Today in the teacher’s lounge I had an interesting discussion with the Islamic studies teacher.  She was mentioning to me that the book she has to use to teach fiqh is so heavy and dense with information that it overwhelms the kids.  It has a lot of “nit picky” details all stemming from the Hanafi madhab.  She doesn’t seem to like the book much.

Personally, I don’t think I’d like it much either.  Not for high school students, at least.  I don’t think that any of them really need to know, just yet, considering their situation in life and at school, so much in depth information about how to pray.  Teaching the details implies that you know the basics, and unfortunately I’m not sure that that is the case.  I know from seeing it first hand that some of these kids can’t get through 2 rakah of sunnah without making major nullifying mistakes.  So why do they need to spend hours learning how to hold their hands, or which degree to make their backs form during rukuh, or just how low to go when it comes time for sujud?

The way I see it is:  Imaan isn’t in the details.  And I think these kids really need something to raise their Imaan, not something to drag it down with too much information.  The idea of being slammed with rules and regulations for something they have to do everyday (pray) would just be dreary and uninviting.  As another teacher put it, we want to show these kids how easy it is to practice this religion, and that it is made to make our lives easier–not more confusing.

If in the future, once these students have perfected their basic salaah by meeting the fardh requirements, THEN they should move on to the advanced aspects and details of it.  Until then, as I told the teacher, I’d be happy just knowing that they know they have to pray and they get that much done.  Maybe my standards are low, but it’s easier to have them met.

As I’ve mentioned before once a week I have to stay after school for an hour and make myself availible to my students for tutoring.  Towards the beginning of the year this one hour after school was quite a waste of time for me.  I’d wait the whole time for no one to show up.  It was rather frustrating as I knew my students needed the help but just weren’t asking for it.

Slowly but surely some students started coming on a regular basis.  Every Tuesday I can expect to see about 4 or 5 girls mostly from my Geometry class to come ask me for help.  They generally do their homework assignment for the day with me.  As much as they say it helps them, for the most part these girls are really intelligent, so I don’t think they need me to succeed.

Anyway, last week tutoring happened to fall on the day before a test in 9th grade Algebra 1, and a quiz in both 9th grade Geometry and 8th grade Algebra 1.  Wow… three assessment in four classes all on the same day.  Tutoring had EXPLODED.  There were about 20 kids that came, which is 15 more than the norm.  I was buzzing around my room from student to student trying to figure out what each student needed from me.  It was all kind of… exciting I guess.  They finally came!  They finally asked for help!  And most importantly,

They all conquered their quizzes and tests!!  The students that came for tutoring did substantially better on their assessment compared to their own average and the class average.  It was truly a help to them.  I really hope they noticed the difference it made in their grades, insha’Allah.

Tomorrow is another Tuesday, so we’ll see who shows up.  There are some quizzes and tests this week, too, so hopefully some of the people who showed up last week will come back again for another push before studying.

I’m so happy! Alhumdu’lillah

Two things happened at school this past week that made me pretty upset.  They both had to do with the same subject.  The funny thing is, I can’t quite figure out WHY what happened made me upset.  So I’m just going to share the two stories and hope that maybe one of you can tell me why what happened was so… wrong.

1)  For my 8th grade Algebra 1 test I gave the students an extra credit question:  name at least six of the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasalaam’s wives.  One of the boys raised his hand and said he couldn’t think of any.  Before I could say anything in response to him, a girl in my class told him to just guess by listing six girls names.  And so he did… outloud, “Kelly, Michelle, Melissa…”  Everyone began to laugh.  I told him to stop because he was being disrespectful, and that his joke wasn’t funny at all.  The thing is… when I sat down, I couldn’t figure out why that was disrespectful?

2) Walking in the hallway I overheard some girls making fun of someone’s name.  One friend said to the other, “If I ever met someone named Anas, I would totally call him… ANUS!” The other friends burst into laughter and kept walking to class.  I turned to see who it was, and gave them all a nasty look.

Anas ibn Malik has narrated one thousand two hundred eighty-six hadith, one hundred sixty-eight hadith are in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.  When the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasalaam arrived in Madina, Umm Sulaym presented her son, Anas, to the Messenger and asked if he would accept him as a servant. He was ten years old at that time and served the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasalaam until his death ten years later. Many of the descriptions of the Prophet sallalahu alyahi wasalaam were related by Anas.  His mother once asked the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasalaam to supplicate for Anas. He, upon him be peace, said, ‘O Allah, increase him in wealth and sons, give him long life and forgive him his sins.’ Anas would recollect that he had 125 offspring in his lifetime and only two of them were girls, his garden gave fruit twice a year and had basil which smelt like musk and he had lived long and had even survived poison and he hoped for the fourth part of the supplication. He was the last companion to die in Basra in the year 93H aged 103 years old.  He was the longest living companion of the Prophet Muhammad sallalahu alayhi wasalaam.

What’s in a name?

When I was in high school we had a middle class:  those students who got Cs and would fight for a B.  Nowadays it seems like the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.  The students I teach are either getting As or Ds!!

This, I think, is a result of the mentality that some of the students have when they come to class.  The “poor” if you will just… don’t… care!!  They come to class acting like, “Yea, go ahead, give me an F, I don’t care.”  These are the same students who don’t flinch from referrals, don’t come to class prepared with textbooks and pencils, don’t turn in homework, and don’t pay attention.  What’s their deal?

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The 1st quarter of school ended about one week ago.  And as you may have guessed it, with that time came a flood of students with a sudden concern for their grades.  These are the students who don’t do any real work all quarter, float through class without a care in the world, never ask questions, participate, or show any genuine interest.  Imagine my surprise when now I find them checking up on grades, and asking for assignments back to see how many points they had earned.

I was happy to see they were enthusiastic about improving, but at the same time very disheartened that they would wait ’til the last moment to show such enthusiasm.  Because really, how much could any student possibly improve a bad grade a week before the quarter ends?

The culminating moment of desperation came on the morning of the last Friday of the quarter.  A student approached me after I had finished teaching a new lesson asking me what in the world she could possibly do to improve her grade.  She absolutely couldn’t take home a D to her parents.  She said she would do anything:  extra credit, assignments, projects, retakes, redos, etc.  I just looked her like, “Are you kidding?”

I picked up a pile of homework that had been turned in that morning and quickly glanced through the papers.  Hers wasn’t in there.  So I asked her, “Did you do your homework?” (more…)