Here are Some of Our Favorite Resources
Articles
What is Wrong With Our Education System? – Khalid Baig
The Real Purpose of Education – Khalid Baig
Rethinking Education – Khalid Baig
What Believing in the Possibilities Can Do For Learning and Teaching – Thom Markham
A School With No Teachers, Where Students Teach Themselves – Eleanor Beardsley, NPR
5 Ways To Encourage Kids To Grow Up To Be Innovators – Fast Company
No Books, No Classes, No Problem: These Students Teach Themselves – Joseph Williams
What We Mean When We Talk About Unschooling – LinkedIn.com
The Tyranny Of Compulsory Schooling – Films For Action
Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose – Bruce Smith, Alpine Valley School
Step by Step: Designing Personalized Learning Experiences For Students – Katrina Schwartz
Behold: the two absolutely worst arguments against homeschooling – The Matt Walsh Blog – Matt Walsh
How to Get Into Harvard – David A. Graham
Why Google Won’t Hire You – Steven Mazie
Schooling the World: What the Modern World has Forgotten about Children and Learning – Carol Black
A Playful Path – Peter Gray
Bard’s Better Admissions Application – Rebecca Shuman
Don’t Go Back to School: How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Learning – Maria Popova
Harnessing Children’s Natural Ways of Learning – Luba Vangelova
How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses – Joshua Davis
Brainology: Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn – Carol Dweck
Survey of Unschoolers – Peter Gray
The Danger of Back to School – Peter Gray
Videos
What If We Trusted You? – A great talk by Jerry Michalski about how traditional schools are set up around the belief that children do not want to learn.
Do Schools Kill Creativity? – Famous talk from Sir Ken Robinson.
3 Basic Roles of Education – What is the most basic and fundamental role of our education system? Talk by Salman Asif Siddiqui with English subtitles
The Crisis of Knowledge – Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
What Schools Don't Want You to Know! – John Taylor Gatto
Education and Children – John Holt
Let's teach for mastery -- not test scores – Sal Khan
Build a School in the Cloud – Sugata Mitra
Rethinking Schools, Genius and Heroes – Jeff Sandefer
How To Run A School With 3 Adults Or Less – Laura Sandefer
Tarbiyah of Children | The Right Way & The Wrong Way – Salman Asif Siddiqui with English subtitles
Imagine If We Invented School Today
21st Century Challenges & their Solution – Salman Asif Siddiqui with English subtitles
Books
- How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk – Adele Faber/ Elaine Mazlish
- Siblings without Rivalry – Adele Faber/ Elaine Mazlish
- How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and In School – Adele Faber/ Elaine Mazlish
- Beyond Discipline – Alfie Kohn
- What does it mean to be well educated? – Alfie Kohn
- Punished By Rewards – Alfie Kohn
- Unconditional Parenting – Alfie Kohn
- The Schools Our Children Deserve – Alfie Kohn
- Unplugged – Arianna Fielding
- Made to stick – Chip and Dan Heath
- Read Right – Dee Tedlock
- Don’t be Sad – Dr. Aid al-Qarni
- Between Parent and Child – Dr. Haim Ginott
- The Learning Disability Myth – Dr. Robin Pauc
- The Brain Food Plan – Dr. Robin Pauc
- Parents Effectiveness Training (P.E.T) – Dr. Thomas Gordan
- The Power of Mindful Learning – Ellen Langer
- Teacher Effectiveness Training – Dr. Thomas Gordan
- Insult to Intelligence – Frank Smith
- The One Thing – Gary Keller
- Purification of the Heart – Hamza Yusuf
- Frames of Mind – Howard Gardner
- The Unschooled Mind – Howard Gardner
- Deschooling Society – Ivan Illich
- Cure – Jo Merchant
- Curious Minds – John Brockman
- Teach Your Own – John Holt
- How Children Learn – John Holt
- How Children Fail – John Holt
- Instead of Education – John Holt
- Dumbing Us Down – John Taylor Gatto
- A Different Kind of Teacher – John Taylor Gatto
- Weapons of Mass Instruction – John Taylor Gatto
- The Invisible Influence – Jonah Berger
- Are We Having Fun Yet?: The 16 Secrets of Happy Parenting – Kay Willis/ Maryann Bucknum
- The Element – Ken Robinson
- Creative Schools – Ken Robinson
- Study Smarter, Not Harder – Kevin Paul
- First Things First – Khalid Baig
- Tipping point – Malcolm Gladwell
- Parents who love reading, Kids who don't – Mary Leonhardt
- The Secret of a Successful Family – Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
- What money can't buy – Michael Sandel
- The end of education – Neil Postman
- The Thinking Life – P.M Forni
- The Courage to Teach – Parker Palmer
- Free to Learn – Peter Gray
- What Our Children Teach Us – Piero Ferrucci
- The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
- Vitamin N – Richard Louv
- Coloring Outside the Lines – Roger Schank
- The Art of the Good Life – Rolf Dobelli
- The Art of Thinking Clearly – Rolf Dobelli
- Rethinking schools – Susan Wise
- Early Childhood Education – Tina Bruce
- What Great Teachers do Differently – Todd Whitaker
- Verbal Intelligence – Tony Buzan
- The Tyranny of Language in Education – Zubeida Mustafa
- The Dilemma Of Muslim Psychologists – Malik Badri
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH
ON THE LEARNER-DRIVEN ENVIRONMENT
- The Atlantic: What Happens When Students Control Their Own Education?
- New research shows effectiveness of student-centered learning approaches in closing the opportunity gap by Stanford University
- Teachers evaluation of student-centered learning environments by Dr. Zuhal Cubukcu, Eskiehir Osmangazi University
- Insights on Personalized Learning Implementation and Effects by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Research on Student Centered Instruction by Brown University
- NPR: When the focus is on the student, not the class
“STUDENTS IN THE STUDY SCHOOLS EXHIBITED GREATER GAINS IN ACHIEVEMENT THAN THEIR PEERS, HAD HIGHER GRADUATION RATES, WERE BETTER PREPARED FOR COLLEGE, AND SHOWED GREATER PERSISTENCE IN COLLEGE- LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
ON EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
- University of Chicago: Learning by doing helps students perform better in science
- Association of American Colleges & Universities: The Power of Experiential Learning
- School-Based Experiential Outdoor Education: A Neglected Necessity by Joan James and Theresa Williams
“FIRST, NO RESEARCH HAS EVER FOUND A BENEFIT TO ASSIGNING HOMEWORK (OF ANY KIND OR IN ANY AMOUNT) IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. - ALFIE KOHN, AUTHOR OF UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING
THE BLENDED CLASSROOM (ONLINE + IN-CLASS LEARNING)
- The effectiveness of online & blended learning by SRI International
- Blended Learning by University of Central Florida
- Blended & Online Learning Research by Vanderbilt University
- The effectiveness of Blended Learning Environments by Dr. Meltem Eryilmaz, Atilim University
- A Comparative Study of Blended Learning versus Traditional Teaching in Middle School Science by Saloom Aslam
77% OF ACADEMIC LEADERS RATE THE LEARNING OUTCOMES IN ONLINE EDUCATION AS THE SAME OR SUPERIOR TO THOSE IN FACE-TO-FACE CLASSROOMS (ALLEN & SEAMAN, 2013)
ON MASTERY-BASED LEARNING
- The case against grades by Alfie Kohn
- Ted Talk: Do schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson
- The neuroscience of joyful education by Dr. Judy Willis
- Teaching more by grading less by Jeffrey Schinske and Kimberly Tanner
- NYTimes: A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry
- The Atlantic: Love of Learning More Predictive of Success than Grades
“WHEN STUDENTS ARE ENGAGED AND MOTIVATED AND FEEL MINIMAL STRESS, INFORMATION FLOWS FREELY THROUGH THE AFFECTIVE FILTER IN THE AMYGDALA AND THEY ACHIEVE HIGHER LEVELS OF COGNITION, MAKE CONNECTIONS, AND EXPERIENCE MOMENTS. SUCH LEARNING COMES NOT FROM QUIET CLASSROOMS AND DIRECTED LECTURES, BUT FROM CLASSROOMS WITH AN ATMOSPHERE OF EXUBERANT DISCOVERY (KOHN, 2004)
ABOUT MOBILITY IN THE CLASSROOM
- NYTimes: Why kids shouldn't sit still in class
- HuffingtonPost: The real reason kids shouldn't sit in class
- CNN: Move over, 'sit still'! Why kids need to move in school
A RECENT STUDY, A REVIEW OF 26 PREVIOUS STUDIES LOOKING AT THE IMPACT OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE, FOUND THAT KIDS WHO GET EXTRA PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN SCHOOL DO BETTER IN READING AND MATH. - CNN
ON MULTI-AGE CLASSROOMS
- The Atlantic: Inside a multi-age classroom
- The multi-age classroom: What research tells the practitioner by Sandra Stone
- Multiage Programming Effects on Cognitive Developmental Level and Reading Achievement in Elementary School Children by Fosco et. al
- On the merits of multi-age classrooms by David Pratt, PH.D
- The advantages and disadvantages of multi-age classrooms: Center for Evaluation and Education Policy
- Multi-age Classrooms: An Age-Old Grouping Method Is Still Evolving: Harvard Education
“MULTIAGE DOES NOT TRY TO FIT THE CHILD TO THE PRE-DETERMINED CURRICULUM, BUT RATHER CHOOSES A BROAD-BASED CURRICULUM TO FIT THE NEEDS OF THE CHILD.- SANDRA STONE
Resources
• For the esaale sawaab (to transfer or dedicate the reward of good actions or charitable deeds to another person – living or deceased.) of the entire Ummah of Nabi صَلَّى ٱللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَ سَلَّمَ
• Open permission is granted for reprinting of these materials provided it is not for gain and without any alterations.
• A humble appeal is directed to readers to offer suggestions, corrections, etc. to improve the quality of the materials in the future. May Allah جل جلاله reward you for this.
• The author, translators, editors, sponsors and typesetters humbly request your Duas for them, their parents, families, Mashaaikh and Asaatidha.