2018 Read what Students learn. Review many notes of the same class & ask? Will I benefit from GISLA?

leaders in training” wanted

Same class but these notes by Student 1 – KL age 16 Week 10—Notes from 12/2/18 This week in class, we learned the importance of knowing what is going on in the world. Many in our class, including myself, didn’t know a lot of the things occurring in the world today from George HW Bush’s passing to elephant pee and wombat waste being studied for scientific and environmental advantages. It is important to know what’s going on in the world and to not only view the world through the glasses you are given in order to broaden your horizons and apply your brain in more than just the areas you are told you need them for.
This brings us to the major concept we learned in class this week: the metaphor that everything in life is a “code.” This means that everything in life is a specific way, or sequence, and understanding that sequence will make you a Slacker, an Operator, or a Hacker. A Hacker is someone who has figured out the system, or a specific aspect of life, and understands the way it works well enough to change it and/or find a more efficient way to use it to their advantage. An Operator is someone who simply understands the way the system works and just goes with the flow and follows what has been given to them. Lastly, a Slacker is someone who doesn’t do what is needed to make the code useful—they typically do less than the bare minimum. To be any of these people, you have to understand the “code” and how it works.
For example, a Slacker in Islam doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do—whether that be prayer or fasting during Ramadan, they don’t do it or do significantly less than what they are capable of. In order to be a Slacker in Islam, you have to know what is means to own Islam, know the values, and know what to do to be a true Muslim. There is no way to be a Slacker unless you know the right thing to do and purposefully avoid it and begin to slack.
On the other hand, a professor, someone who is an expert in what they do, is a hacker. This is because they are so smart that they understand the way a particular aspect of life works so well that they can teach others the best way to understand it and apply it. More worldly examples of Hackers include Uber (hacker of the taxi industry—affordable and organized travel system) and Chipotle (hacker of the food industry—healthy fast food for affordable price).
Building off of the fact that Chipotle and Uber are hackers of their respective industries, we can see that not only companies, but people too, take advantage of society wherever society is. For example, thousands of years ago, slaves took over Khalifa by learning who the King was, killing him, and becoming King themselves. This was possible because they understood the code (who the King was and what his job was) and used it to their advantage to obtain power.
Another way people took advantage of society was in Spanish, where the Spanish tricked Muslims in order to kill them. The Spanish would begin to do wu’du in front of Muslim children and gave them candy to continue the next stages of wu’du. The child, tricked by the candy, would finish the wu’du, which would tell the Spanish that their parents were Muslim, leading to the murder of the child’s parents. So, to avoid this, the Muslims were told to do wu’du by staring at the ocean and to pray when/where they could. While this might seem strange, it is a perfectly valid way of preparing for prayer. We learned that wu’du is more about being mentally and spiritually cleansed and prepared for prayer than it is about physically “washing off your body”—it’s more about getting in the mindset to talk to God, because it is assumed one is already clean. This is why Tehmoon, which is wu’du with sand, acting as if the sand is water, is also acceptable. It allows one to prepare themselves spiritually for prayer and also mentally switch off and prayer to engage themselves in talking to God.
This brings us to the last topic learned in class—the mental stages of each step of wu’du. First, you wash your hands in which you ask to rid your hands of everything your hands touched since the last time you did wu’du. Next, you gargle water in your mouth, which cleansing your mouth of anything you put in it or tasted since the last time you did wu’du. You then scrub your gums with your fingers, which cleanses your mouth of everything you said since the last time you did this. Your nose—cleansing it of anything it may have picked up; your face—cleansing of anything you saw, your negative facial expression; your arms—cleansing of anything you touched/anything wrong you did with your arms; hair to back of neck—cleansing your mind of thoughts, everything your neck turned to, etc.; ears—cleanse your ears of anything you heard. Lastly, you wash your feet up past your ankle to cleanse away anywhere negative your feet may have taken you since the last time you did wu’du.

Same class but these notes by Student 2 AB age 28 Week 10—Notes from 12/2/18 This week in class, we learned the importance of knowing what is going on in the world. Many in our class, including myself, didn’t know a lot of the things occurring in the world today from George HW Bush’s passing to elephant pee and wombat waste being studied for scientific and environmental advantages. It is important to know what’s going on in the world and to not only view the world through the glasses you are given in order to broaden your horizons and apply your brain in more than just the areas you are told you need them for.
This brings us to the major concept we learned in class this week: the metaphor that everything in life is a “code.” This means that everything in life is a specific way, or sequence, and understanding that sequence will make you a Slacker, an Operator, or a Hacker. A Hacker is someone who has figured out the system, or a specific aspect of life, and understands the way it works well enough to change it and/or find a more efficient way to use it to their advantage. An Operator is someone who simply understands the way the system works and just goes with the flow and follows what has been given to them. Lastly, a Slacker is someone who doesn’t do what is needed to make the code useful—they typically do less than the bare minimum. To be any of these people, you have to understand the “code” and how it works.
For example, a Slacker in Islam doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do—whether that be prayer or fasting during Ramadan, they don’t do it or do significantly less than what they are capable of. In order to be a Slacker in Islam, you have to know what is means to own Islam, know the values, and know what to do to be a true Muslim. There is no way to be a Slacker unless you know the right thing to do and purposefully avoid it and begin to slack.
On the other hand, a professor, someone who is an expert in what they do, is a hacker. This is because they are so smart that they understand the way a particular aspect of life works so well that they can teach others the best way to understand it and apply it. More worldly examples of Hackers include Uber (hacker of the taxi industry—affordable and organized travel system) and Chipotle (hacker of the food industry—healthy fast food for affordable price).
Building off of the fact that Chipotle and Uber are hackers of their respective industries, we can see that not only companies, but people too, take advantage of society wherever society is. For example, thousands of years ago, slaves took over Khalifa by learning who the King was, killing him, and becoming King themselves. This was possible because they understood the code (who the King was and what his job was) and used it to their advantage to obtain power.
Another way people took advantage of society was in Spanish, where the Spanish tricked Muslims in order to kill them. The Spanish would begin to do wu’du in front of Muslim children and gave them candy to continue the next stages of wu’du. The child, tricked by the candy, would finish the wu’du, which would tell the Spanish that their parents were Muslim, leading to the murder of the child’s parents. So, to avoid this, the Muslims were told to do wu’du by staring at the ocean and to pray when/where they could. While this might seem strange, it is a perfectly valid way of preparing for prayer. We learned that wu’du is more about being mentally and spiritually cleansed and prepared for prayer than it is about physically “washing off your body”—it’s more about getting in the mindset to talk to God, because it is assumed one is already clean. This is why Tehmoon, which is wu’du with sand, acting as if the sand is water, is also acceptable. It allows one to prepare themselves spiritually for prayer and also mentally switch off and prayer to engage themselves in talking to God.
This brings us to the last topic learned in class—the mental stages of each step of wu’du. First, you wash your hands in which you ask to rid your hands of everything your hands touched since the last time you did wu’du. Next, you gargle water in your mouth, which cleansing your mouth of anything you put in it or tasted since the last time you did wu’du. You then scrub your gums with your fingers, which cleanses your mouth of everything you said since the last time you did this. Your nose—cleansing it of anything it may have picked up; your face—cleansing of anything you saw, your negative facial expression; your arms—cleansing of anything you touched/anything wrong you did with your arms; hair to back of neck—cleansing your mind of thoughts, everything your neck turned to, etc.; ears—cleanse your ears of anything you heard. Lastly, you wash your feet up past your ankle to cleanse away anywhere negative your feet may have taken you since the last time you did wu’du.\

Same class but these notes by Student 3 – HL age 13, Week of December 3 This week in the Green Stairs Leadership Academy was an average week where we did some of the same things as the previous week, but we did switch up the format of the order of the class though. At the beginning of the class we did some of our usual “random discussion” and recited our homework at the end of the class. When I walked into class, I put my dollar into the collection bucket where we usually put our pizza money and we started with our discussion.

This week at the beginning of class we started off with the teacher asking us about some of the headlines of earlier this week. Some of the headlines mentioned were the death of former president George Bush, the death of the creator of “Spongebob Squarepants” Stephen Hillenburg, and how Microsoft caught up with Apple for net worth.The teacher told us about how an elephant urinates an equivalent of roughly one half of a bathtub in twenty seconds. When he asked us why this was important to note, no one in our class was able to give a legitimate answer. Once the teacher explained it to us, it seemed too obvious for us not to have figured out. Unless you have been living under a rock, you would know that the state of California has been experiencing very severe wildfires. The solution that they have been using to get rid of the fire was to drop water from the air. If they can figure out how the elephant is able to spread out so much water and contain it all, they would be able drop it onto the fire. We also talked about the musician Yo-Yo Ma, and how he adapted to his environment in his recent performance at the Kennedy Center by clapping to hype up the crowd.

The main concept that we learned this class was SOH; which stands for slacker, owner, and hacker. The teacher explained to us that there are three types of people, people who slack and don’t do what they are supposed to, there are owners that have mastered the certain craft that people are slacking and hacking at, and there are hackers, people who have figured out whatever they owned to the point where they can finish something before everybody else. Before you can become a slacker or hacker, you must become an owner. For example take this class, currently I am slacking, but I will not be able to successfully slack until I have owned it and figured the teacher out. At our age (middle and high school age) we are just trying to hack everything to finish before everybody, but what we need to do is own it first so then when we hack we do it the right way.

We also talked about how there is no point of being a hacker if you are not also a professor. Now when I say this I am not talking about an actual professor, like one that teaches are formal class or anything. I am talking about someone who is teaching others and benefiting others. If we take it back to Islam, we will see that the reason we are on this Earth, is to make it a better place. We also talked about how new things are constantly happening. For example, the main restaurant that people used to go to for quick and easy food was McDonalds, now although it isn’t healthy, it is convenient and over time, we have received nutrition along with our fast food. After McDonalds it was Subway, then Chipotle, and now places like McDonalds.

Another topic we talked about was how people used to pray and do wudu back in Spain when Muslims were being persecuted. To do wudu if not possible to do the physical movements, they would simply stare at the ocean to purify themselves. It is important to remember that wudu is not only a physical purification, but a spiritual one as well.

During the last part of class a student stood in front of the class and did the physical movements for wudu along with the mental intentions that you should be keeping mind of when performing the ritual. The teacher reminded us of B and R, belief and ritual. Although belief is more important, if ritual happens belief will soon come along.

Same class but these notes by Student 4 -By 11 age 15 Week of 12/2/2018                 This week, at the beginning of class, we learned a little but about 2 animals I thought were just regular old animals that didn’t really affect humans super directly. Boy, I was quite wrong. The wombat for example, if I’m remembering correctly, the excrement was sold as some of the mot expensive coffee in the world, much like a money’ excrement. On the other hand, the elephant was perhaps more interesting, if it can get more interesting than wombat poop. An elephant is able to pee the amount of half a bathtub of water in 20 seconds. After getting over the initial shock and surprise of this, I realized that this realization in hydrodynamic technology could be vital to major world problems such as the recent wildfire in California. I will definitely be looking more closely at the importance and use of animals in my everyday life.

We also learned in class two acronyms: CCC and SOH. CCC stands for something computer code. This essentially means that there is someone who is writing the code or more broadly the instructions for everything in our lives. This concept ties in with SOH which stands for slacker, operator, and hacker. For the purposes of explaining the concept, I will use the example of a car and the operator will be used as a standard. The operator of a car is someone who uses it for what is intended for: getting around safely and takes good care of the car and overall keeps it in good shape. On the lower side, a slacker is someone who, I’m sure you’ve already guessed, slakes in the responsibilities of keeping up with a car. Their car is dirty and messy and perhaps even dented and badly looking on the outside. Don’t be confused thought, the slacker will still use the car for its intended use, but just to a lower standard than the operator. On the opposite hand, the hacker, which usually has a negative connotation in this case, means someone who is an expert in their field, will take it to the next level and modify and improve the car, for example rigging the car and making it run faster and without the shaking of the car and usual problems. These two concepts are important and apply to most things in life and the understanding of the code will allow you to first become an operator and then move on to becoming the best kind of hacker.  In class, we had the example of Yo Yo Mama, a famous musician who because he was respected and a hacker in his field, able to rile up a crowd and get them excited about his show.

Another very important thing we learned in class was about reading the news. Reading the news is very important to stay informed in the affairs of the world around us. I think for me, the reason I don’t really read the news is because everything I see is about a Trump or about what’s wrong with our world not so much what anyone in our government is doing to change it.  Everyone speaks of what’s wrong with the world and critizing our leaders but then themselves not stepping up and taking charge to change things. In addition to staying informed, we must also read the news and also history to ensure that we make smarter decision than them and not repeat history. The example in class we used was the cycle of leader in Islamic history, the Caliphates. The Islamic caliphates were stuck for so long in a cycle of killing and not trusting their leader which in my opinion when they could’ve been focused on expanding their empire and done a better job of maintaining it.

Same class but these notes by Student 5 – SL age 17 Homework 12/4/18 During class this past week we talked about recent news that has happened around the world. We also learned about George Bush dying at 94. We also talked about how the ability of an elephant to pee about half a tub in 20 seconds is being studied. It is being studied to see how the hydraulic functions work so that the fighting of forest fires can improve. So that situation in like California can be contained and not be as bad. We also talked about the creator computer code and how people can be three things in life. They can be an operator which is a person who only knows how to use stuff like driving a car and is limited to that. A person can also be a hacker and know how to modify a car and tune it like a mechanic. Or you could be a professor a person who knows how to build a car and now how it works.

We also learned about how 1/3 slaves in America during slavery were Muslims. We also learned about the cycle of business. How people can be hackers and invent new ways to do something better and make a business out of it. For example Chipotle a man figured out a way to make Mexican restaurants cool and appealing to customers and engaging by letting you see the food being made. Throughout the business cycle though there will be a person that works under the leader or owner and finds a way to make a better business and that is the cycle of history.

We also learned about George Bush dying at 94. We also learned about wudu and how it prepares you spiritually to pray and how all the steps cleanse your body of all the bad things that have happened throughout the day. We also learned about how in the past people children would get killed if they knew how to do wudu because certain people didn’t like Islam. Eventually they figured it out and decided to teach their children to do wudu with their eyes. This taught me that everything you do is based on intention and if you have situation that prevents you from doing a ritual that you can do something that will accommodate it if you have the right intention.

Same class but these notes by Student 6 By OK Week of 12/2 – Male Age 28 Today’s class we started off meeting the professor a little earlier before the class to ask him a few questions that we have been encountering in our day to day life. It was very interesting to learn about things that are purely cultural that we confused for being wrong/against religion. Growing up we learned that you can’t place your shoes facing up or have the bottom of your feet facing towards a person, having alcohol at home or being in a setting where alcohol is served, teacher explained to me that there is a lot of purely cultural believes that get taught as forbidden simply because there is no reason or explanation. Teacher referred to Quran and checking the source, you must really think about the little things we are told are wrong and question if it makes sense.

Class kicked off by saying the pledge of allegiance and the pledge of faith. Then teacher asked us about what was happening in the world over the past week or two, who knew anything about the stock market, the business world, etc.. simply all our class wasn’t up to date at all with current events. Teacher asked how will you lead if you are not current on world events? He discussed how a wombat is the only animal in the world that has a square shaped poop. Teacher was fascinated by how engineers are studying elephants and how they can pee half tub in 20 seconds and they are studying how elephants do that and how to apply it to the world to potentially stop the California wildfires. It’s interesting how answers can come from unexpected sources and how you can be a hacker and use your knowledge to better the world. That was a great transition into teachers next lesson, CCC (Creator of Computer Code) people that succeed in life develop skills and hack life, everyone falls in one of 3 categories a Hacker, Operator or slacker. Hacking generally have a negative connotation to it, but to be a hacker or a slacker you must be an operator first, you must understand how things work before you can hack it to improve/help society. Teachers are the ultimate hackers of the world because they must learn and master something to be able to not only hack it to improve it, but they do research to teach others and pass along what they learned. Not all hackers are helpful unfortunately, sometimes a person can hack something that might be harmful to them (self-destructive).

We discussed Tayamom (washing to get ready for prayer) the purpose of doing that isn’t to get clean but to get mentally ready to leave the world behind and focus on your connection and communication with god, when people had to travel for months at a time their only way of preparing for prayer was tapping on the sand and going through the practice of wash for prayer. There is always a way to get mentally ready for prayer and standing in front of god focused and ready for your communication with him. In Spain a long time ago, people would lose their lives if they were seen doing wash for prayer, they would even give kids candy and start doing wash for prayer the wrong way till the kids correct them then their parents taught them, and they would get executed. It was advised to protect themselves by looking at the sea/ocean and doing the Wash with your eyes not even needing tap on the sand and do the movements because it would have caused someone to lose their life.

Intentions are everything in Islam, we get judged based on what our intentions are, fortunately for us god is so generous to give us good credit when we think a good dead or do a good dead, but when we think of a bad dead we do not get penalized for the thought that go through our head but only the actions that we take, an unfair advantage that we were blessed with.

Later in the class we were joined by teacher’s friend/colleague when we were learning the right way to perform the wash for prayer after we had a debate for about 30 minutes to defend the flag, it was fun to be able to help younger guys to develop their thoughts on how to go through a debate and how to argue for and against a topic even if they disagree with it, but giving them the first exposure to debate and standing up to what they think is right or wrong was refreshing. At the end of class teacher’s friend told us about a man that he saw standing in the rain on his way to the mosque and he said it is very easy to be ungrateful for things that we might have but when we look and see what others don’t have, it makes us very grateful to what god has blessed us with. It’s safe to say that even thought we might not have learned a lot of Islamic teaching this lesson we learned a lot of leadership and life lessons that we can apply every day in our lives, to be leaders not followers, to stand up for what we believe in and have a civil debate to understand different points of views.

Same class but these notes by Student 7 – by  DJ age 17 12/2/18 When I first entered class today we first had a discussion and debate about whether or not to stand up for the pledge of allegiance. I was on the side that was in support of it and the debate went on for about 15 minutes and their side I felt won because they had more evidence.

After the debate, we practiced and memorized our Islamic prayers and some people took tests. I did not take a test because I was not ready at the time. I have so far memorized the prayer in English up to surah Al-Fatihah and Surah Al-Asr and I still have to study a lot because I have only about 25 percent of the prayer done and I need to memorize the whole thing in order to pass the test and move onto the next level. During the practice/testing session, I also learned a few new Arabic words and there meanings and examples include Hamd which means praise, Rahman which means gracious, Malik which means master, Eya which means alone, Mustakim which means straight, and lastly Ghair which means not. Learning these words has helped me understand the prayer better and I hope in the future to learn more Arabic words and there meanings.

After the practice/testing session, we had lunch and I ate pizza and had a short break.

After that, for the rest of the class we had a lecture and discussion about Islam, philosophy, and life in general. Two new terms that I learned were CCC and SOH. The meaning of SOH stands for Slacker for h, operator for o, and hacker for h. The concept of this is that there are 3 types of people in life, the slacker who never works hard in life and has no ambition to succeed. They are considered sheep’s. The operator is the person who succeeds at life and has a desire to achieve more in life and holds lots of knowledge. They are considered to be goats. The hacker is the person who likes to bend and manipulate the rules and find loopholes in order to succeed. In order to hack the code, you must know the code and improve upon it. SOH is a very good concept and it can be understood in many different ways and I would advise people to study this concept and its terminology.

We also talked about history and I learned new things such as half of the slaves of the world were European and that the first slaves were not black people but they were white people. The reason why is because before the African slave trade began, the Ottoman empire were using small boys from Southern Europe as slaves in order to train them to become Janissaries which were Ottoman Elite troops. Also the Ancient Romans also enslaved the peoples of their conquered territory’s al throughout Europe and many of their slaves were barbarians which came from present day France and Germany. I also learned that a third of the African slaves that came to North America were Muslims and that was a very interesting and surprising fact for me.

I also learned about Islamic knowledge and some things that I learned were that there are 4,000 hadiths in the Quran and the Quran is a code and you must understand the code in order to understand the Quran. We also talked about wudu and how the point of wudu is to purify yourself spiritually in order to pray to god and that you should have a pure intention when you do wudu.

We also talked about life in general and some things that I learned was that everything in life has a design and you must study and know it in order to understand it. I also learned that your deeds are judged by your intentions so you should be careful and you should always keep your mind full of good and positive thoughts and intentions because negative and bad ones can make you depressed and unmotivated and also make you commit more sins.

After we were done with the lecture it was time to go and I had a good experience in class.

For me the two most important things that I’ve learned today are that you need to earn respect before you can open your mouth and say what you want and also belief and sincerity is what this class, Green Stairs Academy is all about. The goal of this class is to make you not only a better Muslim but also a better person. If you want to make the world a better place you should have belief and sincerity and apply that to people around you, you’re communities, and most importantly, to your life.