2021 October 4 – HH – female age 13 – Class Notes

Today I was supposed to come to class with the English and Arabic translations of the Tashahhud, the durood al ibrahim, along with the translations and of everything else you say in prayer but that was what I had learned the previous week.
I came to class with all of the english and arabic translations to everything you say i’m prayer except the two dus you say at the end which is what i will come to class with next week along with everything else.

As I arrived in the classroom I saw that a friend I had met in the Sunday school part of the building and whom I had been in contact with had joined the program along with someone else.

We immediately started class with testing out and studying our translations to what we say in prayer. I was tested by one of the older students who had already passed the level we are on and who were called prefects later in the class. I think i did pretty well since i knew all the content but for some things it took a couple seconds to register and for me to actually say it, so i wasn’t as fast as i could’ve been for some but the knowledge of the translations was still there.

After I tested out, I went outside on the terrace to see what the building was like last week since I liked the fresh air as I was studying. I went through all of prayer and the 12 base surahs in arabic and english somehow ten times better than the hen i had tested out but that aside i practiced someone more what i had already known and started actually learning something new as most of the content i was previously ‘learning’ i had already learned in the past and forgot so it was more remembrance rather than learning. On the duas I also had to learn arabic which i hadn’t had to do for almost all of it since i had already known it. I then asked one of the ‘prefects’ who was helping the new students how i should pronounce it, she read it aloud and it was helpful knowing how it should sound. Yet i was reading from the english translation of the arabic, not the meaning but the arabic written using the english alphabet so it messed up the i was saying it a lot actually but my mom helped me and I did mostly all the first dua.

After that we had pizza and when I walked in the classroom I saw my brother had also joined us since it was his lunch break as well. Near the end of it one of the teachers had asked the students who he thought had done really well in his prayer which he had observed as he was the one testing him. After the student demonstrated the teacher asked another student to demonstrate following that.

The teacher then brought up the story behind surah kawthar. He told us how prophet Mohammad peace be upon him had many people ridiculing him and things of the such when god sent down surah kawthar as a reassurance to him and reminding him what he should be doing along along with the line about his enemies and how they will ‘be cut off from future hope’
Then he assigned us his own homework that was separate from the essay. The homework was to find out if prophet Mohammad peace be upon him had any children and if he did how old they were before they had died.

Another teacher then went back to when students showing how they had done prayer and reminded us that this was a leadership class and things like prayer are expected to already be known and if they weren’t maybe another class should be taken for that because learning how to do prayer was not apart of the curriculum they teach yet rather the meaning of what you say in prayer.

After this we revisited a thing we had done in the past weeks which was introducing ourselves for three minutes so public speaking was one of the ways they say they strengthen you in the program, verbal, mental, and written.

Additionally, when a student was sharing, the teacher noticed that one of the new girls was laughing at the other new girl and was then asked to take her place and talk about herself in front of the class before the other girl did. She had done really well and was told that she did a good job on talking about a lot of things yet would have improved by narrowing down on one particular thing or hobbit or interest and talking about that as he had told another student. The teacher also added that public speaking as one of the things they worked on in class amongst every class they would do a form of talking to the class to strengthen this. He also said that it could be possible that you talk about yourselves for three minutes every class for six weeks if you didn’t give a good explanation or he wasn’t happy with your explanation. He explained his thinking/ reasoning for this through a metaphor in football: why would you teach someone how to sprint if they do not yet know how to catch a ball.

The teacher then asked us if we knew anything that was currently happening in the news and reminded us that it’s important we stay informed of what is going on around us. After class because of this and so that I was prepared for the next class I downloaded Apple news on my phone since it has many news stations on one app and was an easy way to keep up to date on things.

Then I was given a notebook with instructions to go to the next blank page and put down my name and homework that was to be completed by the next class that I had passed around as asked to everyone in the class to also add their homework.

Then the teacher yet again on another student had asked if they were full of bd which they had expectedly answered no to and the teacher used this as an opportunity to explain a concept. The concept was very simple as if it was just not to be fooled into saying no, if you didn’t know what meat had meat in this situation, this could also apply to yes as well.

The teacher then spoke about the nonsense of perfection in your relationship with God and how everyone should just be doing the best they can and be growing in their connection on their own and at their own pace.

He then spoke about a company named three m. This company also employs people who are smarter than they and has a couple million dollar budget for just in case mess ups. He then told us how this is an immensely successful company and asked us why. We said because it’s an invention company, although they may make mistakes which are normal every once in a while, they hit ten jackpots and create something cool, like sticky notes. He told us how sticky notes were actually and failed attempt at some type of glue which was found to be temporary and could come on and off of surfaces, although it was a fail in that since it had created a huge success as sticky notes, i had actually previously known about this which was pretty cool to the see it come up in class. We then talked about the importance of situational awareness like checking a pool to make sure it’s full of water before diving in and discipline which is just overall really important and helpful.