Monday, February 22, 2010

Muslim Homeschoolers

Author:
There was a neat story in Sunday's Post featuring some friends of mine...
On a chilly afternoon in western Loudoun County, a group of children used tweezers to extract rodent bones from a regurgitated owl pellet. A boy built a Lego launcher. A girl practiced her penmanship. On the wall, placards read, "I fast in Ramadan," "I pay zakat" and "I will go on hajj."

Welcome to Priscilla Martinez's home -- and her children's school, where Martinez is teacher, principal and guidance counselor, and where the credo "Allah created everything" is taught alongside math, grammar and science.
I am very fortunate to know Priscilla Martinez, her husband Rizwan and many in their faith community. They are exceptional people, and exceptionally civic-minded. There is a false stereotype of homeschooling families as being isolated from the community, but I haven't found that to be true. I hope that as time goes on we will break down the self-imposed walls between public, private and homeschool education for the benefit of every child in our community.

[Washington Post]
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1 comments:

  1. It is not just Muslims that feel isolated, it is also other faiths. I do not want to name any, but any religious person is bound to feel at odds with the society in which he lives, as each religion has its own habits and customs. Even Protestants feel at odds with the Catholic communities in Catholic countries and vice versa. I am sure that the Protestant expats living in the South of France or Spain (both Catholic communities) feel at odds in their environment. People should try to understand the minority communities. As I said before, it is better to let everyone have their own space, instead of interfering and seeing people of different faiths and cultures as a threat

    God has created diverse human beings to live in this tiny global villageas of one family. Creation by its very nature is deverse with different species, different communities, different cultures and languages. These differences represent the beauty and wonder but diversity is sometimes not fully appreciated, resulting in all sorts of clashes. The British society and Establishment must learn to respect and accommodate others, as if in a family.

    A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. He/she is supposed to be well versed in standard English, Arabic, Urdu and other community languages, to be part of the Britisah society, as well as proud of his/her cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of his/her literature and poetry.
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