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.