Tuesday, October 14, 2014

انتو عطيتوني الدافع لتدريس عيالي بالبيت!

وصلت حق قرار التعليم المنزلي بعد فترة طويلة من البحث والتفكير والظروف والمؤثرات..
بس اقدر اختصرالاسباب الرئيسية في مؤثرين اثنين، وهالمقال بيكون عن أوّلهم.. اللي هو انتو بنفسكم!
إي نعم بدأت ادرّس عيالي بالبيت بسبّتكم!

لسنين قبل لا أسحب عيالي من المدرسة بنائاً علي تجربتنا الخاصة فيها، لسنين قبل لا حتي يكون عندي عيال .. كنت قاعده واسمع حجيكم!

في يمعاتكم العائلية الاسبوعية و بالزوارات ، و بأي مكان كنتوا تجتمعون فيه و تسولفون علي راحتكم و بشفافية، كانت سوالفكم تارة تدور حول فلذات اكبادكم اللي هم عيالكم. و معظم الوقت كانت سوالفكم عن اللي ماخذ كل وقتهم و وقتكم معاهم: المدرسة. 

و اللي سمعته الصراحة يشيّب الراس! التفاصيل كانت تختلف، لكن الرابط المشترك بين كل السوالف كان نبرة القهر،
 وعدم الرضى، والهم و الغم و الاستياااااء من تقريباً كل شي متعلق بنظام التدريس الحالي.

بس فوق كل هذا ، اللي صج يعني ضيق خلقي، هو الموقف السلبي والاستسلام للواقع و العجزاللي كلّنا اتخذناه كموقف. وكان يكفينا اننا نتحلطم و نتذمر و نتحسّر، لأننا صدّقنا ان مالنا حل ثاني، ان هالنظام شر لا بد منه ، ان ماكو خيار قد يكون افضل!

 و انا ملأني احساس محبط لاني مثلكم تنهدت باستسلام و نطرت اليوم المحتوم اللي انا بعد عيالي بيدشون فيه المدرسة.
و ما ألومكم ولا الوم نفسي على هالموقف، لأن بالنهاية احنا نبي عيالنا يتثقفون و تتوفر لهم كل سبل النجاح، لكن لسبب ما كلنا صدّقنا ان الطريج الوحيد  للحصول على الثقافة والنجاح هو بالدوام الإلزامي في المدارس. راح اتكلم وايد بعدين واقول لكم ليش هذا مو صحيح، لكن الحين راح اشارككم بعض المقتطفات من كلامكم انتو اللي كنتو اتسمعوني اياه واللي صج أثّر فيني الصراحة:

حول عدم فعالية النظام و المتطلبات المبالغة:
"أنا بس ابي اعرف اهما شقاعد يسوون طول اليوم في المدرسة؟! ليش ولدي يرد البيت مو فاهم ولا شي؟ ليش كل وقتنا مكهرب لأني مضطرّة اغصبه يحل كل هالواجبات ،وبعد  لازم أرد افهمه الدرس اللي كان المفروض فهمه بالصف؟! صار كلّش ما عندنا لا وقت ولا طاقة نستمتع بوقتنا كعائلة - كل وقتنا يروح بسبب متطلبات المدرسة!"

حول التأثير السلبي بسبب ضغط الأقران (peer pressure) اللي غالباً لا يتوافق مع مبادئكم كعائلة:
"احنا نتعب و نربي و نحاول نغرس فيهم اجمل القيم والمبادئ والأخلاق، وكل تعبنا يروح بسبب اللي يشوفونه بالمدرسة! عيالي ما قاموا يِلَقّون لي بال! كلامي وصوتي ضايع بين المؤثرات الأقوى اللي يخالطونهم بالمدرسة، ساعات احس جني بمعركة خاسرة ضد خصم أقوى منّي بوايد، لأنهم أصلاً عيالي يقضون معضم وقتهم هناك -أكثر من أي مكان ثاني! بس ياللة امرنا لله، شنو نقدر انسوي غير اننا نحِن و نزِن عليهم و نتأمل العواقب تيي سليمة... يا ريت بس يعطون قيمة حق كلامي أكثر من كلام اقرانهم!"

حول الاحساس بفرضية التقليد الأعمي و مسايرة الآخرين :
"شسوي يعني؟ كلش ما كان ودّي اشتري له هالبلوى ، بس ضل يحن و يحن علَيْ و يقول لي كل من بالصف عنده واذا ما يبت له بيعيبون عليه.. يا ربي ادري انه غلط ، و ضد مبادئي، و مادري شلون الصراحة اهاليهم رضوا حق عيالهم! بس شنو نقدر انسوي غير اننا نسايرهم؟ صعب ، وايد صعب نسبح ضد التيّار.. شي مؤسف الصراحة بس ما نقدر نتجنبه!"

حول القبول بحظك يا نصيب مع المدرس اللي عيالكم يطيح بصفه:
"مدرس ولدي هالسنة مو زين! ولدي وايد تدهور مستواه بصف هالمدرس! قاعدين نحارب علشان نضمن مكان حق ولدنا بصف المدرس الزين السنة اليايّة. المشكلة اني سمعت ان كلمن قاعد يحاول يدخّل ولده بصف ذاك المدرس، فما ادري شنو فرصة ولدي انه يدش. با رب يحالفنا الحظ!"

حول واجبات لا تتوافق مع مستوى أو حاجات طفلك:
"واي شالواجب المعقد! كلش مو مال عمرهم و لا مستوى ولدي!" او "شالواجب التافه! ولدي يقدر يحل هالأسئلة من قبل سنتين!" 

حول غلو أسعار المدارس الخاصة والمصاريف:
"مصاريف المدرسة مو صج! كسرت ظهورنا! و كل مالهم يتفننون بطرق يسحبون مننا فلوس أكثر!
 و فوق كل هذا هَم نحتاج انييب مدرسين خصوصيين حق تقريباً كل مادة بس علشان ينجح!"

حول وضع الازدحام المروري المتفاقم:
"قاعدة أفكر أغيِّر مدرسة بنتي واخلّيها تروح للمدرسة اللي أقرب . صج ان هالمدرسة مو اختياري الأول لكن بنتي ما عادت تتحمل تقعد ساعات كل يوم امربّطة بهالسيارة ، قام يحوشها اعصاب و توترو هي ضغيرة من الزحمة صوب مدرستها الحالية. ترى ما كان جذي الوضع أيامنا! الزحمة الحين مو طبيعية! كل يوم لازم اسحبها من الفراش من الساعة ٥ الصبح يالله يمديها تطلع من البيت علشان شوي تتفادى الزحمة! يا ربي انشالله المدرسة اليديدة ما تفرق وايد عن مدرستها الحالية، اصلاً مادري ليش احاتي، اشدعوه اب تفرق! كأن أحد فينا يذكر شي من اللي درسناه ايام المدرسة!"

حول تأثير أساليب إدارة الصف:
"ولدي كل يوم اييلي يزفلي الخبر انهم كافئوه بالصف. أقوله "شاطر يا وليدي! عفيه ماما!" و أسئله "على شنو كافئوك؟ دايماً اترفع ايدك بالصف؟ وجهولك سؤال صعب و جاوبت صح؟ ساعدت أحد من التلاميذ اللي ويّاك؟" و تدرون شيقول لي؟ يقول كافئوه لأنه كان اكثر واحد ساكت! أوكي انا متفهمة ليش المدرسة اتسوي جذي، بعض اليهال صج يمكن ما يركدون ويزعجون الصف بس ولدي عكس جذي! هو يحتاج عكس هالدعم! انا ودي اشجعه يتكلم، ينطلق و يعبر عن نفسه!"
أو:
"أبلة ولدي مكرهتني عيشتي! مو راضية تتفهم ان ولدي حركي و فيه طاقة زايدة! مو كل اليهال كربون، شلون يتوقعون انهم كلهم يفهمون بنفس الطريقة؟ هي لو بس اتقعده يمها شوي و تعطيه اشوية اهتمام فردي، راح يستوعب و يتجاوب معاها! بس هي نوعها عندها اسلوب واحد و تبيه يتجاوب مثل الرجل الآلي!" 

حول عدم المقدرة على انتقاء الرفاق المعرض لهم طفلك:
 "بنتي طايحتله على واحدة يديدة بصفها، فعزمناها عندنا في البيت! الله لا يوريج هالبنت الله يستر عليها ويهديها شلون كانت عديمة الاخلاق والله أكبر على لسانها! طار بصرنا لما شفنا شلون اتحاجي أمها! لمّا زوجي شاف جذي قالي "إيّاني ويّاج اشوف هالبنت عندنا بالبيت مرة ثانية! و ليكون أسمع بنتنا رايحة اتزورها!" بس الاسبوع الياي بنتي معزومة على عيد ميلادها و فشلة وعدت أمها انني بييب بنتي. شسوي يا ربي انا بعد ما اقدر اختار منو اللي بيكون بصف بنتي!"

حول غصب انقسّي قلوبنا على اللي نشوفه بعيوننا و نحس فيه- ان بعض اليهال مو بس ما ينمون بجو المدرسة بل يذبلون! و بالرغم من هذا انرص عليهم لإعتقادنا ان هذا من مصلحتهم:
"كل سنة اقول هالسنة ولدي بيتعود على المدرسة. و كل سنة يديدة يصير نفس الشي: يبجي بجي و ما يرضى يهدني. كل يوم لأسبوعين، معركة علشان يدخل البوابة. يعور القلب! بس لازم يقوي قلبه صح؟ المشكلة انه يستسلم للواقع بالنهاية، بس يظل شايل هم و قلق حول المدرسة. ساعات ينهار اذا نسى ورقة! فوق كل شي ما يبي يلفت الانتباه. ، تدرين شنو اكثر شي امزعلني؟ كان يحب يلعب مع اخوانه الصغار وايد، لكن الحين صار بس يرجع البيت يدش داره و يقعد يلعب بروحه."

و هذول بس بعض السوالف الدارجة اللي كنتو تتكلمون عنها، وكل اللي ابي اقوله لكم: ترى صج الواقع هذا تقدرون اتغيرونه! 
نظام المدارس اللي عرفناه مو النظام الوحيد في العالم! اكو مدارس حول العالم راح تنبهرون لو عرتفتو شنو فلسفتهم بالتدريس! السؤال هو: تقدرون تنطرون على ما احدث الأفكار الدراسية توصل لنا بديرتنا و لعيالكم؟ انا اتخذته واجب عليْ اني ابحث عن افضل الموجود سواء من كتب أو منهج أو نظرية تعليم و توصيله لعيالي الحين! ما يبيله الا نظرة جديدة ، متفتحة لما ممكن ان يكون، و شوية شجاعة.

انتو رددتو هالسؤال علي مسامعي وايد: "شنو نقدر انسوي؟"

و جوابي الشخصي لهالسؤال هو: ان اتكفل بمسؤولية تدريس عيالي بالبيت.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

YOU are the reason I homeschool!

My path to homeschooling was a long, slow process, but I can break it down into two major influences. This post will be about the first of those influences- YOU!

For years before I pulled my kids out of school based on our own experiences there, for years before I even had kids, I was listening to YOU.

In weekly family gatherings, friends' gatherings, wherever you sat down comfortably and candidly to talk, the conversation would often turn to the most precious people in your life- YOUR children. And most of the time, it was about where your children spent most of their time and what seemed to be taking up all of their life- school.

Let me tell you, what I heard was not good. The stories were all different, but underlying them all, was YOUR frustration, your ANGUISH, your resentment, your dissatisfaction, and your DISTASTE for almost every thing imaginable regarding the set-up that comprises the current school system.

But above all, what really filled me with dread and sadness, was your underlying position of resignation and helplessness. You were satisfied to simply air your complaints in the safety and comfort of your gatherings, believing that you simply had no other choice! And I was filled with dread because you made me believe that too, and so, listening to you I also heaved a sigh of submission, and braced myself for what I thought was the unavoidable future fate of my children that is institutionalized schooling.

After all, you wanted and I want our children to be educated and to have the best chance of future success, and for some reason, we had all come to believe that the only way to be well-educated was in regular schools. Before I go into why that simply is NOT TRUE, let me share with you some snippets of what YOU have been saying to me for years:

On the inefficiency and the demands of the system:
"I just want to know what are they DOING in school all day?! Why does my child not know a thing when he comes back?  Why does all our time together have to be stressful because I'm re-explaining the lessons and forcing him to do all this homework and review and understand the subjects they should have grasped in the classroom? We never seem to have the energy to just connect and have quality time as a family- all our time  is consumed with the demands of school! Why can't I just enjoy my time with my children and relax with them at home?"

On dealing with the stronger influence of peers:
"We raise our children and try to instill the best values, and principles and morals in them, only to be thwarted by the bad examples they see in school! My kids don't listen to me anymore, my voice is lost among the stronger influences they meet in school. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle! It's not surprising, they spend much more time there than anywhere else! What can we do, except keep on nagging them about what's right and wrong, and hope for the best. I just wish they'd value my input more than that of their peers!"

On feeling forced to imitate and follow what "everyone else" seems to be doing: 
"What can I do? I really didn't want to get him that thing, but he just kept nagging and nagging me and telling me how "everyone else" in his class had one. I know it's not ideal, and it's against my better judgment, and I just don't know how those other parents allow it! But what can we do except go with the flow? It's so hard to go against the current you know. It saddens me but it's unavoidable!"

On being forced to accept and live with the "luck of the draw" and less than ideal teachers:
"My child's teacher this year is just awful! My child is doing really badly in this teacher's class! I'm fighting to make sure that my child gets into the good teacher's class next year. I hear everyone is trying to get their kids in her class, I don't know what my chances are for my kid to get in. I hope we get lucky!"

On assignments that don't cater to your child's particular needs, or level:
"Why are they assigning such complicated tasks! It really doesn't feel right for my child's age/maturity level/needs right now!" or "That homework is such a waste of time, my child has known his multiplication tables backwards and forwards since second grade!"

On the increasingly exorbitant fees of private schools:
"The school fees are just slaying us! And they keep on finding ways to charge us for more money! And above all that my child still needs private tutors in almost every subject just to pass! It's ridiculous!"

On the increasingly worse traffic situation:
"I'm thinking of changing my child's school to let her go to one closer to our home. It's not my first choice of school but she's just getting so stressed from spending hours every day strapped into her seat in the car while fighting traffic to get to her current school. It's not like how we were when we were young! The traffic now is just insane! I have to drag her out of bed every morning at 5am just to get ready on time and leave the house on time to beat the early morning rush hour! I hope it won't be too bad if she goes to this other school, after all, it's not like I predict it's going to make that much of a difference in her education. Nobody really retains what they learn in school anyway :P" 

On the effect of crowd control/group management techniques:
"My son comes every day to proudly announce that he got rewarded in class. I ask him, "That's great! What did you get rewarded for? Did you raise your hand? Did the teacher ask a question and you got the right answer? Did you offer to help someone in your class?" And do you know what he tells me? He told me he got rewarded for being the quietest! I understand why the teacher needs to do that, some kids can be very rowdy and disruptive in class, but my child is the opposite of that! He's already very shy and quiet! He needs the OPPOSITE KIND OF REINFORCEMENT! Since going to school he's just become more settled in his habit of hanging back and more hesitant about making himself heard!"

or: "My child's teacher is really making my life hard, she doesn't understand that my kid just needs to MOVE, not all kids fit into one mold, how can they expect all of them to learn in the same way? She should just give him a little personal attention, and he'll get it! Instead, she has a "one size fits all" method, and just expects him to behave like a robot!'

On not knowing who your kids are befriending in school:
"My daughter has been enamored with this new girl in school lately, so we invited her to our home. Oh my god what a little nightmare she was! It was freaky how rude and obnoxious she was to her own mother! When my husband saw this he warned me that he better not ever see that girl in our house again and that he better not ever hear that our daughter was visiting her! But she's invited to her birthday party next week! What can I do? I can't choose who goes to the same class my daughter goes to!"

On hardening our hearts to what we can see with our own eyes- that some kids not only don't thrive in a school setting, they actually wilt, yet pushing them anyway due to the belief that it is for their best interest:
"Every year I think, this year my child will get into the swing of things. Yet at the start of every year, he just bursts into tears and doesn't want to leave my side. Every day for the first two weeks or so, it's a struggle to get him through that gate. It's heartbreaking! But he needs to toughen up right? The problem is that although he does give up eventually, he's just continues to be so filled with deep anxiety about school. He'll sometimes have a nervous breakdown just from forgetting a paper! Above all, he just wants to avoid being noticed. The saddest part for me is that he used to love playing with his younger siblings so much, but now he just returns from school and prefers to play alone." 

These are just SOME of issues and complaints I've been hearing from you, and I just want to shout it out right now: it really DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY :) The model of education currently available to us is not the only model. Schools across the globe are slowly shifting their paradigm of education. The question is, do you have time to wait for the most advanced, most cutting edge models of education to reach your child? I've taken it as my duty to research the best of what's currently offered, and to deliver it to my children NOW. Sometimes all that takes is thinking outside the box, and a little courage.

YOU have kept on asking "what can we do?"

And my answer to that question is this: I can Home School. 


 




Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Thursday, September 25, 2014

The past two years- Homeschooling in secrecy

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Hello, world!

It's been two years since I created this blog, and now in Sep 2014 I've finally- FINALLY!- found the courage to open my home and heart to the world and share what I had resolved to do, and have been doing, since 2012.

Two years ago, I officially took the plunge: I pulled my children out of their private school to formally start their home education. I started this blog to document my journey and to explain my reasons and the things that inspired me to this path, but frankly, I feared the reaction I would get.

I have always been the sort to "march to the beat of my own drum" as they say, and I had gotten used to raised eyebrows to many of the ideas and decisions I held most dear. And now I had fallen head over heels in love with something as radical and unheard of (in my part of the world) as homeschooling! And I wanted to blog about it? Naturally, I expected the worst. But, I gathered myself together and took inspiration from a verse I had randomly come across in the Qur'an that day (in my first post), which basically says to be patient with whatever people say...

Unfortunately, despite my first post, I chickened out at the last moment and just decided to keep everything to myself rather than share it online. After all, I really believed in homeschooling- I could see so much potential, as well as immediate, good in it, so why should I justify myself publicly and open my house and home to the judgment and criticism of outsiders? Being an intensely private person by nature I also justified going private by telling myself that I wanted to pour all my energy into homeschooling rather than dividing my energy between that as well as keeping a blog.

But now, two amazingly wonderful years later, I feel like it's selfish of me to keep the benefits I've been enjoying all to myself! I feel like others must be out there who would love the idea of teaching their own children and who might really benefit from my experience, or, who might just be curious to learn more about this lifestyle.

If so, please check back here where I will write about how I reached this decision, the benefits I've enjoyed as well as the challenges, some pros and cons, who this lifestyle would be great for and who would not be a good fit for it, and much more!

Fearfully yet courageously yours,
-Q

(I've been staring at the publish button, still sooo afraid of clicking it! But also excited and feeling like I'm going to hear from someone really unique and amazing who will surprise me with the news that they have been thinking about homeschooling too! If that's you I'd really love to hear from you at kuwaitihomeschooler <at> gmail <dot> com!)

Friday, October 5, 2012

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

فَاصْبِرْ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ 
وَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ 
الشَّمْسِ وَقَبْلَ الْغُرُوبِ
 ﴿٣٩﴾