My Mom’s American Muslim Homeschooling Experience

New Haven Green, Photo by my mom

A couple of weeks ago, my mom was invited to give a quick, casual talk to a couple of folks over Zoom on what her American Muslim homeschooling experience was like. The audience consisted of Indonesian parents who had recently immigrated to the U.S., with most of them pursuing graduate school. Most of these parents had young children and were quite intrigued by my mom’s experience.

The Zoom call started out with quite an impressive biography of my mom, which the moderator read aloud. My mom had studied Economics at the University of Indonesia, worked at Anderson’s in Jakarta, and moved on to IBM in New York. Her husband had studied at ITS in Indonesia and studied abroad at University of New Haven and New York University, and he now works for his own tech consulting business. They had homeschooled four of us. The oldest being me, and the moderator mentions a bit about my background: going to college fairly young, earning my Ph.D. in computer science from New York University, and working at IBM in California. The moderator moves on to my brother, who she describes as someone who owns a business in Detroit and Chicago. She describes my second brother as one who was doing his Master’s in computer science at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and also works at Amazon in Seattle as a software engineer. My sister was described as a student at Southern Connecticut State University.

I nudged my mom’s arm and teased her for having an impressive biography. She blushed and laughed. And then she unmuted herself and started talking. For someone who didn’t come prepared with notes, she was quite calm and confident. She tells me that she’s drawing from her experiences anyways.

I learned a lot listening to my own mom talk about her experience homeschooling us. There were a couple of things that stood out to me, as a mother-to-be:

• Reason for homeschooling us in the first place: My mom said that she used to take us out of school on Friday’s for Friday prayers. The school considered us absent for those days. And there was a limit on the number of absent days. So my mom decided to homeschool us to avoid that issue.
• Homeschooling being tough and having to embrace it all: My mom advised not to be a “tiger mom”. She also advised us to “take it easy”. I think this was more of a reflection of her easy-going personality. She believes that if your children want to play, then they should be allowed to play. They should not be forced to sit and study. My mom believes they’ll sit and study after they are tired of playing.
• Teach by example: My mom was surprisingly a strong believer in this method of teaching. If you want your kids to sit and focus on their work, you should sit and focus on your own work. And things like hijab should not be forced. Rather, when the child sees her mom wearing hijab, she will follow through and will even want to wear it too. Or, if the child sees the parents pray, he or she might not immediately be consistent in it, however, they will eventually follow along too. She also points out that this is one of the most effective ways of teaching Islam to your children.
• Encourage kids to pursue their passion: Some of the child’s passions may be inspired by the parent’s passions. When the child sees the parent sewing, they might be excited to learn to sew. And those kinds of passions should be fostered. I recognized what my mom meant very well, since this was how I learned to code.
• Ensure educational compliance according to local laws: My mom was asked which curriculum she used and she said she didn’t really use any of the pre-made ones available at the time. She ensured that she followed the state of CT’s regulations on homeschooling, which happened to not be as strict as some other state’s regulations. CT required homeschooling families to cover 5 subjects of studies and show proof of it yearly to the Department of Education. Much more stricter states would require homeschooling families to abide by some curriculums set by the state. Things have changed since then, so be sure to check the updated regulations if you’re looking to homeschool.
• Using free educational resources: In lieu of using a paid curriculum, my mom talked about how she took used, old, free textbooks from a local book bank. She also took us to the library often. And she said she adjusted the educational material according to the abilities of the kid. I honestly don’t know what she meant by that but I’ll just keep that there.
• Teach time management by teaching children to pray their 5 daily prayers on time: This was also an interesting response my mom gave when asked about how she managed her time balancing house work and teaching 4 kids. Somehow she managed to make it about her kids and telling them to pray on time. I don’t think I’d necessarily agree with her, but this was my mom’s take on managing her time.
• Socialize by going to the mosque: I honestly can’t believe my mom said that one aloud. I definitely struggled to have friends. But my mom defended this method by saying that this exposes the kids to other Muslim folks and exposes them to Islamic lectures given at the mosque.
• Some kids are easier to teach: I also couldn’t believe my mom said this one aloud. But I definitely agree with her, as I was definitely the easier kid to teach compared to my brother who like running around a lot.
• Everyone’s educational experience is different: My mom acknowledged this point towards the end. She says that homeschooling is hard. For some people there is the option of Islamic schools. There are other ways to educate children, but what’s important is to teach Islam, e.g. to teach them to pray on time. She also acknowledges her luck in teaching us, as it was somewhat easier for her compared to other parents. The state she happened to live in was not strict in the curriculum and she lived near the library and book banks. We lived close by several mosques as well. The universities and colleges we then applied to were open to letting a homeschooled kid enroll into their program.

My mom ended it with a religious point saying that, “Allah is the One who makes it [the educational process] easy, and it is not from the parents.”

The audience then turns to ask me how I felt about my homeschooling experience. I simply said my mom did a good job since her kids are all Muslims anyways, which was her initial goal. And the audience also asked me whether I’d homeschool my kids. And I admitted that I was not sure. My mom jumps in and says it will be hard since I am also working full-time.

Overall, even I learned from hearing my mom’s take on her homeschooling experience. I don’t necessarily agree with every single thing, but then again, I haven’t yet reached the point of actually teaching a kid anyways. Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section.

By Maeda Hanafi