[VYholden]

I have worked with Tasheel & IEOSA Series for almost 10 years in US & UK and also Taleemul Haq.

Taleemul Haq & Tasheel Series (old) are almost unusable by Non-Asians and they are very difficult to pick up and teach by ordinary teachers. The Lessons don’t follow a teaching plan of any kind the progression for children isn’t uniform i.e. it jumps around.

The efficacy of a great Hanafi Manual like Taleemul Haq is undermined by poor presentation, spelling and grammar errors and inconsistent in Lesson presentation.

There needs to be a consistent approach throughout the book:

a) Introduce Terms
b) Introduce Lesson Objectives
c) Introduce Lessons
d) Expand the Lessons
e) Close
f) Review
g) Evaluate

Something like that, instead what you have is some Lessons following a format and others don’t.
The (old) Tasheel is not good quality either and also not consistent and also requires knowledge of Urdu in order to teach.

The (new) Tasheel series has improvements in:

a) Text (a lot of emphasis has been placed on spelling, grammar etc)
b) Pictures
c) Lesson Presentation
d) Formatting

But the transformation is not YET complete and many books havn’t been upgraded yet.

What is still lacking is someone with a teaching background to go through the text and really harmonise:

a) Structuring of Lessons
b) Progression through Books (as Kids grow up)

Tasheel is taught in Madaris in UK & US and the reason it works is because the Ulama & Huffadh teaching it already know the material and they actually bring in and draw upon their knowledge of the subject matter.
IEOSA Series is head and shoulders above Tasheel in the way it is laid out “Academically” but since I don’t know which Ulama (in South Africa) have contributed to it I don’t recommend it.

IQRA Series is also very good and well laid but again I am not sure about the “involvement of Ulama”.

So rightly or wrongly we are stuck with “Tasheel”, once a decision has been made we enhance the teaching through Tasheel in the following ways:

1) Strong emphasis on Teacher’s Lesson plans on how to organise the Lesson
2) Use the Tasheed series as a guide and a Skeleton and bring in information about the subject from other reliable sources of Fiqh, Hadeeth, Seerah etc.

So in general use Tasheel but it will need to be complimented.

It will take you a year or two of experimentation with the Tasheel series and the teachers will then have their own resources (in conjunction with Tasheel series) to draw upon.

And by teachers I don’t necessarily mean qualified teachers but anybody with an inkling of teaching. You should setup a process and a method of teaching and then everybody follows.

For the first year teaching from Tasheel will be a learning process.



P.S: If you teach to Non-Deobandees then the first task is to EARN THEIR RESPECT through your professionalism and believe me most kids don't like Taleemul-Haq & "old tasheel" and it doesn't matter if they are from US or UK.

As I’ve also been working with the tasheel and talimul haq series for many years, and fully agree that they can be difficult to work with. I’ve found that the majority of teachers struggle to make lessons appeal to young children when using these resources and as a result, learning become monotonous and does not stimulate the children nor influence them.

One way around it is to make detailed lesson plans for the tasheel lessons for the teachers to use, as suggested above. The lesson plans should include the objective of the lesson, the materials needed, keywords, a group activity, an individual activity, evaluation etc. This way, even teachers who are not very creative or imaginative will manage to perk things up a bit. For example, a lesson on istinja - which is portrayed in the book as a simple numbered list of do’s and don’ts accompanied by a wordsearch- can be taught by making a small enclosure in the middle of the classroom using benches to represent the bathroom. Students then practice walking in and out of the enclosure using the right foot/left foot and practice reciting the duas. Bring props such as a istinja water-can, tissue roll, an unattached tap, towel etc and flashcards with key words and pictures on them to pretend and practice. This works well for children who can’t read and write properly yet.

When teaching virtues of salah, then a group activity could be to draw a web on the board and call out students to write a virtue on the board as you discuss it. Then set a task where the students make a poster to encourage people who are not praying to start praying salah. They include a caption, some virtues or one benefit on the poster (Salah Sale! Pray one get seventy free!! Limited offer, while life lasts!... or something like that) Make a competition out of it with a prize to the best poster.

For a hadeeth on controlling anger, the students can do a role play where one person gets angry and the other tries to use effective methods to calm him from the sunnah (sit, lie down, ta’awudh, water etc). Or as a class write occasions when we get angry and come up with effective solutions to overcome that etc. Can be continued individually, where each student writes three occasions where he/she display anger regularly and on the opposite side of the page thinks of solutions.

These are just random examples. I want to convey that an often dull presentation of material can be taught in a way that involves the students and encourages them to apply the lessons to their everyday lives. Props are also important –simple, inexpensive things like household items (a pillow and blanket to have a make-believe snooze in class and teach the sleeping sunnahs by acting out the bedtime procedure) flashcards, pictures (visual aids are much more effective than words) etc all help. I tend to discourage too much colouring and save it for homework or as a reward – classtime is too precious.

Many teachers, regardless of how committed, pious and knowledgeable they are, cannot come up with ideas on their own so if experienced schoolteachers offer their expertise in this field the teachers and ulamah teaching the lessons can improve their delivery of the lessons and the students can benefit from a better learning experience. I have found that many teachers need months and months of guidance and training before they can produce effective and varied lesson plans.

I have also found this to be the only waymake tasheel and talimul haq work. Although some of the new tasheel books are slightly better formatted, it is the teacher that will bring the lesson alive and teach it in a way that the students are able to retain and apply what is learnt to their lives whilst recognising the benefits of doing things the sunnah way.

For seerah of the Messenger I have not found one book that I was satisfied with for younger children to use and in the end ended up producing my own workbooks for the kids to use.

There is definitely a lack of quality resources when it comes to teaching Islam to children. We need to add to them otherwise an Islamic lifestyle will never appeal the younger generation.