Education systems are partly responsible!!

Education is one of the most important & wise endeavors one could invest into. As helpful & needed as it is for one to survive in the world, is this education in some way coming in between our religious education?. That is my question. And I personally feel it is!.

The structures of education systems in the world are more or less the same, even though there might be differences to the variation of application, they all have one major problem which i like to call 'killing of curiosity'. And it is precisely that on which i state my argument.

Every field of education has become too wide, and complicated, there's much to learn and less time.There is given no room for curiosity to develop. The teachers are occupied with drilling the stated syllabus into the the kids that there is no focus on the harnessing of curiosity in the students. They are indirectly/directly told to stop thinking and questioning & just learn what is in the books. Which leads to discouragement among students because their natural learning style is murdered.

The student who joined school curious now turns into a being who is just absorbing everything at hand. This causes a permanent change in the child as to just absorb and not question. Now this curiosity deficit child applies this same technique everyday and to everything there is to learn. Islam is about being curious, Allah made us curious human beings, we are above all his creatures on earth because we have the brain and if we're not going to apply the main function of it (curiosity) then we are going to be left nowhere. We have been gifted with the ability to question, understand, absorb, think, this is what makes us different from animals!

Sadly as compared to schools, the Islamic education is not as easily available or set importance to by the parents. Worldly education is important, that is also a creation of Allah that we are learning, But we are sadly doing it at the cost of being ignorant about our religion (mostly forever).

What can we do? heres a list of some things:

• Take active part in building the curiosity in children, so even if they come across an ayat from the Quran they're drawn to learn more.
• Let them ask questions, if you don't know the answer FIND it. don't get discouraged and don't discourage them.
• Remember: you take one step towards Allah, He takes 10!
• Send your children to the nearest madressas.
• If theres no madressa get a few parents with kids to pool in and make one.
  
• If a madressa is not possible, find information yourself and teach it to your kid when he's young. There is no age for learning!
• Quit making excuses. The future of your child is in your hands.Take responsibility.
  
• Share information with other parents, it won't kill you to spread the word of Allah.
• Remember it's NEVER TOO LATE! Allah is all knowing and all forgiving!
  

Time is running out. If you don't act appropriately now, your kid will get exploited by the education systems of the world before you know it (god forbid), and then you'll have no one but yourself to blame for the rest of your life, not to mention your lovely child who will also, when he realizes how wrong you've been.The first ayat that was revealed said "read in the name of Allah", that in itself shows the importance of making an effort and also highlights the importance of education.

Syeda Fatima,18
(syeda715@hotmail.com)