Planting the Seeds of Love; Making Our Education Techniques Age Appropriate

“Didn’t I tell you to...?” I heard my 5-year old son being scolded by his Quran teacher, as he stumbled over a few words in his lesson.

After an hour of a “rigorous” Quran recitation lesson, the teacher came out and told me that in addition to the one-hour class he takes, I should sit down with my son every day—after Fajr—and revise the lesson multiple times again.

The result: even though my son’s recitation is almost flawless at age 5—with tajweed better than most 40 year olds—he is extremely perturbed. Before he started lessons with this teacher, my son would pick up the Qaida himself and try to recite every now and then. Now, he feels discouraged and tries to avoid his lessons with all sorts of excuses.

I pointed out to the teacher that his methods were not quite age appropriate, only to be met with a look of disdain on his face as if I wasn’t serious enough about having my son learn the Quran.

However, for me, planting the the Seeds of Love

Making Our Education Techniques Age Appropriateseeds of love for Allah and His religion into my children’s hearts is of utmost importance, so that they “want to” and not “have to” read the Quran.

Unfortunately, the root cause of this imbalance is the lack of proper understanding of the stages of development amongst parents as well as the educators. We do not even have to turn to Western research and theories (not that I am saying they aren’t helpful), to understand the kind of behavior we need to be exhibiting with our children. Sayyidina Ali advised us to play with our children until the age of seven, to discipline and teach them from the age of seven to fourteen and to befriend them at the age of fourteen. Now consider the oft-quoted hadith of our beloved Prophet : صلى الله عليه وسلم

“Tell your children to pray when they are seven years old and smack them (lightly) if they do not pray when they are ten, and separate them in their beds.” (Abu Dawud)

These narrations clearly indicate the attitude toward children’s upbringing exhibited by our early generations—lack of harshness and formal education during the child’s formative years. If a prayerthe most important pillar of faith, after the declaration of faith—is to become a part of the child’s daily routine at the age of seven, then what can we say about the imposition of rigorous learning techniques before that?!

The question which then arises is: How do we then inculcate Islam in our children’s lives?

The answer to that is simple: Practice it and your children will follow. If you are in the habit of reciting the Quran every day, your children will pick up that love from you and do likewise.

“Play,” which is often cited as an important part of the child’s development, is, in fact, informal learning carried out by the child himself in an environment conducive to his developmental needs. It involves role-playing or acting out of correct morals by the parent himself so that the child will informally pick up the right etiquettes of daily life.

If you really want to take a more formal approach to teaching Islam, then do not make your lessons more than 15 minutes long, especially for boys. In fact, I would recommend building concentration span exercises (like playing darts) before delving into 15-minute lessons. One of the 19th-century educators, Charlotte Mason, recommended very short lessons in order to ensure optimum absorption of the lesson.

While dealing with children, parents and educators must realize that in order to raise our children to be like the great sahabi Anas, we need to raise them as the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم did. Let’s have a look at the love and respect with which the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم treated Anas: Anas said,

“When Allah’s Apostle صلى الله عليه وسلم arrived at Madina, Abu Talha took hold of my hand and brought me to Allah’s Apostle and said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Anas is an intelligent boy, so let him serve you.” 

Anas added,

“So I served the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم at home and on journeys; by Allah, he never said to me for anything which I did:

“Why have you done this like this?” or, for anything which I did not do:“Why have you not done this like this?” [Reported by Al-Bukhari]

What does this narration tell us? It tells us that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم never challenged children beyond their natural capacities, since Allah has had the pen lifted from the child’s book of deeds, because of his limited capability and to give him sufficient room to grow before he is held accountable for anything.

Unfortunately, we, in our quest to achieve “fast-food” results, have completely deserted the teachings of our religion, which has led to devastating results. At the end of the day, I would rather have a child who loves to pray and recite the Quran, as opposed to someone who grows up with perfect tajweed whilst believing the religion is harsh.

With the plethora of information out there, little effort is needed to navigate through the sunnah of our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, as well as the western child development philosophies, which speak out against unnatural, age inappropriate learning techniques.

May Allah guide the parents and educators of this Ummah to plant the seeds of love for this religion in our future generations!

[Sara Tariq/Insight]