4. The Nawala

I have come full circle…back to working with books and crafts. As I mentioned in my last post, I found parents purchasing Islamic books and thinking the mere act of buying and having it at home will do the job. Books, just like toys and crafts, require a little more interaction in order to get the most benefit.

Let’s take a few examples --

Blocks: You can give blocks to children and they will stack them. Do they do this over and over? Do you eventually show them different ways to manipulate the blocks to make a car, a robot, or house? Do you purchase additional blocks to now add eyes to your robot, a shape that will connect to pieces differently, or add gears to begin engineering new designs?

Play-do: we can get it smeared into our carpet or we can explain how to stay on a mat, not to ingest it, and not to leave it out to dry. Once our children know how to properly use clay, we end up purchasing different colors, tools, and stamps to get a fuller experience.

Rainbow Loom: I once had relatives visiting, who purchased a Rainbow Loom and simply handed it to their child…let’s just say I found rubber bands all over the house for several months afterwards. But children can create intricate designs, maybe even start up a business.

We can do this with books.

When we hand books to our children, are we helping them examine the emotions in the images? Do we look at details beyond the text? Think of when an author hides a name in the illustration (Arthur books by Marc Brown). Or a second story is being told by additional characters in the illustrations (Little Critter series by Mercer Mayer). Sometimes there are just as many laughs in the illustration as in the text (Ilyas & Duck by Omar Khawaja). And when we examine the text, we notice the author has chosen sight words and builds up stories based on phonics lessons for first graders (Elephant and Piggie stories by Mo Willems).

We can do the same for Urdu books.

Since I am now promoting books in Urdu for heritage language learners, the age range can be anywhere from 6 years old to 16 years old. I want to find creative ways for others to have access to the books I’ve come across. Not just that, but I also want to share the many details that come with each book. As one of my mentors has told me, when you have a great resource “milk it.” So with each book I hope to provide several extended activities for enrichment. They are stand-alone mini-lessons. They are relatable. They bring value to the books at hand. Imagine Reading Rainbow combined with the magic of Super Why! I'll have a library of storytime videos with enrichment activities called اُردو کا نوالہ (Urdu ka Nawala). I hope these bite-size activities will grow a love, joy, motivation, and confidence in our Urdu learners. And, to stick with the metaphor, the more bites you take, the fuller experience you’ll have, inshaAllah!

5. The Safar

Opinions about middle school are varied. Some consider it the time when we develop our identity, where we sift through our friends and create a clique. Many remember it as an awkward, difficult time meandering through friendships, academics, and the changing body and mind. I have found these years to be dispensable and detrimental at the same time.

When it comes to academics – and as a homeschooler – I find it’s a good time to explore many extracurricular options and teach what you feel is most important to your family. In this regard that could mean more time with the Quran. It could mean family travel. It can also be student-driven based on your child’s interests before the need to build a high school transcript. All that we do in these precious three years known as junior high or middle school develop character and habits. Kids are easily molded by social groups and need a stronger foundation to know their principles and limits.

There are a handful of memories from middle school the typical American student can recall like dissecting a frog or the sludge lab; joining the school play or taking up a sport that continues into high school; connecting with a teacher or confronting a bully. Some of the best fiction is based around these years since it’s such a dynamic age when it comes to how we view our family, school, community, and find ourselves among all the chaos.

Alas, I was deprived of a few of these memories, but in place I was given some unique super-chaotic ones that I hope – with the online world – some others can chime in with their similar experiences.

In the 7th grade my parents decided to send me to Pakistan to keep my older sister company. My older sibling was in high school, so her grades mattered; my younger sibling was too young; I was juuuuuust right. Although, in hindsight, I don’t know how helpful a moody preteen can be. I gave a letter to all my teachers, not knowing that I would not see them for the rest of the year. Not much was communicated to me or perhaps I had blocked out the knowledge of going to Pakistan indefinitely. I have a vague memory of my mom telling me that they would all come soon after because the whole family was planning to leave America – a country that was constantly gobbling up their hopes and dreams along with their children.

I hadn’t been to Pakistan since I was 3 years old (another time my parents tried to resettled there). I had a vague memory of only two cousins, all my other cousins and aunts and uncles were strangers to me (more on my Umrah with my buhbuh before heading to Pakistan on another day inshaAllah).

My sister had been married for three years and was living in Peshawar with her husband as he finished his studies. After a short stay in Kangra we took the three-hour drive to Peshawar. Our father set up a phone and added a sink to the kitchen. It just so happened my sister was a few weeks pregnant, so these were a few amenities that would help (so, so, so much more on the lack of amenities and “suffering” during my safar later). Then, I was enrolled in an English-medium school, Beaconhouse (Ohhhh even more On Beaconhouse, but I’ll have to get it in little bits).

On day one the all-girl class pulled a prank on me. I still don’t know how they were all in on it, perhaps it was something they always did. When the woman who brought in the new chalk and erasers walked into the room, everyone stood up and said in a long droning chorus: “Good morning, Khala Ji.” Me: never having to do this in school also stood up with everyone and tried to mumble a good morning. The Khala looked at the girls in surprise as they all giggled.

One quiet girl happened to be on my bus (a bumpy, meandering, loud, one-hour ride as I was one of the first to get on and the last to get off). She was intelligent and cared about her studies. She even gave me flower earrings. Soon I’d learn the gestures the girls gave and time they spent trying to get to know me was to win me over. I made small talk with the top student in class. I answered the questions the class president asked. I shared my felt markers with the mischievous girl (who always, always conspicuously checked her uniform when she got up in case there was any spotting). I even shared with some of the girls who asked that I hadn’t gotten my period yet.

Then a day came when three girls (representatives from each group, I guess) came to me to ask what I had decided. Decided what? I was confused. Decided which group I would be friends with. None, I clearly said. I wasn’t planning to make friends with just one group of people and close out another. The girls looked at me with confusion now. But with their continued pressure, I think I did mention the girl who was on my bus and her close friend as the people I was going to be hanging out with on a regular basis. This would mean we would study together, we would walk back and forth on the grounds during recess, and we would stand with each other during assembly.

When the school year ended, and I just knew I’d return to America eventually, I had everyone sign a self-made autograph book (filled with Garfield comics on every page).

So, it seems Pakistani culture also picked up on the ideas of cliques and grouping based on merit, family occupation, and even physical appearance. Of course this exists in America as well. Somehow it seemed so much more stressed, forced, and clearly black and white when I was immersed into this experience. Despite being in constant FOMO about everything my friends in America were doing, by coming to Beaconhouse from Central Middle School, I was able to have an external lens of what schooling should be. When I returned to CMS in 8th grade, I had yet another external lens to view what middle school is all about. Then on I’d be a marginalized person who was from neither here nor there.

COMMENTS: What are your feelings about middle school?