Muslim homeschoolers swell in numbers
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Muslim homeschool on 25 Feb 2010.
For the longest time, many people looked askance at homeschool as if it were a desperate attempt by fundamentalist Christians at burying their heads in the sand. Misconceptions abound, but no matter. Although it is true that for Christians, the preservation and inculcation of faith values and a religious worldview have been among the primary appeal to homeschool, there are many other compelling reasons for deserting conventional schools.
But these days homeschool is no longer the preserve of Christians alone.
Today, you can find homeschoolers of all colour or creed, spread across the globe. And they are doing it out of a strong can-do spirit that refuses the dictates of the state or so-called education experts who dare to deny parents the right to raise their own children in the way they see fit. Of faith communities that have adopted homeschooling as the education methodology of choice, Muslim homeschoolers are the most notable. In Malaysia, there is a growing number of Muslim families who have not only discovered the joy of educating their children at home – see for example, MamaFiza and Rasheedah – but are also spreading the good word with passion and exuberance.
In the US where three-quarters of the country’s 2 million homeschoolers are Christian, Muslims are swelling the ranks. Here’s a report by Tara Bahrampour of The Washington Post that should interest homeschoolers in our country:
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ON A CHILLY AFTERNOON IN WESTERN LOUDON COUNTY, a group of children used tweezers to extract rodent bones from a regurgitated owl pellet. A boy built a Lego launcher. A girl practiced her penmanship. On the wall, placards read, “I fast in Ramadan,” “I pay zakat” and “I will go on hajj.”
Welcome to Priscilla Martinez’s home — and her children’s school, where Martinez is teacher, principal and guidance counselor, and where the credo “Allah created everything” is taught alongside math, grammar and science.
Martinez and her six children, ages 2 to 12, are part of a growing number of Muslims who home-school. In the Washington area, Martinez says, she has seen the number of home-schoolers explode in the past five years.
Although three-quarters of the nation’s estimated 2 million home-schoolers identify themselves as Christian, the number of Muslims is expanding “relatively quickly,” compared with other groups, said Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute.
They do so, he said, for the same reasons as non-Muslims: “Stronger academics, more family time, they want to guide social interaction, provide a safe place to learn and . . . teach them [their] values, beliefs and worldview.”
Parents say it is an attractive alternative to public schools, with whose traditions and values they are not always comfortable, and Islamic schools, which might be too far away, cost too much or lack academic rigor.
Parents say it is an attractive alternative to public schools, with whose traditions and values they are not always comfortable, and Islamic schools, which might be too far away, cost too much or lack academic rigor.
If Muslims have come to embrace home schooling later than others, it might be in part because so many Muslims in the United States are immigrants who might not be aware of the option. In fact, for many immigrants, the idea of home schooling runs counter to their reasons for coming to America, which frequently include better educational opportunities. And public school has long been seen as a key portal to assimilation.
When Sanober Yacoob arrived from Pakistan 13 years ago and began to home-school her three children, she was the only immigrant she knew of who was doing so. Others from Muslim countries “thought I was weird,” she said. “One of them said to me, ‘I hope you’re not going to destroy yourself, and they will grow up ignorant.’ ”
Now, more are following in her footsteps, and many use the highly regarded Calvert curriculum for home-schoolers.
[Continue reading Muslims turning to homeschooling here.]
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