Assalamo alaykum and welcome.
If you are reading this, chances are that you are somewhere between blind panic and utter excitement.
You may be a young mom with your first toddler, rearing to plunge into formal education with her to give her every ounce of yourself; or a mother whose children, for whatever reason, have not thrived, or even suffered, in school; maybe you are worried about the world we live in, where many fundamental values are rapidly been eroded, and want to safeguard and nurture faith in your children in a largely non religious society.
Wherever you are in your journey as a mother, just by being one you have a responsibility given to you by Allah. Homeschooling is a way in which we work to fulfill it. Alhamdulillah, it is the way my family chose. Sometimes out of sheer passion and deep conviction, other times for mere lack of a better option, but here we are.
This post is not meant to provide a fool-proof, comprehensive, step-by-step program so that, if you go through it, you will suddenly emerge a successful homeschooler. I simply compiled a list of practical tips that might help you feel less overwhelmed and bring your very own homeschool closer to becoming a reality, insha’Allah.
With that in mind I created a fun simple (and FREE) GET YOUR HOMESCHOOL STARTED printable to help you jot down your ideas and find your feet as an emerging home educator.
1. Upgrade your intention
Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) said:
{Indeed actions are considered based on the intentions, and everyone will be rewarded according to what he intended.} (Collected by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
If you want to home educate to feel or be regarded as super-mom, you will shortchange yourself. Homeschooling our children for the sake of Allah is a treasure that is there for the taking by those who are sincere.
Be determined not to miss out on it and rectify your intention daily: to be a mother that Allah is more pleased with; to really take charge of raising and educating the children He entrusted you with; to model the exemplary character you want to see in them; to teach them beneficial knowledge: the knowledge of their Creator and of their purpose in this life.
Writing a mission statement for your homeschool is a brilliant exercise to achieve clarity in your intention: it brings out what really matters to us, our values, our drive. Read here about how to write a homeschool mission statement.
2. Let yourself be inspired
Sampling what the main educational philosophies are about is sure to get you thinking about the way you want your homeschool to be. You don’t have to delve deep in any of them, but it can be interesting to see what they brought to the table. You will probably find that some ideas resonate with you much better than others.
Of course, as Muslims, we know that the only guidance that is complete, comprehensive and flawless is that of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, so take every educational philosophy with a pinch of salt. Never feel as though you have to fully subscribe to one of those schools of thought and stick with one method. And never turn off your critical filter.
Another way to be inspired is to see what other homeschoolers are doing. Remember, I said inspired, not intimidated!
Yes, blogs (those of people who – unlike me – know what they are doing with technology!) and social media are full of pristine images of unattainable perfection that main generate feelings of inadequacy in the reader … blah blah blah. It is up to us to be mature enough to know that there is life beyond the styled photography.
First of all, we must remember we are all humans and there is bound to be a certain amount of mess out of the shot and all around that beautiful arrangement. Secondly, someone’s fabulous online presence is by no means a hint at our “un-fabulousness”! As with everything, be careful who you let yourself be influenced by.
3. Build beneficial connections
Who said inspiration and support has necessarily to be found online? Before child rearing was at all on my radar, I became friends with a sister 10 years older and 3 kids wiser than me, who home educated. I was impressed, Allahumma baarik. I was impressed with her children and what she was doing for them, instead of pursuing her career. Soon after, I got married and had my first son and I found myself automatically turning to this friend for advice on education. Her insight was pure gold for me who basically had just come to motherhood – let alone homeschooling – from a whole other planet! I have been picking my friends’ brains ever since. It is a reciprocal service. This of course goes way beyond borrowing each other’s resources and exchanging reviews on curricula: A good sister, who is a good friend and homeschools, can be an invaluable presence at the coffee table, when things have not gone well and you need to have coffee and pick up the pieces. Your lives are similarly invested in the upbringing and education of your respective children, so she can grasp the magnitude of successes and milestone reached with far greater appreciation than other friends or family members who have never tried their hand and home education.
You do not have to be super outgoing to meet up with someone who home educates, have a chat and ask all your questions. I cannot stress it enough: the support of your fellow homeschoolers is invaluable. Find some you get on with. Become friends.
4. Determine subjects and levels
Make a list of the subjects you want your child to learn. Don’t forget to include Islamic sciences such as Qur’an, Arabic and whatever branch of Islamic knowledge you deem suitable at this point. They don’t necessarily have to study all the subjects all the time and it helps to keep the list minimal. Have an idea of what your child’s level is. If you are in the UK, and you are not adverse to the school system, you can check out the National Curriculum guidelines for the various subjects your child would be taught if he was in school. If you are removing your child from school you will know how he was doing at the level he was. Otherwise you can go by your child’s age, look at resources for that age and see how they work for them, then adjust accordingly with more challenging or easier materials and build on that. It is possible that he might be at different levels in each subject.
5. Gather your materials
You have decided on a bunch of different subject, but what curriculum do you pick for each? again, your fellow homeschoolers will be a great asset in helping you take this decision insha’Allah. Ask for reviews, ask them to show you their books or lend them to you. Some will have homeschooled multiple children and have sampled a variety of approaches and curricula. You don’t have to agree with them and what has worked for their children may not work for yours, but do benefit from their insight! Do not go line on on a crazy excitement-fueled shopping spree and spend hundreds of pounds without having even had a look inside the books or having given a little thought to how that is going to work for you. Plus, books are not the only way to learn.
As part of your materials, get your FREE Get Your Homeschool Started printable HERE!
6. Find a place
A place to homeschool and a place to store all your homeschooling things. Do not feel as though you need to set up a “classroom”, buy special furniture, and certainly do not quote this blog to your husband among the reasons why you “must” redecorate!
All I am saying is that it helps things to work smoothly if, at the start of each day, you do not have to chase: a) your students and b) the book and the paper and the pencil and the rubber and the glue-stick …. I don’t know about you, but this is not the kid of treasure hunt I care for! I am going to be very straight with you: both things will probably change quite a few times; even when you feel you have found the perfect setting and/or the perfect storage solution, something is going to come along and cause a reshuffle. Well, homeschooling is flexible and we must at least try to “flex” with it!
7. Be serious about it (but not too serious!)
Handing your child a colouring sheet and some crayons once in a while does not amount to homeschooling him. On the other hand, you don’t want to make it too regimented and end up inflicting on (yourself and) your children a super concentrated, 1:1 version of the very kind of pressure and rigidity you wanted to spare them in the first place by taking them out of school. It would also be nice for you not to suffer any kind of breakdown… right?
So, always think about homeschooling as a natural extension of parenting. You already have charge of these precious young people: you feed them, you make sure they are dressed and clean, you try to keep them healthy and happy, you do all you can for them to experience security and love. Now you are also taking control of their education. You know that delicate balance between laxity and strictness that we try to achieve as parents? Apply it to homeschooling as well. Sometimes you will see the fruits of your efforts and you will be pleased, sometimes you will mess up and you will have to say “sorry”. Homeschooling your children looks a lot like life!
8. Know the legal requirements (if any)
In the United Kingdom homeschooling is not strictly regulated or monitored, however, if your school aged child has ever been in school, or if you have accepted a place for her in a school (even if she has never actually attended it), you will need to deregister her. This site offers some useful information on the deregistration process which basically consists in writing a letter to the child’s school. It even gives a deregistration letter template. If your child has never been enrolled in school, as far as I know, you are under no obligation to inform anyone of your decision to homeschool.
If you are not in the UK, do check your country/state requirements and make sure you understand clearly what your rights and responsibilities are.
9. Get started as you can
Do not wait for everything to be perfect to allow yourself to start. Do not wait to have every single book, a massive stash of purposely bought craft materials, the crayons arranged in chromatic order… In fact, it might be better if you start small and avoid building up huge expectations. You have at hand your English materials, but you haven’t received the Maths book yet? Start with what you have and use it to test the waters. Maybe do that one lesson every day for a while and see how you get on. Find your feet, then build on that. There is no lesson timetable, no school bell… nothing to dictate that you should proceed at a certain pace or in a certain way, except your own sense of what is achievable and appropriate for today.
10. Prepare for criticism
I once came across someone who, after mentioning how many tens of thousands of pounds *gasps* they spent yearly for the private schooling of their children, looked positively disgusted when I contributed to the conversation that mine had never been in school. Almost as if I said I had left them in the wild, to be raised by wolves! when she recovered, she asked: “But can they, like… read???”
Home education has been happening for decades in the in the UK but, 10 years ago in my country of origin, the homeschooling community was almost non-existent, to the point my mother was adamant it was illegal. Even in a country like the UK where, a couple of years ago, the number of homeschooled children was 48.000 (but in reality it is bound to be more), the idea of alternative ways to educate might be welcomed with skepticism.
Your family might be completely unfamiliar with the whole concept of homeschooling and, as a consequence, fear it. You might enjoy frequent replays of “But you are not a real teacher” interspersed with “they will grow up to be weird loners”. Prepare for the fact that it might happen. Don’t engage in arguments. Don’t let it get to you. Chances are that insha’Allah the skepticism of those close to you will soon turn into admiration. You might overhear your mother boasting about you to her friends. If your relatives need a little nudge to be supportive, why not find a way to involve them in your children’s learning? as for those critics that are not close to you, debating with them is not our job.
11. Trust Allah. Trust yourself. Trust the process
Allah says in the Qur’an:
{And whoever is dutiful to Allah, He makes a way out for him from every difficulty. And He will provide for him from places he never could imagine. And whoever puts his trust in Allah, He will suffice him.} [Surah At-Talaaq: 65:2-3]
Trust Allah. Know your Lord. Know with certainty that He has all power and ability, among all other things, to guide us when we are confused and to rescue us from our mistakes. While He sustains the whole creation, His special closeness and guidance are obtained by those who strive harder to please Him.
Trust yourself. Do not think that, because you are not a qualified teacher, your children’s education will be inferior to that offered in schools. If you can learn, you can homeschool. Remember, you haven’t always been a confident mother, you weren’t born able to manage a household or do any of the other amazing things that you have mastered. You learned them. Similarly, you will acquire those teaching skills. As you gain experience, you will feel increasingly confident as a homeschooler; formal qualifications per se will not give you that. If you don’t know something, you can look it up. You are not expected to know everything beforehand. There is nothing demeaning in learning along with your child something you don’t know or have forgotten.
Trusting the process means believing that, although you may not see quick results, the days will add up and the work you put in will show in your children, not only in their academic achievement but also, and especially, in who they are. It will not happen overnight. In fact, homeschooling is not a great source of instant gratification as much as a long term investment. But the Muslim knows that none of their sincere efforts will be in vain. And the Muslim parent that chooses to home educate, does so knowing that Allah does not abandon those who do their best on His path.
Are you new to homeschooling and something worries you?
Are you an experienced homeschooler with more tips to add?
Please drop us a line in the comments below!
