Small Islamic school makes mosque central to children's lives
Small Islamic school makes mosque central to children's lives
By Santi WE Soekanto
CIMANGGIS, Depok, West Java (JP): It's nap time at the Nurul
Fikri Integrated Islamic School in Depok.
Dozens of small girls wearing religious headdress are laying
down on prayer mats spread on the floor of the school's mosque.
Their eyes are shut but their giggles are still heard.
The school hours, filled with math and other subjects, are
already over.
The girls have just finished lunch, and performed mass dzuhur
(midday) prayer.
After an hour of rest, they will start tahfidzul, learning and
memorizing the Koran. They will go home after mass ashar
(afternoon) prayer at 4:30 p.m. -- long after students of other
schools have gone home.
Over all, the children spend the largest portion of their
school day in the mosque and that's the way both teachers and
parents want it to be. They pray, play, hold gymnastic activities
and have their nap there.
"I want the mosque to become the center of my children's
lives," Sita Taufik said about her decision to send her three
children to Nurul Fikri Elementary.
Another woman, Tyas Imanullah agreed. She added that she
wanted her children to grow up to become people with superior
qualities, who, according to head preacher Zainuddin M.Z., have
"the Germans' brains and the faith of the Meccan people".
So far, some of the results seem to be promising. Six-year-old
Nida, for example, is an avid reader, loves fairy tales loves to
experiment with crayons and markers.
However, the first grader has also started to read the Koran
and knows 14 sura by heart.
Azka, five, and Zulfa, four-and-a-half, can't read yet, but
both are great fans of Aesop's fables. The two kindergartners
know 16 sura by heart. They also know a number of nasyid, songs
of praise to God and the Prophet.
With a special Qiroa'ti method for teaching the children to
read and write Arabic, third and fourth graders will have
memorized 30 to 40 sura, and read the Koran fluently.
Pious or clever
As all of the Moslem parents hope for, even the kindergartners
perform the five mandatory prayers everyday.
The Nurul Fikri elementary school seems to solve the problem
faced by parents in making a choice between Islamic and public
schools - do I want my children to be pious or "clever" with
strong interest in sciences?
If they choose piety, they would then send their children to
Islamic schools which for years have been stereotyped as
backward.
"People used to say that if you wanted your children to be
disciplined and hard-working, you should send them to the nuns in
Catholic schools," said Sita, who graduated from a university.
Those who choose public schools do so in the hope that their
children will be more intellectually stimulated. However, they
usually try to complement their children's education with extra
study hours of mengaji (Koranic lessons).
The fact that each type of school used a different curriculum,
either from the Ministry of Religious Affairs or Ministry of
Education, did little to help convince the parents that Islamic
teachings recognize "secularization".
Such separation continued for decades until the emergence of a
number of quality Islamic schools such Al Azhar and Al Izhar.
However, both are known to be quite expensive, with entrance fees
alone soaring into the millions of rupiah and long waiting lists.
Sita and Tyas, on the other hand, only have to pay Rp 45,000
(approximately US$ 21) for each child monthly. Of that sum, Rp
30,000 is for meal allowances.
Nurul Fikri was started eight years ago, when a number of
Jakartan Moslem students decided that there should be affordable,
quality Islamic school which combined the best features of both
Islamic and secular educations.
Led by the late Jusuf A. Nur, a leading activist at the Arif
Rahman Hakim Mosque at the University of Indonesia, they
established the Nurul Fikri ("bright mind") Foundation.
Capital was gathered through the foundation's profitable
business of providing tutelage for college entrance examinations
complemented by intensive lessons in Islamic teachings.
Since the realization of the Nurul Fikri founders last year,
school administrator and psychologist Fahmi Alaydrus says school
fees and donations keeps the school running.
Here the Moslem students, school alumni and parents
themselves, experimentally "blend" the curriculums among its six
classrooms and 91 students.
The "integrated" curriculum means that the students are
exposed to the same material that other students in other Islamic
schools receive However, they stress that Koranic teachings show
that Islam does not separate spiritual and daily life.
For instance, when students study water, they are told of the
Koranic passages which cite the creator of water, plus its
various forms and functions.
"Even physical exercises are linked with Islamic teachings,"
Fahmi said, referring to the Prophet Muhammad's edict that
Moslems teach their daughters and sons swimming, archery and
(horse) riding.
"We want to produce children who are bertaqwa (pious) but also
intellectually stimulated so that they can develop strong
interests in science and technology," said Fahmi.
Not nerds
The teachers dismissed the suggestion that the school is
likely to produce "serious" children.
"Prophet Muhammad chose to extend his prostration during a
prayer rather than interrupting his grandsons who were playing
horseback on him," Fahmi said.
The children, indeed, are not nerds. Water fights
occasionally take place when the students line up to the water
taps to perform ablution before prayer time.
The boys wrestle and chase girls, and the girls hit extremely
boisterous boys.
During physical exercise, some younger students pulled a
teacher's beard. Once, some first grade boys stole bananas from
their teacher's bag.
Of the unusually long school hours, Fahmi said it is "actually
more effectively spent compared to the hours other children have
to spend going between, madrasah and public schools."
Busy parents just love the long school hours. Sita said it
makes it easier for her to check in on her children.
"I feel that I can really entrust my children to their
teachers," Sita said, referring to the university graduates and
experts on Islam rarely found in other kindergartens and
elementary schools.
But there is certainly a price to achievement. Nida, her
daughter, says she is tired and just wishes school could end
sooner.