2021 September 20-hh-female age 13

My homework for this week was to learn and memorize the pledge of faith we do at the beginning of class as I did not have the exact wording, as well as to go over and essentially rememberer the English translations to surah Fatiha and Ikhlas that I should’ve done last week, so instead I’m doing it this week, along with surah kawthar and asr that I’ve previously learned but forgotten since.

Today when I walked into class I made sure my greeting was loud enough so that everyone, even people at the ends of the room could hear, as I was corrected last week. The instructor noticed and said that now I was doing it right. As usual, I did e two rakats but this time in the classroom and my brother also did it since he was waiting for his class to start (our class is located in a Sunday school, my brother goes to the Sunday school, and our class starts a little earlier so until his class starts he came to my class with me, only like ten minutes).

Anyways though after I completed my rakats I was told to make conversation with an adult for three minutes. I wasn’t very successful but I made it through by asking about his kids and where they went to school, where he was from and then from there how many languages we knew and then the three minutes were over. After that I was supposed to lead the pledges, I wasn’t very prepared although I should’ve been since I was told I would last week and forgot, nonetheless I think I did moderately well aside from the pledge of faith which was not very successful with me not talking loud enough, or messing up the words, which is why this week I am learning it.

That was pretty much the beginning of class and following that we all got into our seats and started talking about our essays and what we talked about last class since there was a new student who wasn’t there the whole duration of the day (as I wasn’t today as well since I left early because I had to do something). We talked about making sure our essays were in the proper format as I hope mine is now and about including most of the topics/things we talked about in class.

Then when a student was explaining what happened, the teacher had purposed sidetracked him by saying that I would then clean up his explanation (I knew it but for some reason, I said something different but it didn’t matter if I knew it since I didn’t actually say it). The teacher said he purposely did this so that the student would get distracted and to see if they would lose their train of thought then come back with a better explanation, which he did, then I tried explaining but as I said previously I didn’t do it properly and then another student explained it. The topic was amana and how everything God gives us is an amana and a trust of what we will do with it. We then talked more about this topic and used a different example since last time we spoke about money amana. The teacher then introduced, `What if I don’t have any money? What amana do I have. Do i have any amana? But amana is just trust, money is just a way amana can be expressed like how in the story although they did not have money they had a wonderful drawing ability, so that was their amana. Their amana was drawing and they used that amana for good and to provide for their family, they made drawings for people and were then paid for it, so they used their amana, in a good way as well, and it wasn’t money.

In addition to that, we spoke about public speaking and how to do that from when/how the student talked about amama. We talked about how even if you are freaking out on the inside it’s important to look confident and you will probably feel it a little after too, ‘fake it til you make it’. That as well as making sure you have good posture, your shoulders are back and you are making eye contact. It just has to be someone in the audience, it could even be a friend or someone that you could easily talk to as long as you are just maintaining eye contact with someone in the audience.

After that quick talk on public speaking, we went to amana and the teacher said although he did not like the student’s description of amana, it made him think of something else, why we do amana, we do amana because of this thing. He said it was a 9 letter word starting with g and ending with l. I’ve always been very bad at hangman and things like it but start guessing vowels as most words consist of it. I didn’t do the right ones but as we only had the facial features left someone guessed t and from that thought the word was grateful, and he was correct. The teacher then made up another story although realistic saying you walk into a hospital seeing so many people of so many ages including your own with injuries and illnesses, while in the hospital you think of how very grateful you are that you are fully mobile, able and things like that, but then you forget it all as soon as you leave, we did another hangman and got the word ungrateful. We talked about how easy and how fast you can become ungrateful. For example you could see an old lady unloading your cart from the grocery store and help, we then talked about how you always have something to give, how you can always help someone in some way and you must be grateful everyday.

After that we revisited the last class and the teacher asked if we remembered our homework he gave us previously, something very simple we had all week to do. I couldn’t remember any official homework aside from learning the English translations to some of the things you say in prayer. He then said that it was to do one good deed and although I didn’t know it was homework I had still done at least one good deed in the span of 7 days. We talked about how a good deed is something good that you do/did, that you didn’t have to. We then went around the room and shared our homework.
We also talked about always making sure you’re aware of god and how that doesn’t mean you have to always walk around in your prayer cap and prayer beads but rather just always acknowledging and being in remembrance of your creator’s existence. For example, if God gave you wealth, you should then share that wealth. The teacher then brought up a situation where two people both have one million dollars, one person says to give it all away, to donate all it to charity because god can just give you another million the next day, but that persons their wife and children have no food to eat because they donated all their money and gave it all away. We then spoke about how the Quran is your common sense guide for life and how it says to take care of your necessities and what you need, then you can donate as you wish. After that we spoke about a story from the prophet’s time and learned that you should donate about 20% of your money.

Then with that and that logic in mind the teacher tells us about how over the weekend he went to a wedding, he then thought that they must’ve spent $100 on each person, and there were twenty as the venue, after much time and going around and no one figuring out 100 times 200 we then realised the solution to the math problem was twenty thousand so they must’ve spent about twenty thousands on the wedding, 20% of that would be 5,000 so after spending that much on the wedding they should then donate and give away 5,000. At the time I didn’t remember but now writing this I remember how when my parents had gotten an ups store and it had all worked out my sister then said you guys remember to pay sadaqah and donate money, and they had.

After that when I was answering a question and spoke too fast we talked about making sure we talk at a good speed so that people in a conversation can understand us. Then a student walked in late and the teacher talked about how he does not accept people late to class and late with their homework, especially when they don’t say why or ask for an extension on the homework. He had then brought up how if you were to be running late to basketball practice you would quickly tell your coach hey coach I’m gonna be late today, so at least they know and things like that. Then he then talks about how this is a leadership class just located in a Sunday school and the class emphasis is different than the Sunday school part of the building and how it is more leadership and instructor based. He also talks about how with this class we should learn personal etiquette and reminds us that we only have six weeks to graduate so we have to make sure we are actually doing homework on our own even if you weren’t specifically told one particular thing you must do.
I then had to leave class early so when I noticed I had to leave I quietly packed my things up, said goodbye and then left.

On my way out the teacher also reminded me how we need to be goats and just do what we know we need to do rather than sheeps who need to be spoon fed everything, especially since this was a leadership program.

Today I learned about gratefulness, always having something to give, how the Quran is a common-sense guidebook for life, donating 20% of your money to charity (I actually knew this one but it was good to remember).