I am ashamed to say, but it’s been a year since my last visit. I was inspired by my first visit; when I met them the first time, I couldn’t help but leave a piece of my heart in their home. The kids are tender-hearted and soft-spoken. There’s a rambunctious side to every child, but they were refined in showing it (at least with guests around). It was them who inspired me to make more visits, but after a difficult pregnancy and now the challenge of being a mother to a toddler and infant, I just haven’t got around to doing it. A rush of emotion fell over me though after reading the blog recently about another sister’s visit with them. It seems that J, the oldest boy who is now 13, is failing all of his 6th grade classes.
That’s all I needed to read. I sent an email over to one of Al Amaanah’s members asking if J got a tutor. He referred me to the sister who visited them, and she said “no.”
This was my inspiration to get back involved – except this time I was going to spread the ajr, insha Allah. I asked my husband to read the blog. Once he was done, I asked if he wanted to help out; he agreed. We made arrangements to go and visit them the following Sunday.
I met another sister from Al Amaanah at the masjid before we strolled over to their apartment. Alhamdulillah. I was soooooo glad they moved from the dilapidated apartments they were at last year to another complex next to a masjid. When we knocked on the door, Abu J was the first to welcome us in. J shortly appeared afterward and turned on some lights. Umm J appeared next and brought us some lemonade and cookies. We all gave our salaams and sat down to get acquainted. The youngest son, Y, now 5, came into the living room briefly only to run back up the stairs into the bedroom. The middle son, B, now 12, quietly and maturely greeted every one of us before returning back to the bedroom upstairs. It wasn’t long after they disappeared that you could hear thumps on the ceiling from the 2 youngest ones having a blast playing upstairs.
J respectfully pulled out 2 dining chairs for him and his father to sit on while his mother sat on the couch. My husband began talking with the father and J about his school. The language barrier was prevalent, as some points J had to translate for his dad. J explained that he was failing Reading, Math, Science and ESL. He is currently enrolled in summer school for Reading and Math (they did not offer Science in summer school). The teachers told him that if he passed summer school, then they would let him advance to 7th grade.
I was confused. (1) How could he be in ESL, but also standard Math, Science and Reading courses? As far as I remember, if a child was in ESL, then he would also be in an ESL Reading, ESL Math and ESL Science classes. And if he was failing ESL, what makes them think that he can master standard Reading, Math and Science!? (2) He failed Science, and they didn’t offer it in summer school. So if they advance him to 7th grade, they would immerse him into learning Science on a 7th grade level when he doesn’t even understand it on a 6th grade level. Strange. I suppose his age might have something to do with it, wa Allahu ‘alim.
Any way, Umm J then brought over a paper to us from J’s Reading teacher. It said that his weekly grade was averaging in the low 40s and that J needed to “pay attention” and not “forget” his homework. The emphasis on “paying attention” and “forgetting” homework irked me. It was as if the teacher thought J was rebellious and didn’t want to learn, but we all understood that the issue ran deeper. After all, J’s verbal communication was good enough to hold a conversation and understand English, but it was obvious that he lacked proficiency in reading and writing it. My husband asked him what school he went to; when he responded, I cringed. I knew it was the closest middle school to him, but that school’s reputation had never been exemplary. It was apparent that the administrative staff had no formal training nor were they qualified to deal with kids of this nature. The majority of kids in the area are Spanish-speakers, and the teachers were probably rehearsed in dealing with them. The kids Al Amaanah deals with are not the same: their language is not common like Spanish is here, and by the will of Allah, they are refugee kids, having been through and seen things that forced them to grow up quicker than the average child. J mentioned that there is a school down the street where some of his friends go, and they seem to be doing alright there. It might be worthwhile to look into getting him admitted.
It was after this point that my husband starting asking J what he likes. He wasn’t too responsive, so it became a Q&A session:
Do you like soccer? —– Not really.
Do you like basketball? —– It’s ok.
What do you like to do? —– He just shrugged. Then he said play with my friends.
You could see J thinking about what he really liked. He then mentioned swimming and karate. My husband then asked him what kind of movies he liked and he said – Action, like Jackie Chan movies.
Though I thought it was great that we were getting more personal with him, I was a little puzzled as to what my husband’s motive was for asking all the questions. Briefly, I asked him what he was thinking – and he said that he wanted to find what J was interested in, and then get him to learn English through it.
Ma sha Allah. What a creative endeavor. Maybe if he read about something he liked, he would be more interested in reading.
After a moment of silence, J gazing around the room, and his eyes lit up. He said he liked to put things together and take them apart. He said he likes electronics; his dad would bring home things for him and he would take them apart to see how they worked.
Bingo. Now we got something to work with.
In the meantime, the noise upstairs was getting to my 3 year old son and he told me he wanted to go up there and play. His attention span was diminishing amongst the adult conversations going on. After rummaging through the cookies, drinking lemonade and hopping all over the couch, he then began to play with the kids games I installed on my phone for him. Y came down a few minutes later and rushed over. “What’s that!? Let me see it!” he said to my son, who handed him the phone to let him play too. I was shocked. I remembered last year that he only spoke Arabic, and now, here he is, with a growing English vocabulary. Umm J said that Y started school this year, so he is now learning it. Alhamdulillah.
It wasn’t long before my battery died on my phone and the boys found themselves bored, so Y invited my son to play upstairs, and that was the last of them I saw till it was time to leave.
As the discussion on J’s schooling continued, my husband asked him what time would work best for tutoring. He said he was in summer school till 2pm, and he had about a week or so left. They agreed to meet the following day at ‘Asr to begin their studies. After some further small talk, we didn’t want to overstay our welcome and figured it was time to go. At the last moment, my husband began talking in Arabic to Abu J. Though Arabic is not his native tongue, he has been studying it for over a year and figured he would exercise what he knew. At that point, J’s dad and my husband were going back and forth for a while. It seemed that Abu J’s proficiency in English was as good as my husband’s proficiency in Arabic. They mutually agreed that my husband could work with him on his English if Abu J would work with my husband on his Arabic. Ma sha Allah. A beneficial relationship.
