Help: How to deal with old illiterate people in schools?

[Danah]

I need to have some tips to know how to deal with illiterate people, old women to more accurate.
I have been asked to set a program for old women to teach them the basics in Islam. Something like the following:
1. prayers
2. Wudoo
3. Some supplications of for the day and night
4. Some short and basic ahaadeeth

They already know how to do that, but sometimes some of them do it improperly as they learned such practices long time ago like 50 years ago or more and in most cases they didn't get proper learning due to the simple old life they had.

We have really old women (like 70 yrs and above) and they come to learn how to read Quran and sometimes its hard to teach them something that they used to do for long years in a specific way then you come all of a sudden to show them a different way to do it.



Any ideas or experiences will be appreciated.

 

[Ummu Sufyaan]

wa alaykum us-Salaam

it will be difficult to change ones habits, but inshallah with effort and kind persistence it should be possible.

being illiterate they cant read and write but their other perceptions/senses will probably be stronger so that is a good thing and you can use that to your advantage...i would think that teaching someone illiterate would require examples so you actually show them through actions (perhaps giving them a vid to watch of someone praying whilst they are not in class (i.e when they are at home) may work asell).

start slowly and in steps. analyze first what they are doing wrong (get them to demonstrate for you but if you feel that is rude just observe them praying whilst they are unaware)...take note of what they need help with.

i think when you teach someone something it requires 2 things: knowledge of the persons competence and knowledge of what you are teaching. so ensure that you deliver your classes according to that persons ability and level of understanding. there is no point in teaching someone something in a manner they dont understand it.

concentrate on one thing at a time. it might be too overwhelming if they say make 10 things wrong with their prayer and wudoo and you work on these ten things at once (it might be too difficult and that may lead ot them giving up easily)... i would start with what is obligatory and work my way from there. once they have this perfect, i would move on to the sunan aspects of wudoo/prayer.

ensure that someone prays with them aswell. i think this will help....like they are followers and there is an imam..continue this until it becomes a habit for them.

 

[جوري]

how about teaching them the alphabet? ... you know giving man a fish is feeding him for one day but teaching him how to fish feeds him for a lifetime ...

 

[Danah]

wa alaykum us-Salaam

it will be difficult to change ones habits, but inshallah with effort and kind persistence it should be possible.

being illiterate they cant read and write but their other perceptions/senses will probably be stronger so that is a good thing and you can use that to your advantage...i would think that teaching someone illiterate would require examples so you actually show them through actions (perhaps giving them a vid to watch of someone praying whilst they are not in class (i.e when they are at home) may work asell).

start slowly and in steps. analyze first what they are doing wrong (get them to demonstrate for you but if you feel that is rude just observe them praying whilst they are unaware)...take note of what they need help with.

i think when you teach someone something it requires 2 things: knowledge of the persons competence and knowledge of what you are teaching. so ensure that you deliver your classes according to that persons ability and level of understanding. there is no point in teaching someone something in a manner they dont understand it.

concentrate on one thing at a time. it might be too overwhelming if they say make 10 things wrong with their prayer and wudoo and you work on these ten things at once (it might be too difficult and that may lead ot them giving up easily)... i would start with what is obligatory and work my way from there. once they have this perfect, i would move on to the sunan aspects of wudoo/prayer.

ensure that someone prays with them aswell. i think this will help....like they are followers and there is an imam..continue this until it becomes a habit for them.

I agree with most of what you said. The problems is that we can't notice them all when they pray, we have many classes, like we will deal with more than 100 person.
I did think about showing them a video for someone pray or doing Wudu instead of giving it to them, because I think the last is not a practical solution for them.

JazakiAllah khair for the other points you explained, I got some more things to think about.

I also think of making a program for the teachers of the classes to follow on the learning process. I think dealing with small groups is much easier and effective than dealing with everyone as a whole

how about teaching them the alphabet? ... you know giving man a fish is feeding him for one day but teaching him how to fish feeds him for a lifetime ...

They do have some classes for learning the alphabet, but still...they learn very basic things that can't lead them to read about wudu and prayer themselves. They need help from others.

 

[Hamza Asadullah]

I need to have some tips to know how to deal with illiterate people, old women to more accurate.
I have been asked to set a program for old women to teach them the basics in Islam. Something like the following:
1. prayers
2. Wudoo
3. Some supplications of for the day and night
4. Some short and basic ahaadeeth

They already know how to do that, but sometimes some of them do it improperly as they learned such practices long time ago like 50 years ago or more and in most cases they didn't get proper learning due to the simple old life they had.

We have really old women (like 70 yrs and above) and they come to learn how to read Quran and sometimes its hard to teach them something that they used to do for long years in a specific way then you come all of a sudden to show them a different way to do it.



Any ideas or experiences will be appreciated.

Asalaamu Alaikum, teaching the older generation is never easy as they are set in their ways and it is difficult to teach new concepts to older people but it can be done. A wonderful example is of an 80 year old women who managed to memorise the Qur'an, Subhanallah. So anything is possible with maximum effort.

It is best to try and teach them in smaller classes and groups as oppose to bigger classes because then it would be very difficult to give proper attention to them as individuals especially to those who may need additional help and support.

Most of the teaching should be done in a practical way as in to show them each of the positions in prayer and actions in wudu etc or even draw it on a board. They should also be given practical examples on paper on the positions and actions of wudu and Salaah and then they should be asked individually or randomly to repeat the positions or actions until they have eventually mastered it and then they should test thereafter at the end of the session or even in the next session and following sessions to see how much they have remembered. These tests should continue in each session until each of them have mastered the correct positions and actions in Salaah and wudu.

There should also be a slot in every session where they are taught to recite Qur'an from the basic Arabic Alphabet upwards until they are able to recite the Qur'an with correct tajweed. This would take much longer for older people and some may find it harder than others but it is possible as long as there are enough teachers to teach the right amount of pupils in each class. They should be regularly tested to ensure they have mastered each stage in the process of learning to recite the Qur'an properly with tajweed.

There should also be a slot to teach them the basic fundamentals of Islam such as Tawheed etc. They may be tested in the same way as above until they have learnt what they need to learn about the fundamentals of Islam.

If there is any additonal time then you can read the basic story of any of the Prophets (Alaihisalaam) of Allah. Or any other topic such as the hereafter, Jannah, Jahannam etc.

They can also be asked randomly to see whether they understood and took on board what they were taught.

I don't know how long your sessions are but let me assume one hour. A basic plan may to teach them may look like this:

6:00 pm - Basics of Salaah - 15 minutes

6:15 pm - Basics of Wudu - 15 minutes

6:30 pm - Learn Arabic Alphabet - 15 minutes

6:45 pm - The Basics of islam - 15 minutes

A structured plan like this may be implemented. The following book is made to teach children the basics of Islam including Tawheed, Salaah, wudu as well as the stories of the Prophets etc. It also contains tests. It is a good book to use for teaching:

Islam Beliefs and Teachings

http://www.islamicbulletin.org/free_downloads/kids/islam_children.pdf


May Allah reward you for your efforts and make these classes a huge success where the elders learn and benefit from what they are taught inshallah

And Allah know best in all matters

 

[Danah]

Alhumdulilah it has been around 2 weeks since I started this program in the school, and I noticed that the students accepted that and liked the idea. What I did is showing them all in one hall a video of someone make wuduu in the right way, then we asked some of them to repeat what the person was doing in front of everyone else. After that, I divided the topic of wuduu to 4 lessons and I gave the teachers of all classes those lessons to explain them to the students.

The only hard thing I find when it comes to elders, is that some of them tend to argue about the way they used to do something. Like some of them may not accept someone show them a different way of making wuduu after they have been following that way for long long years.

It is best to try and teach them in smaller classes and groups as oppose to bigger classes because then it would be very difficult to give proper attention to them as individuals especially to those who may need additional help and support.

yeah thats true, I did do that when I asked the teachers of classes to explain in more depth, while I present a presentation about wudu to the whole school at the same time.

Most of the teaching should be done in a practical way as in to show them each of the positions in prayer and actions in wudu etc or even draw it on a board.

yeah, that worked quite well alhumdulilah

I don't know how long your sessions are but let me assume one hour. A basic plan may to teach them may look like this:

6:00 pm - Basics of Salaah - 15 minutes

6:15 pm - Basics of Wudu - 15 minutes

6:30 pm - Learn Arabic Alphabet - 15 minutes

6:45 pm - The Basics of islam - 15 minutes

I decided to make the classes to be as the following:
Wudu >> four classes where each class talks about specific sub-topic in Wuduu (the conditions of Wuduu, the nullifiers of Wuduu, pillars of Wuduu and the sunnan of Wuduu)

I decided to deal with the rest of topics I will include in my plan at the same pattern inshaAllah.