2020 October 18 – AJ – male age 15 – Class Notes
At the start of class we begin with our usual. The teacher orders us to face the flag and say the pledge of allegiance, then face the Kaaba and recite the pledge of faith. Then we source the face of our education and recite surah Al-Fatihah. We also had two new students, so that meant we had to review the 5, 5 and 6. First was the five prayers which are Faji, Durah, Asr, Maghrib and Isha’a. The 5 pillars of Islam which are Decleration of Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting and Pilgrimage. Finally the 6 pillars of Iman which are belief in God, belief in Angels,, belief in books, belief in messengers, belief in the Divine revelation and belief in the day of Judgement. Once we had all finished with our review, the teacher had planned for us to watch a movie. He said we should take good notes as this movie reminded him of his own childhood.
This film was called Taare Zameen Par. Right away when this movie started I noticed the child in this film was different from the others. While they all were playing, he was interested in fishes and is shown as sort of this introverted child. As the movie goes on, we get to learn more about this kid’s life, when we are introduced to the brother he is compared to his brother as his brother was smarter than him. The teacher said that this was like him and his sister when they were younger, always being compared with one another. One key scene I would like to mention was when the kid and in the movie goes outside to play cricket with the other boys. After the kid refuses to get the ball a fight breaks out and the kid runs up the complex of the apartment and when he reaches the top he begins to cry. The teacher then asked us what is something special that he is doing in this scene.
None of us had any idea, but the teacher answered and said the special thing that the kid is doing is that he is crying. At first I was confused, because I thought how crying is the most important part of this scene, but then the teacher introduced the topic of love. Once again I thought it was corny, but I soon realized that it wasn’t. The teacher said that crying is like rage, except instead of acting harsh you let it all out. When you are crying to a loved one it is even better, because you realize all your fears, stress, etc on to them and they are there to comfort you. Your parents will always be there to love you no matter what, so the teacher went on and said even years after when your child is going through a tough time they just need to remember that their parents will always love them and that everything will be fine.
To further strengthen this point, later on in the movie we see that the kid is getting punished by his father for starting the fight, even though he didn’t even let him explain his side of the story. Unlike the mother who comforts her son(the kid in the movie) and tells him that everything is okay and that it isn’t his fault. This is showing what the effects of not loving your child will do and it is very important that parents and children should love one another as if there is no tomorrow. That was the main point I got from the scenes of the movies and the mini lecture. We then paused the movie and began a documentary.
The documentary was about a girl in India who was born with a horrible case of hydrocephalus. If you don’t know what hydrocephalus is, it is a condition where babies are born with the buildup of fluids within the brain. The girl had such a rare condition of this that it looked so unhuman like nobody had seen this before. The teacher was trying to get us to understand to be grateful for what you have. To thank god that you are born with no problems such as not being able to see, not having thumbs, etc. We should take the time out of our day to appreciate what we have. The teacher then went on to give an example of how some people are picking and say oh god give me a boy not a girl and vice versa. But they should be thankful that they even have a child and that they have no problems. We only got like 15 mins in as the teacher wanted to show something else to us and I think it was the most important one.
The teacher began to show us a video on the life of the prophet. During the time before Islam the rich and powerful or mecca would scam people who made pilgrimage to worship idols. One day the prophet went up to the cave where he received the message from one of the angels of god. The prophet however at the time ran and felt like he was being possessed and wouldn’t accept that he was now a messenger of god. The prophet told everything to his wife and besides her hearing what her cousin had to say if she accepted Islam, she become the first to accept it. The prophet would then hold secret meetings where he would teach the messenge of Islam and many people begin to accept it. But the rich and powerful people or mecca wanted to get rid of the prophet but had no way how to. Later on in the video there was a scene with a slave and the owner was whipping him and telling him to deny the words of the prophet. But the slave ignored and kept repeating the words of the prophet. The key thing I was able to learn from this was that if people during this time were beaten for being muslim, I should be afriad of who I am.