Prior to home schooling, my daughter was attending a private international school here for four years. She attended from grades K-3 until I finally decided to home school her this year. Based on my personal experiences here are all the issues I had with schooling, which are issues all too common within most educational institutions nowadays.
Method of Education:
The first issue dealt with how the school placed too much emphasis on testing. Within this particular school, students started getting tested from as early as 1st grade. They had to not only prepare for exams every month, but for midterms and finals as well in almost every subject! I was surprised and dismayed to discover that many other local schools here were as rigorous, if not more, about testing, with some having their students prepare for weekly quizzes on top of the monthly exams/midterms/finals, etc!
The second issue had to do with the method of test preparation favored by the school, which was based on rote memorization. Before every exam, the school would provide a list of questions and answers and expect students to simply regurgitate these facts on exam day. This of course led to study time being a frustrating experience for my daughter.
The third issue was that there were not enough hands-on activities available in class. Examples of this included students not getting to use the computer lab often for computer class, and not getting to participate in in-class science experiments.
Through homeschooling I have been freed from the constraints listed above. Even though my daughter still engages in testing, it is not as rigorous and time-consuming as it once was in school. She is also not expected to provide answers simply through memorization, but also through problem-solving. Finally, we engage in lots of hands-on activities, from using online computer programs to learn about software basics, to performing a variety of scientific experiments almost every week.
School's Social Environment:
The fourth issue is a critique of the school’s general social environment. My daughter almost always complained that she had no friends at school, since her classmates generally ignored her due to her shyness. The only time they acted nice was when they wished to “borrow” something of hers (which more often than not was never returned). When I notified the school about this matter, they did nothing to alleviate the problem. Instead they insisted that my daughter should try to become more outgoing!
In relation to this is the fifth issue I had with the school, which was that it didn’t work harder to provide an Islamic social environment encouraging proper adaab and akhlaq amongst students (manners and behaviors towards others based on Islam). So for example it was quite common to find kids continuing to disrespect each other, their teachers, maids, other adults, etc. even after they were taught the importance of respect in their Islamic studies class.
Problems within a school’s general social environment are a major reason why many families eventually choose to home school. While I had to deal with the problem of my daughter having no school friends, it’s common to find other problems occurring from a lack of a good social environment (particularly one influenced by Islam). Such problems include bullying and “falling in” with the wrong crowd, amongst other things. Most schools have no adequate procedures in place to deal with socialization issues, instead choosing to ignore a problem until it gets out of hand.
The major benefit with homeschooling in this regard is that families can shape their children’s social environment so it can mainly include friends with like-minded qualities and manners. Home schooled children are also able to learn early on how to interact with individuals of various different ages and social backgrounds. Muslim families, in particular, can easily instill Islamic social values into their children and make sure these values are upheld consistently outside the home.
School’s Handling of Arabic and Islamic Studies
The next following issues relate to the problems I had with the school’s handling of its Arabic and Islamic studies curricula. The textbooks used for both subjects were unsuitable for elementary school students because they were too dry and hard to understand. The English translations of various Quranic ayats and Prophet’s (salla’Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) hadiths were badly done. On top of this the school was required to teach the local culture here as being synonymous with Islam, thereby creating the impression that Islamic practices are all “cultural” by nature.
With regard to Arabic studies, since my daughter was the only non-Arab student in her class (with the other non-Arabs taking either Urdu and/or French) the school decided to forgo teaching Arabic in a bilingual format. Instead they relied on using very advanced Arabic textbooks and teachers who only communicated in Arabic. Since I had no success in finding a language tutor, Arabic became extremely difficult for my daughter to learn.
The benefit of homeschooling in relation to this is that now I can personally choose the books I want to use to teach my children about Islam and Arabic. Besides this I can also have my children dedicate more time towards memorizing the Quran with use of the correct translations. Finally, I can show them that learning and practicing the Deen is not simply confined to the classroom, but is something we follow and believe in within every aspect of our lives.
Choice to Homeschool Despite Challenges
Lastly I want to mention why I am choosing to continue home schooling next year Insha’Allah despite the challenges of doing so (especially here). At one point my husband and I did consider simply transferring our daughter to another school. However, to our dismay we discovered how difficult it was to find an ideal school here; we found that our daughter’s old school did offer several advantages that we could not find elsewhere, such as being financially affordable and academically rigorous. Its greatest advantage was that it did not make students participate in any unnecessary extracurricular activities, such as cultural song and dance shows and/or the celebration of other religious/national holidays. So based on this we found that we would not be completely satisfied with almost any school here!
What I most appreciate about homeschooling is that it allows parents to tailor their children’s education according to their individual needs, interests and abilities. It also allows for greater flexibility towards deciding how much time you wish to spend teaching various subjects based on your child’s interests. Most importantly, homeschooling makes children understand that learning is actually a lifelong process that can be both fun and natural.
Written by: A KSA Homeschooler---
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are solely the author's opinion and personal experience, and should not be taken as a general criteria for all KSA schools. Other families may have other standards and thus, may have more pleasant experiences with the schools. The points mentioned here could be case in any school in any other country.
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