor level plus a certification program in the agricultural economic
I offer a bh program education program up to the national level.
I offer business administration program to the bachelor level.
I also offer psychological program up to the bachelor lower and very soon they will introduce a higher program doctorate program into the psychology department.
I offer information technology program up to the international level. And I also offer Arabic program up to the vessel level
up to the master level I'm sorry, and also the offer intensive Arabic program for those who want to study understand the Quran, understanding language to understand the Quran in a very shorter period of time.
I offer memorization program just a program.
They have a separate website for it is called Global Quan memorization center.
I offer diplomas, genuine diplomas in Islamic Studies. 24 Plus courses are the two for us to complete single free courses and workshops as well.
I have a different study plans, they are part time, full time as accelerated study plans in part time, the courses we have 123 courses per semester and full time we have four, five or six courses per semester and accelerated we have
seven to nine courses per semester.
This is the flexibility you provide us. Let's look into the semester fee
for the certification association or better programs, IO
the fees are as follows admission 75 US dollar $220 for part time and $115 to 250 for full time in the Bachelor programs $155 to four and a 16 accelerated
plan
and similarly and master of Islamic sciences 200 to 400 200 US dollar to four and a 70 and three and a five US dollar to sound 25 And for the 20 us tonight and at an accelerated study plan
higher diploma 135 US dollar to three and a 40 210 US dollars to find charity and to identify US dollar to sell 115 In a PhD is 630 for the part time and 900 for the full time
I AAP is in
intensive Arabic program 95 To 320 euros store. This fee I
give to
the fees are based on the student country of residence is based on the standard of living
fees are tuition free. That's why it's affordable.
If we look at the fee structure in the in the in the one year period
there will be two semester per year
and two semester fee on average is for under 65.
US dollar
which if we convert into to Saudi rial is 1745 rial if you divide it to two per month is 39. US dollar only. And if you divide saudi riyal into Burma is wonderful for rial only. And similarly for the wedding two per day is just 1.3 US dollar and in Riyadh is 4.8 saudi riyal
just to give an idea how affordable it is.
Accreditation Are you have been granted accreditation for Ministry of Higher Education of Gambia
and also got tradition from national accreditation and quality assurance authority
and a QA naka de Paul from the Gambia.
If you want to contact us,
you can contact us to the IU official address, as mentioned in the screen. Also, you can send us an email for the admission and general inquiry into the following email addresses.
I would like to end my talk
by saying
Prophet Muhammad stay.
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam said
mon Sol Tada you can help them a sphere element SallAllahu beheading
or whoever take a path upon which to obtain knowledge. Allah makes the path to paradise easy for him.
Baraka Luffy just
inshallah will now start the question and answers on this Islamic online universe online evil international online university whose presentation is just completed by our brother CIDA.
Brothers and sisters are requested to send their questions related to the topic of this topic law for IOU
and
it will be answered by our brother Syed Ali and myself inshallah
anybody's Losing
there seem to be no questions it looks
if there are any questions brothers or sisters you can email us your email address given in the invitation do not hesitate to ask any type of questions regarding this
acquiring the knowledge and the path of Allah authentic knowledge from IOU
from the comfort of your homes at your own pace and affordable fees
then we do if you have any questions clarifications kindly post them in the email so that we can answer inshallah.
Good
Evening
With this we come to the end of this event, just like allow him once to all brothers and sisters who have joined us today to listen to shake his smile come there and the presentation on
international university I met your busy schedule.
We hope we all will be benefited in both the world from this session today. We look forward to seeing you again and again to listen to some more topics we are going to arrange very shortly inshallah Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
So, there still seems to be a question from the attendees can we get diploma
we do have diplomas in various
fields like Islamic Studies, psychology and other studies also.
So, if you can go through the website you can easily come to know what sort of diplomas and the duration and the fees you will have the all the classification in place
diploma or certificate anything
yes I value is only online
it can be done online
of course
under examinations and all those will be conducted
examination centers in your places
respective places.
That solid looks
pertaining to question and answers, brothers and sisters
would like to wind up the event
does not allow that and once again to all brothers and sisters who have joined us today. We look forward to seeing you once again to listen to other interesting topics inshallah which we are going to arrange Inshallah, very soon. Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh