Having gone to public schools, I came out with promise to myself that I would try my best to send my children to Islamic school. Of course I also wanted to make sure that they also receive the best education. Alhamdulillah I was able to do this, as currently my children have been attending Islamic school for many years. Our Islamic school has the same problem with teacher turn over, and community problems, but on the whole students have come out of this Islamic school on the top of their class, and most of them as they have gone on to high school and college have excelled among their non-Muslim peers.

There is no doubt there are a lot of problems with our Islaic schools, however I would say that we must work to make our Islamic schools better and better, we must not give up. It is a work in progress, no doubt but so were the private Jewish, and Catholic ad parochial schools decades ago when they started. They did not give up, and they stuck to it and they were able to transform their schools into the best schools. We must stick to this resolve.

I believe, in this country (USA) we have so much available to us, if we were to only avail it. We must understand and accept the problems we face within ourselves, because much of the negatives in Islamic schools are portraying the negative points of us as a people. We need to accept this, and then we need to work on ways to overcome these problems.

If one is able to afford it, I still believe Islamic is the best. Look to see how past graduates are doing. Look at the students who are in the school currently and try to get a feel as how do they seem, socially, Islamically, and academically.

Does the Islamic school participate in the county or city’s science fair, spelling bee, forums, writing competitions, etc.

Despite other problems, there are Islamic schools out there that have produced very good outcomes. The thing most impressive to me about the Islamic school my kids attend is that, even before my kids were of age to attend, I noticed that the students of the school, were very confident of themselves as Muslims. I saw that they had very full life, and that as they graduated from the Islamic school and entered the public high schools, despite the drastic culture change, most of them excelled academically and yet maintained their confidence and commitment to Islam and being Muslims. This made me satisfied, and although their are many improvements necessary in our Islamic school,it is the continuous production of these results year after year, graduating class after graduating class, which makes me satisfied and motivated to work harder.

Reason being I believe is that in Islamic school, you must establish the love, the commitment, and the pride in being a Muslim into the child. This is the foundation they need in order to flourish in the rest of the world. They will be able to be in environment with other Muslims, where their life will be all about being Muslim, and not about being different and on the defense, as the case in public schools. They will make friends who are Muslim and they will have the foundation of the knowledge of Islam, as well as the peers to help them through the subsequent years.

I have seen this year after year, and I work at public high schools sometimes, I see those girls walking with their heads held high with the hijabs on andn some with jilbabs. With the Muslim students getting together for Juma, and they are proud of it, and they don’t hide it. And I also see something I didn’t see when I was in high school, that is the other students, respect them and it has actually become kind of normal to have some of those Muslims in their class.

So lets be determined to make our Islamic schools the best, and not give up, after all we are the ones who can do this, no one else is going to come and do it for us. And why cant we do it, are the Jewish, Catholics, etc. better than us? Alhamdulillah we are Msulims!

My children are 7 and 5 and in an Islamic school in London which is meant to be one of the ‘better’ Islamic schools around. However, they have problems finding good staff and yesterday my daughter brought homework back and the teacher had spelt ‘bottle’ like this: ‘bottel’. I don’t make a huge fuss about these things but slowly they add up and I see parents complaining regularly but not much is done about it. It would be wonderful to see some non Muslim teachers, even part-time or temporary basis to come and share their experiences as most of the Muslim teachers lack a broad experience. I also am finding the Islamic side a little weak too. I don’t want to go into further criticisms but I do feel stuck in that I want my children to flourish, not just academically but in their creativity, self-expression etc. I am now considering alternatives which would be a good state primary or homeschooling. But there are problems with both and many people close to me are sceptical that i’ll be able to home school. Plus there aren’t support networks here as much as there are in the US. I wear niqab and being naturally quite shy, I don’t think I could mingle with a crowd of non Muslims easily – I wasn’t always like this, in fact I went to a non-Islamic private school from the age of 9 and University till 23 and only started wearing niqab eight years ago. It is difficult to get so involved in a non Muslim school due to niqab and the Islamic school doesn’t allow parents to get involved except in fund raising matters etc. I would not be allowed to sit through a class or volunteer in a lesson. They just don’t allow it as they get plenty of criticism from parents anyway and that would just open the door.

I’d love to homeschool, even for a few years but I have a younger child who is nearly 3 and i’m expecting another one alhamdulillah. I am praying hard and making duah as I don’t know whether to plod along in Islamic school now and consider a good non Muslim private school for secondary school later. That brings its own problems as the private schools I know do not allow hijab. The local grammar school does, but you need to pass the 11 plus exams to secure a place. There are about 100 places and about 2000 applicants I think.

So I still am not sure what is best. I want my children to learn how to mix with non Muslim children but I don’t know any. Here in the UK we don’t have kids playing outside. Plus they are so into their ‘high school Musical’ and ‘Bratz’ culture. I’m sure there are Muslim children like this but we don’t know any. My children don’t hang out with kids other than those at school or through family and friends. I am happy with their choice of friends at school mashaallah as they come from good practising families.
The local good state primary has a high intake of Muslim children but I am unsure as how practising their families are.

There are so many factors to consider and I agree with sister Aisha that each child is different and each school or method of teaching is different.

May Allah guide us all, ameen

Imam Suhaib Webb visited a school and saw that the girls wore shorts like underwears and bikinis and that the school was a zoo. Frankly me studying in the modern day High School, what he saw is nothing. Everyday as I walk around the hall, I see everyone kissing and going down the neck. Whenever I sit in class, The teachers made sex jokes. The students behind me and in front of me talk about which times they do sex and the process of how they do it. And unfortunately, some of those students claim to be muslims.

I am sure this is not a High School parents would want to send their children to. As the hour approches, the world is growing more corrupt and misguided.

I would recommend parents to send their children to an islamic school from pre school to 3rd grade, then to a elementry school from 4th to 5th grade, then homeschool their children from the years on unless they could find a good privet school that doesnt commit such high school drama that a regular public High school has.

Allah knows best

Some (somewhat random) thoughts:

In theory I’d like to be able to have really outstanding Islamic schools to send my kids to. I used to be 110% pro-Islamic school, and this was coming largely out of a Catholic upbringing where Catholic schools were synonymous with instilling discipline, good moral & ethical training, community leadership, modest gender relations, and last but definitely not least, top-rate academics. Not to mention being strong advocates for education of inner-city and other potentially disadvantaged youth.

Okay, catholic schools have lots of problems too, but basically you knew the kids would have access to a rigorous academic education in a structured environment that paid serious homage to the traditional virtues. I thought Islamic schools were like that.

Unfortunately I discovered otherwise. Mainly I think it’s because Muslims are ambiguous about their support of these institutions. We don’t seem to be committed to developing these institutions to be the world class places of learning and moral/spiritual/ethical training that they could be. There isn’t a clear, unified vision of what these schools could and should be.

I know there are many financial, logistical, infrastructure hurdles, but I finally came to the point of deciding I don’t want my kids to be the guinea pigs in this experimentation process; at least not full time.

Part of what I’ve noticed in the community is a lack of sincere interest in the development of other family’s kids. And even more basic – you feel like people just don’t LIKE each other’s kids. There is a strong competitive, dog-eat-dog streak between muslims and this gets played out on the kids.

If your kid is not hafiz PLUS on one-way-track to be a doctor or engineer or PhD, not math whiz, not quiet-as-a-mouse – he or she is a loser.

Also, one of my biggest peeves with Islamic schools (and I have limited knowledge, just speaking from my experience), is there is a lot of backbiting and backstabbing going on from parents and staff/admin against kids. Complaining about so-and-so’s kids, gossiping about the personal problems of the parents and stigmatizing their kids for it, bad-mouthing kids who were in the public schools and just transferred in, etc.

Because many communities are small, the gossip and toxic attitudes spread like wild fire. Kids get labeled for life within a certain community.

As well, schools seem to often have a dominant ethnic caste thing, so if your kids don’t fit into that, they are never truly accepted. They feel as much, or more, of outsiders as they would in a public school.

One thing I like about public school is that the “sins of the father” don’t get visited upon the kids. They are basically treated as they are. They don’t care if your dad is the imam or if he is a cab driver. They are not focused on whether your parents are paying their school bills on time or are the biggest donors to the school. Or if the kids’ parents are divorced or had some other family issue. Basically one feels most public school teachers and administrators are genuinely rooting for your kid to succeed. They take delight in your kid. I generally don’t feel that way dealing with islamic schools or other muslim parents.

DON’T GET ME WRONG- I know some very dedicated individual Islamic school teachers and administrators – what I’m talking about is the stifling, judgmental small-town culture that arises and takes over in the islamic school and community setting.

I want to re-emphasize the point about stigma of muslim kids who go to public school. I’ve experienced that in several islamic schools (not dealing with my kids, so not biased in this way), weekend islamic programs, and even with the muslim homeschooling crowd, of utter loathing of muslim kids who go to public school. They are talked about in very disrespectful ways as if they are coming into the islamic school or masjid to infect the other perfect muslim angels. Some muslim folks practically hold their noses when they see them coming.

Even with the kids who go to weekend Islamic school, I hear their teachers kvetching about the kids’ behavior, their low level of Islamic knowledge, having limited time to do anything spiritually meaningful or influencial with them, their lack of interest, etc.

So I feel like these kids get the taint or stain of public school on them, and even with their efforts at the weekend or summer school, they can never quite wash it off and never are fully accepted by the community.

Again, this is from my limited experience, but I definitely sense a growing divide and I wonder if our communities will witness more and more of the sharp divisions between very religious and secular/non-practicing muslims we see in other countries.

I for one believe that we need to engage people in order to have them hear us and public school is a good neutral avenue because of the common goal. (I have tried homeschool and have read many homeschool books as a licensed teacher i do not think that homeschool is an option for many people, we tried Islamic school but found it having narrowly define philosophy and no real plan to fulfill the visionand goals their created)

I talked to the principal and the teachers at my children school regarding my children Muslim identity all the time. And i stress how important this is to my family. often times I found the teachers very understanding and support even my children attempt to fast for example. This in a way help the teachers understand what Islam is all about. I always engage my children with any issues that come up at school, masjids and the community and always help them see the big picture and their role as Muslim and where they should stand. It is very important to me that my children understand where Islam stand with regard to other religion and what it means to be the minority. To me this is how we teach them to be Muslim, facing real issues head on. I encourage my children to see the beauty and compassion in all human being regardless of who they are. I also make the teachers my ally, show respects and model the behaviors that I want them to have when dealing with people. Having been raise in Muslim country I have found more people committed to goals and visions here in the west than back home and that takes integrity.

As Muslim I think we still have things to learn from people around us here in the states be it Muslim or not, otherwise I don’t think many of us would want to still live here. I honestly think that many who run Islamic school still carrying baggage from the old country and want to raise the children to be like them. I think part of the responsibility of our leadership is to teach parents how to parent in this environment. I believe that many people send their children to islamic schools because they fear what is out there. To hide is not going to make what you fear go away. Muslims should be stronger than this! How can we establish the truth and share the beauty of Islam when we are not there to begin with and hide our children. Our children has to learn how to confront their fear of non muslim and learn to be with others without losing themselves.

May Allah guide us all and forgave our mistakes.

I can’t send my son to the Islamic school in our area because he is autistic and they are not equipt to deal with this. In public school he gets excellent special needs services… BUT it ends there.

I’ll share one thing that absolutely threw me for a loop. I live in a part of the US that was populated with a lot of native Americans… so the lake in our town has a ‘legend’ associated with it. The story goes something like this: A lot of the indians living around the lake were drowning so the chief of the tribe went to see the lake god. The lake god told him that if he tied up his daughter and threw her into the lake as a sacrifice he would stop drowning the indians. So the chief did it and he was considered a hero. Now my son was in 3rd grade at the time and the assignment was to… get this… DRAW PICTURES OF THIS STORY. I just about fainted when this assignment came home. What kind of message is that to send to any child? Kids are just forming their ideas of God at that point and to let them hear a story about some mean lake god that insists on human sacrifice is just stupid.

Anyway, thats my story. Inshallah the Islamic school will be able to take him soon.

I think the best option would be neither public school or Islamic school, but to homeschool. I homeschooled from Grade 5 onwards and I think it is one of the best things my family did for me.

School is around the corner, and we all have the best intentions to raise our children well, myself included.

I am an American Muslim convert of 6 years. I have attended public and private schools prior to becoming Muslim. I have three children ages 13, 7 and 8. My children have been homeschooled, with the exception of a year in Islamic school, and my oldest ( aboy) one year in public school.

Each child has his or her own personality, strengths , and weaknesses. I think one should consider these things, when they decide which route to go with education. Be it public, private or home education.

Fortunately everyone has had various experiences, and no two will be exactly alike.
I believe that their are benefits in all. I suggest you look at each individual student, the schools, and weigh the pro’s and cons.

My oldest, is a boy. 13 years old, very social, not really into sports, loves Islam, but likes to fit in and be popular. He is also going through what most boys do at this age.

Perhaps at this critical point in his life, public school may not be a good option. Perhaps Islamic school is too expensive, and perhaps I am not able to stay home, nor monitor him in home education.

I must look at the pros and cons of each situation, which is the best place, for him at the time?

Also my other children. My 8 year old ,loves Islam, loves to learn, and he himself feel public school is not a place for Muslim children. He cries if we mention the possibility of it.

I try and give them information about the options, and we sit and discuss it as a family Shurah.

My daughter, age 7, is also very social, loves to be center of attention, but is not going through the same things as my 13 year old son, so I may feel a little better with her being in public school. But as she gets older perhaps I will not.

All three have a strong foundation from being homeschooled this long, and have been given Islam at a young age, but I do feel that a positive environment is the best option.

Unfortunately we do not live in such an environment, and we have to give our children the armor to go out in the world.

We have to balance things. 8-10 hours in an un-Islamic environment compare d to perhaps 5-6 in one, may not be enough for your child, depending on their stage of development at the time.

We need to make sure our children are proud of being Muslim, and able to stand up for what they believe, and not be tempted by others. This is difficult , even for adults. So I think the opportunity to learn what is right and what is wrong, as well as the opportunity to choose the right decision is what we need to offer our children.

How do we do that, if we keep our children in an Islamic environment 24/7, or a Dunya environment for the majority of their time?

It is a difficult decision, I know I have to make it each year, and I stress each year, doubting if we are making the right choice.

I just want to stress to brothers, do not let your wives tackle this alone. It means a lot to us when you are involved with the children , by taking an active part. Visit the schools, meet the teacher, look at the curriculum, ask about the teaching methods of the teachers. Make sure your children are given an area to pray if in public school, make sure they attend the Islamic events for the youth on the weekends, and special occasions.

We have to make the Deen fun !

And if in your children are in an Islamic school, let them hang out with non -Muslim friends in the neighborhood on the weekends.

But make sure they are positive friends. I have found that sometimes my kids Non-Mulsim friends are better behaved than their Muslim friends. This gives them the chance to give Dawah ,and become confident about sharing Islam.

If your children are homeshcooled, let them do extra things within the community, girl scouts, join a sports team, community service etc.

This will also provide opportunity to have a balance.
It is difficult if everyone in your family is Muslim to have this balance , while it is also difficult if you are a convert and no one in your family is Muslim.

I make Dua for all of you.
Look at the benefits that public education can give, such as the ability to be comfortable with being different then others, giving Dawah, socializing with others that are different, perhaps a little competition, etc.

Islamic schools are taught by Muslim teachers, students learn Islam, Quran, and Islamic History, Arabic etc.

Home Education provides you the opportunity to customize your child’s education. You can do what ever you like pretty much. Its up to you.

Im an education Advisor, I specialize in Home education if you have any questions, about home education, learning assessments, curriculum etc.
http://www.aishaladon.com

Sr. Latifa:

Besides a few mistaken assumptions on your part, I have also worked and been around 4-5 Islamic schools, did you even read what I wrote?

sdw