بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمد لله ، والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله ، وعلى آله وصحبه ومن والاه
Assalaamu alaykum warahmatullaah wabarakaatuh
Beloved brothers and sisters in Islam, You are all welcome to this session of the Halqah,
Baarakallaahu feekum. We ask Allah to guide us towards what is right and what is best.
And that He makes it beneficial to both the presenter and to us all, aameen
We began the topic of discussion last four classes Classical Learning in Islam, and we discussed what is meant by it and touched a little on the methodology of it. We also discussed that it consists of three phases, and we began explaining the first phase which we said was referred to in the past as the Grammar Phase.
We mentioned there that it is at this phase that the child is made to memorize as much as possible of the rudiments and tools of the various sciences. Alhamdulillaah.
Brothers and sisters, it is important here to draw attention to the importance of rote memorization. Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it.
This is the methodology that our Classical Schools throughout our history use in memorization and study. As we have explained earlier, the child is made to memorize as many texts as possible at this phase. Alhamdulillaah
Another method used at this phase is Modelling. What is meant here is that the child is presented a role model whom he is made to emulate. This is because children at this phase are prone to emulation. The teacher makes himself available in practical terms for the child to emulate and ensures that whatever he does is what he would like the child to do and to grow up with. Upon this the Ulamaa train children to be in line with the Sunnah of the Rasul – salallaahu alayhi wasallam. For this reason, parents have been advised to be models to their children at this very important phase of their lives.
Another method adopted at this phase is Story Telling. This is as opposed to the modern school methods of Film watching and Video illustrations. Children for one, are very imaginative and have very sharp memories with regards to doing that. It is very imperative not to kill that imaginative power by giving them all the pictures and moving images
If you give them just the words and the stories, they will, in their own minds, imagine the pictures and put together the stories. This helps to empower their imaginative power and their brain’s ability to assimilate and synthesize information as they grow up. Otherwise, children that grow up watching videos tend to be weak in their imaginative powers and in their abilities in later years to prefer solutions to problems. They also find it difficult to take leadership roles. This tells us one of the reasons for which our Ulamaa had impressive abilities to draw up subject matters in Fiqh, presuppose their occurrences and provide answers to them even in speculative masaa’il.
Also, in this phase, children are made to grow with their peers. This helps them to develop their compassion, sympathies and concern for others. It also makes them to share whatever excellent training they had taken from home with their peers. Maa sha Allaah.
One last method used in classical learning in our schools is Instructive Learning.
That is when the teacher gives the child instructions on how to live instead of giving the child a third party speech. A good example of this is what the Rasul – salallaahu alayhianhuma:
: احفظ الله يحفظك، احفظ الله تجده تجاهك، إذا سألت فاسأل الله، وإذا استعنت فاستعن بالله
“Safeguard the limits of Allah and Allah will safeguard you. Safeguard the limits of Allah, you will meet Him in your support. If you ask, ask from Allah If you seek help, seek it from Allah…”
Experience in pedagogy has shown that children respond very negatively to negative commands. What we mean here by Negative Commands is something like; “don’t sit there!”
Pedagogy is the study of child education. What the child does is to keep imagining in his head what it entails to sit in the place you asked him not to sit. But if you were to say: _”Sit down there!”. He just sits where you asked him to sit and does not need to imagine it since he is already going to experience it. So the rule is our Ulamaa train children by instructing them on what they should do and not by telling them what they should not do.
May Allah make all easy for us, aameen
And may Allah bless us and make us of those that will revive this methodology of learning in this era of ours.
Baarakallaahu feekum
We shall inshaaAllaah stop here to continue next halaqah.
تمَّ بحمد الله – عز وجل.
وصلى الله على نبينا محمدٍ، وعلى آله وصحْبه أجمعين، ومَن تبِعهم بإحسانٍ إلى يوم الدين
