Integrated Teaching – Part 1
Date:
Channel: Mirza Yawar Baig
File Size: 30.98MB
Episode Notes
Situational Diagnosis 6:18
Problem with Schools today 19:50
Problem with Teaching 20:27
Problem with Class Size and Composition 25:45
What if 33:11
What must be done 34:36
Teachers must change first 35:42
Schooling must achieve 4 things 37:51
Foundation of Values 40:22
6 things to teach 42:37
What needs to change 43:30
1. Core Purpose 44:07
2. Autonomy of Students 47:47
3. Class Size and Composition 55:46
4. Curriculum and Syllabus 58:28
5. Teaching Methodology 1:00:32
6. Examination System 1:01:39
7. Teachers must become farmers 1:03:14
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of schooling for children, particularly in terms of parenting and parenting time. They emphasize the need for parents to make money out of their own system and avoiding the "one person" problem. The speakers also emphasize the importance of standardization in schools and the need for parents to trust their children and their learning experiences. They emphasize the importance of creating a flexible and flexible learning environment for students, educating children on their learning methods, and emphasizing the need for a curriculum that delivers value to children.AI Generated Transcript ©
Number 11 salatu salam ala philomela he was having he
was bad.
My dear sisters, many people have asked me over the years about our whole
concept of integrated teaching integrated education, holistic education and so on,
which we which is the fundamental methodology of our standards Academy teaching standards. And I have explained this in many, many, many lectures, especially every LDC we have done this all over the world. But we realized recently that we didn't have all of that together in one place. So, we thought, let's do that as a separate class. So that's why we,
we decided to have this class and we hope that this will be a benefit, especially to those who are in the teaching field, people who run schools, and people who teach in schools, we hope that this is something that will be beneficial to all of them, obviously, it is something which will, which we hope will benefit parents as well, because the upbringing of children is really the primary responsibility is the responsibility, the parents is not the responsibility of the teachers, teachers have, if one can say that secondary responsibility in that manner has meaning but end of the day, it's your child. So you are supposed to be more interested in how this child is brought up.
So that is why we talk about integrated teaching. I have also talked about this concept in different countries in South Africa, because I'm an advisor to the Association of Muslim schools, there is woven of it twice in 2014, at the National Conference on faith education on Islamic education in in London, and in 2015, in Oxford, where I was the keynote speaker, so both of these places I spoke about that and that was to an audience, which was not only Muslim, it was a faith audience, which means we had the head of Catholic schools of Britain, we had the head of the Department of Education of Britain, we had the
we had various,
the the Bishop of Bedford
of Liverpool, all of these people were there. And humbler, we made a presentation about what is integrated teaching, not exactly this presentation, but the same concepts in that presentation.
Good new side of it, two sides to this a good new side of it was every single person that we they all agreed the
downside of it is my question that is therefore Why is there no change? Why is there no visible change in the world? globally speaking? I think it's very important for us therefore, when you listen to this presentation, and so on, so to ask yourself this question say that, do I really want change? Because it won't happen? Just by appreciating a lecture or appreciating a thought change will happen when you actually make it happen if you do the work that is required? And that's the reason why it's important to ask yourself that question. First. I want to begin with
saying, making a very clear statement, and that is that the two capital crimes and capital crime is a crime for which the sentence is death or should be just to capital crimes committed against society today, the commercialization of education and healthcare,
education and healthcare in Muslim societies, all Muslim societies, the the system of helaba Islamia, which no longer exists about that the system is the system of a welfare state, which you find in some Western countries, Canada, Australia, UK, where basic education in some cases, it goes up all the way to tertiary education, and healthcare are state subjects, they are run by the by the government of the state, you don't pay for that.
for that service, when you avail of that service. In the in these countries, of course, you pay for it indirectly through your to the tax that we pay you income tax, and so on. But you get absolutely world class service free, when you have to avail that service as a patient in a hospital or as a child in a school. And that's why I think that the two major crimes committed against society are these that commercialization of education. That is what took away the focus from the patient and from the student to making money out of this process. And that is a huge, huge, huge
problem with how capitalistic societies are run. And I think that's something that we need to also keep in mind as he
How we can change that at a macro level? Of course question and because you are not the government, you are a person who is who owns a school or would like to start a school, what is it that you can do? What is that? How can you make it within what's free for the student, yet maintain your standards, because nothing comes for free, you need money to for the standard. Also, this is something which is an ongoing,
ongoing challenge that we have to all face. And that's the reason why I begin with this slide. Which is, I know this is a bit of a shock treatment. But as in the in the words of George Bernard Shaw, he said there is no point in in speaking, or saying something that does not offend people, because we will only change when they are offended. So I hope that the owners and people who run schools are offended when you see this because then hopefully, you will change it. Because this is really the root cause of the problem that education healthcare has been commercialized. So the focus is no longer as I said, the student focus is no longer the patient and patient care it is how to make
money out of the system.
So what I want to begin with what I call the situational diagnosis of what happens today, in the name of schooling, and education, we'll be focusing here on schools. Now ask yourself, why.
Why should you have schools? The reality is, if I ask you this question, what do you call a person who has been well studied full time for 15 to 17 years, and at the end of that that person has no life skills, and he cannot survive for a week on his own unaided.
If I ask you this question, that what do you call a system which produces at the end of 15 or 17 years of full time education or what we call education, that person will graduate that person comes out the other end of the of the machine, has no life skills, and cannot take care of himself or herself unaided for a week?
What do you call that system?
We call it person high school graduates.
Finally, one job advertisement with four weeks the minimum qualification is high school graduate, and you will see that that job advertisement is probably for a doorman, or it's probably for something like this, there is no job worth doing. In our own system.
Where we think that 15 to 17 years of full time education is sufficient for a person to do that job. Not one single job in any country.
Isn't that tragic? Isn't that completely insane?
What is it that we are saying about our own system? If I if I told you that I studied Islam, and I did not study Islam is not what we meant. I'm just saying that if I told you that if I studied Islam, 15 years or 17 years full time, what would you call me?
Call me an adult.
And then you tell me lead to a cup of salah and I cannot lead.
So what did you study? What did you do 1517 years, you cannot you cannot read lead to? What is that system? absolute trust is what will tell me and you are absolutely right. If you tell me that. Why is it we don't say that to our children.
And the beauty is who paid for this. It was not 15 or 17 years of free education. It you paid you paid and you paid through your nose for this.
And I'm not only talking about school fees, I'm talking about school fees. I'm talking about your transportation and blogging about your books, I'm talking about clothes that you name it.
One of the major budgetary items on any family is the schooling of their children. One of the top priority items with regard to the families movement around the world is the schooling of children.
And at the end of all of that
what what have you produced
somebody who is completely incapable of taking care of himself or herself even for one week? If you if you doubt me if you want to challenge me to high school students, graduate workers in your house, tell him to tell him to go away. And just then come back one week later, in that one week you must not go to any friend's house was not go to any relative's house, you must live on your own for one week. I will guarantee you that is the last you will see your children
are not asked to do this. Please don't do that. But then ask yourself
what is it you're paying for?
This question, Moses, good for anybody.
students write for children.
Why do you have parent teacher meetings?
Why do you have a Parent Teacher Association? Where is the child?
The school is for the students. So why do you have a parent teacher meeting?
Why are children not involved in decision making the school which decision in a school, from the time the school opens to how long the school will be duration of the school duration of the class, which class will sit where what will happen, what will not happen, what is allowed, what is not allowed, which of these decisions is taken with even the machine or even the advice of the children?
Which decision is left to the children, you can do this, please decide what you want to do, you can do that which decision which child decides which teacher will teach him or which I decide which is a good teacher, which is a bad teacher?
No decision school is for the children Seriously?
What choices do children have?
So really, who is the school for?
And that is why one of my many courts are on education, and so on. They're all in by about four books of courts. And you can see that
that's why I say the first casualty of schooling is imagination. And imagination is the first requirement of success in the world in the future. Because the future is is something that we do not know what's going to happen. Well, how do you deal with a future that you do not know by having imagination, the first casualty of education, as we know today is imagination. The second is independence, because you take it away from the children for 17 years, they have never made a decision for themselves. And the third one is confidence dies on its own of a broken heart. That is the result of 17 1517 years of school.
A child without imagination, a child without the ability to make choices, and a child whose heart is broken governance is gone.
I was invited to do a big mother's hours. And I believe it is not about I'm not bashing Mother Mother is the same situation in schools and mothers. I was invited to a big mother's side one of the countries are visiting. And they said we speak to the students as a final year students, there are seven ideas. I said what would you like to talk to us about? So they said please talk to us about self confidence.
So I said, did they come here without self confidence? Or is this what you gave them?
They said they have no self confidence.
Eli
Lilly again.
So let me share with you.
It's I believe we have a system of education that is modeled on the interests of industrialism.
And in the image of it, I'll give you a couple of examples.
Schools are still pretty much organized on factory lines, ringing bells, separate facilities, specialized into separate subjects. We still educate children by batches. You know, we put them through the system by age group. Why did we do that? You know, why is there this assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is how old they are.
You know, it's like the most important about them is their date of manufacture. I mean, well, I know kids are much better than other kids at the same age in different disciplines, you know, or at different times of the day, or better in smaller groups and in large groups, or sometimes they want to be on their own. If you're interested in a model of learning, you don't start from this production line mentality. These it's essentially about conformity and increasing. It's about that as you look at the growth of standardized testing and standardized curricula. And it's about standardization. I believe we've got to go in the exact opposite direction. That's what I mean about
changing the paradigm.
And that is again, Robinson, you should see Is he got lots of lectures on schooling. He's got some very good books on schooling you must read.
Now
why is standardization done? Who does standardization have the
same logic as why standard manufacturing processes are very useful and very productive.
They reduce the amount of pressure on the people running the system.
I don't have to if there are 50 people sitting in front of me if there are 20 students in my class, I don't have to worry about each of them as an individual human being. I can have a standard thing which I apply to all 20 of them.
And if you do not fit into that framework, that is your problem. So I will try to chop you and change you and somehow stick you into that hole. And if you can't stick into the hole, then I go to your parents and say your son is useless and he cannot study take him out of the school.
That is what happens in our schools.
And I'm submitting to you that our income is an individual Oliver has dignity Oliver has the right to be treated as an individual human being with his needs, and with his strengths and with his weaknesses, because he comes to me as a student.
Let me ask you this question.
What do you call this place, authoritarian structure orders are given you follow bell rings, a class is 45 minutes, we do not trust that you have the sense to be able to stop the class at 45 minutes, we do not trust your teacher we do not trust your students, even though you have watches and so on, we think you are blind and stupid. So we have to ring a bell to know to let you know that the class is over.
You have gone off for an interval to play and we do not trust to Mr. And Mrs. Admit and Miss students that you have enough intelligence to come back to class. Therefore we have to ring a bell to say that the playtime is over.
You want to play now sorry. playtime is at 1115 at 15. You may not want to play I don't care. That is play time. If you don't want to play if you don't get to play, I am hungry now can I know you cannot eat lunch time is one o'clock. But at one o'clock, I'm not hungry. That's not my problem. That's your problem. If you don't want to eat at one o'clock, you can go hungry for the rest of the day. Because the next lunchtime will come tomorrow at one o'clock she will go home and eat but you cannot eat now. Why? Because this is class? How does eating something in class interfere with my learning? I'm not interested in your questions.
authoritarian system
what do you call a place where once you get inside the gate shuts and you cannot get out until the gate opens? The gate will open by the authority of the person who runs the place not by you. What do you call such a place? What do you call a place where there is a dress code you can wear whatever you like, what is your place? What do you call a place where silence and order
are supremely important.
That's why even the seating is designed in such a way that there is impossibility of interaction between students.
What is the place where you call where there is reward and punishment and punishment is generally more than the reward?
How many times in the school you get to give it awards?
Once in a term once in a year, twice in a year,
this day, that day, annual day
How many times do you punishment every day?
What do you call a system where you have to walk in lines
what is a system where you want to go to the toilet you cannot go when you feel like you have to ask you have to sit in the glass and you have to do this at least in India what we do this means what?
small job this means big job.
And then if the person comes back late and you know why we're to say this as is because the teacher is watching How long do you take?
What do you call a system where your freedom is completely abridged. You don't have freedom you can talk to a guy in class who cannot talk to you whenever you can talk to a friend in class.
In an examination it will come to examinations it that is a separate subject even you come to an examination What do you call those who collaborate and help each other?
chiefly you punish them you rusticate that you throw them out of the classroom. The same person does exactly the same behavior when he goes into a workplace. What do you do? You say clap Mashallah. Great, great teamwork must help each other.
Really, you just taught me for 17 years helping each other was a crime. Now you want me to help each other?
What do you call a place where the people in there have no input in decision making?
Yes or no? do all of these things apply to prisons?
That's a school.
That is the vast majority, if not all the schools that is that I know.
So the problem with schools today is that schools are run for profit.
He just did because it was their job.
Parents want to
Source parenting. primary goal of most parents is get rid of the children for eight hours a day or 10 hours a day. As far as I'm concerned, rest of it doesn't matter as long as they're out of my house out of the out of my head for eight to 10 hours, I am happy
to outsource parenting and students are prisoners.
So, what must change? All of these must change?
What is the problem with teaching
discrete subjects without any relation to each other physics is taught in the hour of physics, physics period. Next period is chemistry. Does the chemistry period have any relation with the physics period which I just attended one hour? No. Different subject is physics and chemistry, are they actually related? You bet your life they are related. Next topic history. next subject geography or history and geography actually related
Khyber Pass in the Himalayas is geography. The last game to that is history. If there was no hammer passed, there would be no model, then you might say, well, that might be a great thing. But I wouldn't be sitting here either.
Where have you seen this in teaching?
Why have you not seen it in teaching?
to Russia are memorizing, not on understanding? What When was the first battle of panipat? Watch? Who cares?
Who cares? How does it matter? What matters is why was this battle fought? What did we learn from this battle? Which was watch? What is that question is a
memorization? questioning is discouraged. A student asks a question once or twice is tolerated is a person asked a question too many times a troublemaker you always ask questions
by class, because I have to finish my portion job of the teacher to finish though many pages. And these people asking questions, they are a problem for me.
descent.
Same thing applies across the board.
We teach the next question is is there a relation between houses of sale? No. Next question. Fifth, in the fifth, do you address the Messiah, which were read that day in the Tafseer class? And in the last Nope. Discrete subjects is related to autism and of course, where it will come from, from what
we do not integrate the subjects since is it exactly the same things whether it is secular schools or other dissent. Finally, somebody who can sit in a in a mother's house at the school and disagree with the teacher.
Then practical application of knowledge is ignored.
The student asks a question and says you are teaching me Archimedes principle.
So we're gonna apply this.
I cannot guarantee that no student will ask this question and no teacher will answer this question.
You're teaching me algebra A equals B, B equals c therefore a equals C. What is happening is why should I learn this?
y
equals b there at B equals C. Therefore a equals z according to me is a great principle in human interrelations, which I have used many times in negotiations.
Learning the algebra class, but I had to do all the math for that to join it myself. My teachers didn't teach me.
And examinations, they measure only one thing, random recall, within a specific timeframe, that's it.
examinations do not measure knowledge, they will not measure understanding, they do not measure practical application, they measure only one thing random recall within a specific timeframe. They just ask this question. We have all been through this. Have you not had one of your children or what your did this not happen to you that five minutes after you finish that examination? You remember the right answer?
Why did you fail? Because you could not remember it at before 915.
So do you know you don't know?
If you know that why did you quit?
Because it's a nonsensical system.
If they were measuring knowledge, they would say no problem. Not a life threatening thing if I remember something 500 letters or two
But it's an insane system. So if you quit, and you're failing now affects the rest of your career. You can't get into college you can't do this. You can't it's not as if that failure is not a simple matter that failure actually affects your life negatively.
And we quietly go and Tim, you envision
a system below.
And all of this is based on compulsion. So no joy, no discovery, no energy, no enthusiasm. Everybody's doing it because they're compelled to do it.
class size and composition. You saw what Ken Robinson says. And I said, I said the safety glasses I made up I didn't manufacture all five years old five year olds in one class six years, seven years, eight years. While
this is completely contrary to human psychology. It is completely contrary to how people learn. Let me ask you this question. Those of you who have worked several children, May Allah give you more. Do you tell your five you do tell your 10 year olds I do not talk to the five year old sister don't go near that sister? Don't talk to the sister don't wait or do do the opposite? Do tell the older children look after younger younger brother sisters. Please be nice to them. Which Which one do you do?
When you come to school now all five years old in one box six years 1781819 year Why?
We don't even ask this question. Somebody should ask this question. Why do you segregate classes based on age? What does age have to do with anything human beings learn in groups.
In Africa, the wonderful thing they say it takes a village to bring up a child
people learn from those who are older than them.
Children learn from other friends who are older than them.
So our class formation system is against
and contrary to the way human beings function.
Size of class is maximized to maximize income per student teacher salary 10,000. If I have 15 students in the class, then 1000 divided by 15. If I have 50 students in the class, same 10,000 divided by 50. So my profit per student is more therefore this is how we organize our schools. Right? seating as I mentioned, classroom seating is the finest way to ensure that you will never get any interaction between students. Because there is nothing inspiring about okay at the back of somebody's head.
So one way communication teacher talks students listen, take notes, bell rings go.
seating is actually maximized to minimize the benefit of learning in groups.
pressure on Silence.
Silence Have you heard this statement?
Yeah.
He was that was
in school, wonderful man. We all loved it very much. But one of his things, he was to pull out his bed and he would hold it like this.
How is it loving?
How are you?
Nice man. But this would be if you make a nice note I've been dropped. What does it mean a pin drop silence. It means that if a pin drops, you should be able to hear it. That is the level of silence that they want in class. Absolutely detrimental.
Wherever I have taught,
I measure my success from the amount of noise in the class. More noise means more success because they are interacting. They are doing things they are asking questions.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as nobody physically assaulting me, I don't care.
Now, I haven't done it yet.
Obedience, conformity question and disagreement. No, no, no, sorry.
Final question. I want to ask, how do you measure Teacher Effectiveness? Do you measure Teacher Effectiveness at all in the first place?
In schools?
And if you do measure teacher effectiveness, how do
I know only one way of measuring the effectiveness of any service provider? What is that customer feedback? There's no other way. Any service provider? The only logical way of measuring the quality of any service is ask the customers who are the customers in a school students
who must do the appraisal of a teacher students
that has ever
asked why not because the school is not for the student.
If the school was for the students, you would do that. And you would say to the teacher, I'm sorry, you are getting a negative appraisal to their students are saying they are not learning anything. And this is this.
This was happened.
And that's why my question is, Why else? Would global leaders make the same mistakes since the Roman Empire for the last 2000 years? Except that they are trained in a flawed system?
Why are they economic ups and downs?
Why do you get one bad leader after another bad deed again, and again and again, believe with y'all went to school?
The other university?
In our case in this country, some of them did not go to university, maybe
the system is flawed. Let me ask you a question. Who are the heroes in our system?
Alexander the Great.
Why, why is he great?
Because he left Macedonia, when he was living peacefully.
And he decided to conquer the world. What does it mean? It means he decided to invade other countries array and loot and plunder and annex other people's properties.
So he is great. Now you are glorifying a mass murder,
glorifying a brick and that highway robber
glorifying the fact that he perfected the art of mass killing, because of his of his military tactics, and how we used for them based on how we use the girl double combo, and so on and so forth. And then you say, how is it we don't have peace in the world?
insane, right.
Final question, how is it that we think we know all about this world?
Today, we pride ourselves and say that we are the most knowledgeable generation of all time, which I think is a lot of, you know, what process grasp. But people believe this, right? So you say, Well, if you are destroying the world, what's the biggest global threat today? Not Donald Trump? global warming, which Donald Trump is one of the many people who disagrees? He says not happening, right? Because he's sitting in the Oval Office which is air conditioned.
How is it possible if we are really so knowledgeable about this world? How is it that we are allowing this world we destroyed we got somewhere else to go?
Elon Musk has established colonies on Mars so maybe that's what they are planning to do one, destroy one planet and then go to another planet and then just try that the whole hotel.
So let me ask you this question. I think in a bad way, let's look at some positive aspects now.
What if schooling created a lifelong love for learning? This is a good thing.
Wondering what if schooling inculcated ethics, morals and values,
lack of ethics, morals and values is a global phenomena today. We are living in a world where ethics morals and values are zero importance irrespective of culture, religion, nobody's got it. Muslims don't have it. Christians don't have it. Nobody's got
and that's why we're and that's reason why we should try to be ethical, ethical and moral because one of the things that you have not say good for that reason, but one of the things that you will stand out in that situation.
There was so few people doing that almost nobody doing that.
What if schooling, brotherhood
and it taught teamwork and it taught leadership?
What if schooling produced strong compassionate colleges citizens of the world?
Yeah, what if this could we do this?
Now I guarantee you every single one of these things is possible but only for those who are willing to try
who seriously wanted not just lip service.
So what must be done? Number one.
In 2014, when I was talking at the when I speaking at the International Conference on
International Conference on with education in London,
it was in the in the Queen Elizabeth Conference Center, which is directly across the street from Westminster Abbey.
So, I said that I said, what must be done to this current education system, I said, you can do one of two things. Either you can take it across the, across the street here to Westminster Abbey and give it a good Christian funeral. Or you can go down the road to St. James Park, to the Islamic center there to the budget, and give it a good Muslim funeral.
That's what you need to do.
Because the system as it is, is completely toxic.
So we have to start afresh, completely new.
And for that, I submit to you that teachers must change first.
You might have changed number one is you must love your children enough to cry for them in the night before a lost man Oh, man. As a teacher, if you are not scanning in tattoos and praying for your students and crying before and as a manager for their success, that you are not worthy to be called a teacher.
Anyone who's working a job for a salary will never do that, Not in a million years.
Number two is you must become their role models.
And you must be their point of reference, even after you're dead and gone. Whenever they are faced with a moral dilemma. They must think of you and as you as a teacher and say, What would my teacher have done in this situation? I'm about to do this. Can I go and tell my teacher about this?
question in my mind, should I take this decision or not? Should I talk to such a person? Or should I do this or not? Is it something that I feel comfortable asking my teacher or would I be ashamed to talk to my teacher about this?
And learning?
Please note, not a teaching learning must be visibly your first priority.
You want students to love learning, you have to love learning.
To light, a single lighted lamp can light a million others.
But a dead lamp can't light anything.
There's not not enough to be a lamp, but we are lighted lamps.
That's why I say colored dots or connect dots. This is the difference between information and knowledge between mugging and understanding between success and failure.
Today in our educational system, we collect dots, we don't collect them.
They make no sense.
Even if they are the right dots.
Now there are four things that schooling must achieve.
Number one, awaken the conscience.
Number two, create excitement for learning. Number three, make sense, in terms of application what I am studying, I must be able to apply not in some future some distant future No, no, no, no, no,
I should be able to apply what I'm learning right now.
And the fourth one is what I call the social skills basket. I must be able to function productively and positively in the society that I live in.
These four things are not being achieved that schooling is a waste. What is happening that school is a waste of time.
And they are saying achieved. I'm not saying that after looking at these four things, there is no nothing I in my school, it is achieved. Nora, my question to you as a school person is do you have a similar chart in your school that your school is designed to fulfill?
It is the first time you saw this then your school is already not achieving what it should be achieving.
I submit to you that the single most powerful change to transform the world is for us to move from the world is responsible for me to I am responsible for the world.
I believe in this. I hold myself responsible for this. And that is why I'm having I'm teaching this class. Even though as you know, I have no school that I benefit from. I have no children to send to that school.
I don't get any salary from any school. Why am I doing this?
Because it is our individual responsibility.
What happens to the world is my responsibility is your responsibility.
And that's why I said
much mana
The feeling of being part of the oma is what he said the is to feel that you are responsible for the entire room. And the entire room I was feel that they are responsible for each individual person.
We must begin with a foundation of values. Why values because values drive behavior and behavior drives results.
An important thing to understand about values is values must be calculated, they cannot be legislated. You cannot tell somebody don't tell lies. You have to show what the meaning of standing for truth is.
The child will learn don't tell lies when they see you taking the rap for making a mistake, and only
then they know the meaning of don't tell lies. Everybody says don't tell lies. And then what is the child See? What are the child see at home? What are the child see in school? The parents tell children don't tell lies, then the child goes late to school because there is a new parent was supposed to drop the charter school did not do that. So what do you do? Are you want the child to bank one day of class? Because you've taken them for already? So what do you do you write a false letter saying the child was sick, you get a false medical certificate, the child knows it is a lie. You give it to the child and say give it to the teacher? The teacher accepts it now tell the child
don't tell lies. What is the child actually learning that there are times To tell lies?
Phone rings, child picks up the phone
or not is we have mobile phones and so on. So we have you know, you get caller ID and whatnot. I'm just saying I'm sure many of you have seen this thing. landline rings. You don't know who the caller is child picks up the phone and from the answering the child. The gentleman from hearing the child answer the phone, you realize it's someone you don't want to talk to. So you say
I'm not here so he said that he says he's not here.
I'm just chillin don't realize.
So if you look at the foundation of values, what is the first thing that we need to do? accountability towards Allah to Allah subhanho wa Taala why values because one day we will face Allah subhanaw taala goodwill, all the word no problem.
So six important things. First one integrity, truthfulness, compassion, courage, citizenship, and teamwork.
To teach all of this, that's the reason why the number one requirement for a school is not infrastructure. It's not money. It's not resources is not even students. It is the right teachers. Schools are made a broken make or break by teachers and teachers only. All the rests are aimed for teachers to teach, and all in favor of great infrastructure and all in favor of using of technology and so on and so forth. All all of which you must do, but a lousy teacher cannot make technology cannot make a lousy teacher great simple.
So what must change, everything must change the current system in the ground new system must come out from the
six things that need to change. Number one is core purpose. Why are you running the school itself? Number two, autonomy of students. Number three, class size and composition. Number four, curriculum and syllabus number five, teaching methodology number six, the examination system. But for all of this to happen, the number one thing that must change is mindset.
We need to believe that this is required, otherwise, nothing will happen.
So let's quickly go through each of these core purpose.
Do you have a core purpose statement in your school? What are you trying to create in your school?
And if you tell me Yes, you have a quarter of a statement that I will take your statement and you know what I will do? I will do what I do when I go to do a quality audit in a in a business in a global business. I go to the doorman and as an owner, what is the vision of your company?
I go to the
lowest form of life and as the what is the vision of your company.
I don't go to the CEO. I don't go to the head of Human Resources. I don't go to the vice president manufacture or marketing.
I go to the least within quotes. person in the system and ask them what is that
The core purpose. And if that person cannot tell me what is written on your statement here, this statement is trash in the garbage.
So, if you are running a school, ask yourself, what is the purpose? Why are we running the school?
And if you thought of it at that point in time, it means that you did not have a purpose till then.
And then go and talk to your doorman and do your last within quotes form of life.
He wanted to see,
number two question is, which I will ask you is, now you have a co purpose statement, how do you arrive at this date? But how did you get to the statement? How should you get a statement of war purpose statement comes from what's in the hearts of all the people who are involved with that system. It is evolved from there. It is not imposed from somewhere.
I have gone to schools, and I won't name them. I don't want to shame anybody. But I want to schools and mothers us where people have taken bits and pieces of my quotes from my presentations. For example, one of my most famous ones is a Buddhist, a Mufasa, who is a administrator and a Modbus, who is a, who's a who's a surgeon, and so on, I know that that record of mine, I've seen this on the wall of one of the mothers,
I don't care, it's fine, I give away all of this stuff free of costs. It's all public information. So I'm mine. And to me, imitation and plagiarism is the is the most sincere form of praise. But my point is, what is the good of that, you simply steal some words from somewhere, and you stick it on a wall and you think your job is done?
Believe me, you can still what you want nothing to change, because the change has to come from inside you.
Ask yourself, what is your core purpose? Why are you running that school? Number two is what differentiates you in the market, you are doing that so are 320 other people. So what makes you special
until you define the final product of your school in terms of what that person will be trained for and capable of doing.
Nothing will change.
So ask yourself this question, what will be lost? If your school does not exist?
What is the answer for most schools,
nothing will be lost.
So while you're in school,
because I'm making money.
Second thing that must change is autonomy of students.
If the school is for children, they must decide what happens. They're not some of you who don't know my history and read my book, it's called into my life. A lot of my case studies are in that book. Those of you who don't know me and who don't know, my history might say, Well, you know, easy for you to sit and say all of this, but how can it be done? I tell you, I did that.
In a school in Kerala, on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in my district, in a place called
for three years, I ran that school as the correspondent, which means I was above the principal, I was the administrator of the school. And that was my side job because my actual job was doing something else. But this was part of the part of job.
And we completely turned around that school from attack from Apple, it was a it was what's called a partially aided school. So partially it means that some of the salaries of the details are part part of the salary bill was paid for by the government and the rest of it was paid for by the trust, which is good.
And when I took over that school, it was in a situation where that school was losing classes, losing teachers losing salaries, because nobody wanted to come to the school.
That entire area is very poor. Almost 100% of the students in those who are in that school, whether it's came from very poor backgrounds, alcoholism,
white beating drugs, all of this was rampant in the in the in that entire society. So children came from homes, which were they had been traumatic experiences were, you know, part of their life, father comes home drunk bits of the mother in front of the children. All of this was standard behavior. And obviously children came to the school and there was no way to take care of any of that. And the school was chaos. First they went to school, it was like going to a garbage heap. It was it had two acres of land, which is a pretty good bit of land for that school. The whole place was like two acres of garbage, the paper and plastic everywhere. All kinds of gravity on the wall.
First thing I suggested to the teachers,
I took the higher class teachers meeting 1200 students 75 teachers, I'm not talking about a small school.
So, I called a meeting of the teachers and I said I am proposing the following.
So, first thing is we will establish a student's counsel
I tell you I had no camera I could have had a camera at that time to take the pictures of faces the pictures look like this man and madam and what kind of thing is very decomposed which planet students council This is what is that I said that is a council which will be formed of students students will elect their own their own representatives to the council and this council will decide on whatever happens is
somebody objected I said you have got a choice you want to work with me I want to get up here.
Simple
very great reluctance. Now you might think that when I went to the students with that they were delighted they were not delighted the students also looked at me like I'm crazy
because no one treated them with respect until that time. So they said What is this should counsel what is that so I said to them I said look, this is what we want this is what we want to do with the school and we want you guys to participate in this. So elected representatives for the got into the act
know that I will sit in the council meetings or in the council meeting the teachers are not going to intimidate the student you will listen to them
visit what can they decide I said anything?
They will decide on which are the holidays they will decide on what time the school will be they will decide on how long when it when will it end they will decide on periods they will decide what intervals they will decide on what time lunch break what time tea break what time this break that break anything they want the students will decide and it will be implemented.
What do you think?
Do you think we suddenly had every day is a holiday you're playing all the time
the time goes down from eight hours to one hour using this app
nothing changed
think except the now that did that voluntarily because they came to those numbers themselves.
They said we want a longer break I said no problem.
I got an issue what's the issue this motion has to be completed we got to finish this
today we have to do that
then what we'll do is we'll take a longer break and then we'll have the the end of the school extended a little bit as it that's fine but the teachers have to go home they've got a particular bus they have to catch and so on and so forth. So what about that put it back to them
with some minor changes which you are happy to make but everything was voluntary they did themselves then I called them and I said look see the sole school garbage? No, that's a no problem. I said what I'm going to do is I'm not telling you to clean the garbage All I'm saying is what I will do is I brought her I did a drawing of the school map of schooling
and i said i divided up the map into the number of classes present this piece belongs to this class this piece belong to this class
and every three months I'm going to run a competition of the most beautiful plots in the school and I will give prizes
that school changed overnight.
Overnight isn't killer you put a walking stick it will grow
you know beautiful soil and whether it's for one night that and that garbage got clean walls got painted they came to me they said can you give us some lime and some brushes? And what is it what to paint this is why you wrote
you don't want to write all this
didn't come to me the students didn't come to me and say find somebody and paint the wall there's no give us get get us the lime and stuff we will do
the blood blood from their homes. They came to me they said can I plant so don't ask me questions. Dumb Questions. I gave you the plot of land belongs to you do what you want.
What led
the student as a prep costume so please can we have a plumber I don't out route by Zipcar. Why? What is the key word? That what I was eating for the last 10 years.
Half the time the water was leaking because I didn't turn the taps off. But they come to me say can you find a plumber please we want to fix this
shampoo. Nothing changed.
I didn't I didn't fire one single teacher.
Nothing. I said no corporal punishment no teacher will touch a student I made me realize that if you beat the student I will beat you
will go to the police.
If you touch a student I will touch you. Simple as that.
Is that all they will know discipline is a very good fantastic discipline is the largest thing where you
Discipline but not not like not not military discipline
must come from inside.
dignity
is the principal thing. And dignity comes from trusting them like human beings.
And finally, we said teachers are accountable to the students, they are your customers, they will decide whether you have a job tomorrow or not, they will decide. And if you get a good feedback from the children, we give you bonuses.
We're not just punishing you, we'll give you a bonus, we'll give you your one month salary. 10 months salary is whatever we give you the bonus, students will design
something that changes class size and composition, not more than 15 students per class, multiple ages not by date of manufacture.
And third one is multiple teachers in the class, a class teacher, and subject teachers. So each class will have maybe two teachers, maybe three teachers, depending on what's being taught. And I'll come to the project teaching in a minute. So you will see how it will make sense.
But that is must that must happen supported by a state of the art technology. And today it has become not just cheap, it has become free.
With my laptop, and with the high speed internet that we have. And this is now standard across the world practically, except for South Africa, which has the largest internet in the world. But otherwise, every place in the world we got 4g and we got you know, very decent internet speeds. With a laptop. And without internet speed, I can bring a classroom from China into this class.
I can show you, for example, if I'm teaching how rain falls, I can show you a fantastic National Geographic or discovery video on the entire process of precipitation, which brings makes it real for you.
And so on and so on. And all of it is free. I paid nothing for it, I'm already being pointed at connection, my I already have a laptop, nothing you need nothing. So state of the art technology does not mean that you have now pumping money into a school, nothing, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing.
I can get you lectures for example, today. And this is the beauty of really great institutions. MIT, for example, has got everything open source everything or the entire library of MIT is available for anyone what is running.
So I can get you for example, I can get the the the
the greatest teacher of physics got in from MIT, I can show you live his lectures in physics, I'm teaching you, for example, motion, and I can show you a
on I can show you a video of that man teaching the issue of how a pendulum moves. And you can see that video live, I can show it to your children. So they are they are learning from that great teacher of physics. In America. They're sitting and learning, learning that's free.
It is happening in your schools, it is not happening as why
because you run the schools to make money and your teachers teach for the father salary. That's what all this stuff is available free of cost.
Then
curriculum and syllabus, refer to your core purpose curriculum must fulfill the core purpose, design the curriculum, which can deliver what your core purpose is supposed to deliver.
a curriculum that does not deliver that is worthless. Now you might say, Well, you know, I am bound by the state curriculum and so on and so forth. No, you're not published its curriculum, the state curriculum, you have to fulfill certain requirements of that. But you can design your own curriculum, which fulfills those requirements and more so that your children when they go for a state examination, even though that is a nonsensical thing doesn't matter, they will still pass very well. Plus, they will have real knowledge
when they go out of the school, state curricula do not have to restrict you to teaching only that.
Focus on understanding and application not on mindless memorizing and regurgitation.
And understand that a curriculum and syllabus must create a lifelong love for learning. Then may I just ask you this question. Many of you here have students have children who have graduated from school, what did your son or daughter do with their textbooks The day after they passed?
If they were Indian, the property sold them for in a secondhand bookshop because they don't we don't throw stuff we make how much it makes some money out of it.
Otherwise, junk
so for 15 years to teach them physics and give me
Read math and this and that. And the value they have for that is they take the textbook and junk it. What does it tell you? What should it tell you?
And that's why they stop teaching and start discovering.
I'm going to send out some reading material with
this, were
the one of the articles of mine, which says all teachers stopped teaching.
So please read that when the when the material comes.
The next thing which must change is teaching methodology.
Integrate knowledge, not discrete subjects. And I'm going to come to that and explain that we will detail in a few minutes. Focus on application and practical experience, not just on mugging up discrete bits of information, and open doors to further inquiry.
Some more questions, support dissent, support this critical analysis.
And understand very clearly, that children listen with their eyes. everybody listens with their eyes, even adults. People don't care what you say until they see what you do.
You cannot tell children to play Serato budget in the budget if you are not putting a lot of budget in the budget as simple as that.
You can't tell children not to tell lies if you are telling lies.
So teach by demonstration, because that's the only way to teach.
The examination system.
regurgitating and digested food is called vomit.
regurgitating undigested information is called passing examinations.
Or orders an exam is the name given to a test to test to see if you can regurgitate vomit out unprocessed information within a specific timeframe.
You need to abolish this system. Shut it down.
So you might say well, you know, do we do we not examine children and of course you examine them.
But you don't examine them this way. You know why this system is done? Because it is easiest for you to do not for the children. simplest thing for me is to simply write a bunch of questions as long as they are regurgitating the answers by new pasts. What does it mean it means nothing.
I don't care if
the child has no voice.
You must examine them for what test understanding test application
test change values.
Test for broader horizons,
not just memory.
Not just memory.
Student is a human being is not a silicon chip. There are seeing how much data can I get into this.
And the final thing
is teachers
think agriculture.
If you're a farmer
and you want a good crop, what has to do three things are required. Number one is prepare the soil
you can have the best seat in the world. But you go and put it into soil which is not prepared which is Tony and Rocky and it's full of you know thoughts and all kinds of bad stuff that crop will fail.
So the first thing to do is prepare the slide. Number two is plant the best seed
you can prepare the soil beautifully, but you've got substandard seed, you still will not get a good crop. And the third one is water it
you have the best side in the world best prepared, best seeds planted, no watering.
They will not germinate or if they germinate, they will dry up and die, compensate three things.
That's why I say teachers don't become farmers.
What is the price of the ground? Prepare the students who receive the learning.
prepare them to receive the learning
and then give them the best information and knowledge. help them connect the dots not just colored dots. And then the watering is the standing in the night before Allah subhanho wa Taala and crying for the understanding of the students.
That's why I was sent as a teacher and with the same framework. Allah subhanaw taala gave him the strength same framework yet through Allah He Maya t
User Kimbo you want the mo Makita Baba achema Allah does it tell them what the revelation is recite for them the book beside the ayah and then use a key prepare them glorify them to receive what you told them and then teach them you Ali Muhammad kita you already told that what is there to teach there is to teach and then while he can demonstrate how it is to be done, Allah
Allah is cavaco Salah what was that we are going to go and also
prepare yourself for Salaam COMM And then what must I do? Did
a masala establish Salah? No, it has to be taught how is it to be done
and ready to establish Salah? What does it mean? How am I to teach it? How am I to do it?
He taught the method sanlucar II to new solutions the last part which is the heck but do as you see me do pray as you see me
exactly the same framework for the physics teacher for the chemistry teacher for the mathematics teacher for the history teacher for the hottest teacher, substitute teacher, same methodology, which is the methodology of Muhammad Rasul Allah is
prepared aside lambda message and then cry in the night before Allah subhanho wa Taala.
Unless a teacher can cry for his or her students, they will not be the students, they cannot succeed.
And that's why teachers themselves must be inspired to be inspirational.
You cannot inspire anyone unless you are inspired yourself.
So we come to the last section of this which is the Quranic methodology of teaching. And at this point, let's quickly take a break and have some tea and come back in 15 minutes exactly and then we will finish the rest of the class
life