The Application Of Prophet’s Methodology In Children Education By Uum Woman’s Staff

Abstract

In preventing a child from getting trap into detrimental social problems that are intensifying among teenagers today, parents should employ a correct and effective methodology in educating their children. News regarding the negative trends indirectly indicate the existence of flaws and weaknessess in the parental education methodology. Hence, parents need to realize that one way to resolve the problem is by practicing the methodology that has been used by Rasulullah s.a.w. in educating his companions. A quantitative study was conducted to examine the application level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology among the woman staff of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) in educating their children between the aged of 4 to 12 years old. A total of 306 respondents consisting of administrative and academic staff has participated in the study. The questionnaire method was employed for data collection, whilst the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 was used for data analysis. The findings reveal that majority of the UUM woman staff has applied the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology in educating their children. Thus, it can be concluded that majority of them has been practicing the right methodology in educating their children. This study is also expected to give parents an awareness of the importance of educating the children based on the Sunnah of Rasulullah s.a.w. so that the harmful social problems among the younger generations can be lessened and eventually more Muslim individuals with high moral and personality can be nurtured.

Keywords: Rasulullah saw methodologychildren educationapplicationUUM woman staff

Introduction

Children education is greatly emphasized in Islam. Parents are fully responsible in educating their children who have been entrusted to them by Allah s.w.t. These children must be protected and given ideal education so that they will have faith and be obedience to Allah s.w.t. The parents’ responsibility in educating their children has been emphasized by Rasulullah s.a.w. in the the following meanings of his words:

Each of you is a leader (guardian) and responsible for all people under his leadership. A ruler is a leader of its people and will be questioned about the citizen that its leads. A husband is the leader of his family and will be questioned about his family that he led. A wife is the leader of her husband household and children and will be questioned about the maaters that she led” (al-Bukhari, 1987, no. 2416, p. 901).

Hence, parents should recognize the correct and effective methodology in educating their children. They should not disregard the trust that has been bestowed by Allah s.w.t. to other parties such as family, caregivers, and teachers.

Problem Statement

Many news regarding various social problems and detrimental morals involving Muslim teenagers have been reported in the mass media lately. Indirectly, this indicates the existence of mistakes and weaknessess in the parental education methodology. Hence, parents need to be given awareness regarding the importance of educating children by applying the appropriate methodology namely the Rasulullah s.a.w education methodology. This methodology must be utilized since the Prophet s.a.w. is the best educator that has produced successful glorious individuals that managed to form superior human civilization.

Research Questions

How far has the Rasulullah s.a.w methodology been applied by the UUM woman staff in children education?

Purpose of the Study

To study the application level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. children education methodology by the UUM woman staff.

Research Methods

This quantitative study uses the questionnaire method to collect data and Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 for data analysis. A total of 306 respondents representing UUM administrative and academic staff participated in this study.

Literature Review

The Rasulullah s.a.w. children education methodology has been thoroughly discussed by (‘Ulwan, 2013) in his book entitled “Child Education in Islam ( Tarbiyatul Aulad fi al-Islam) ”. He has categorized the methodology into seven categories namely to educate with the methods of faith, habituation, exemplary conduct, admonition through storytelling, monitoring, appreciation and punishment. Apart from him, there are many more Islamic scholars who also deliberate on similar matters including (Suaid, 2013; al-Halabi, 2009).

There are numerous study conducted by researchers in the field of education to prove the effectiveness of the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology in moulding a child with good personality. For example, (Desti, 2014) in her study, found that the storytelling method has succeeded in raising the discipline of student from two (10%) in the first test to 17 students (85%) in the second. In addition, (Rahim, Mohd Yasin, & Tahar, 2016) discovered that the planned praise and punishment intervention program in the Physical and Health Education subject for the Special Education class is effective in adjusting students’ behaviour under the monitoring and observation of teachers and parents.

Nevertheless, parents’ carelessness and neglect has been a phenomenon that frequently occurs everywhere which gives bad impact towards the children’s future. This has been stressed by (Zakaria, 2015) who pointed out that parents is one of the factors that contributes to the occurrence of the social problems amongst the young generation. Some of the identified phenomena include outside of marriage pregnancy as in (Alavi et al., 2012), lesbian as in (Ahmad et al., 2015) and truancy as in (Abdul Rahman, 2004) studies.

From the above studies, it is obvious that parents can be one of the causes of the current younger generation got trapped in unhealthy conducts. Therefore, parents should be aware on their obligation in educating their children using the right and effective methodology by emulating the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology. This is the only methodology that can prevent children from getting caught in the social problem that has been growing lately. Its effectiveness has also been evidenced in all the above-mentioned studies.

Findings

The findings are divided into two parts, which are the respondents’ demographics and application level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology in children education by the UUM woman staff.

Respondents’ Demographics

Most of the respondents in this study, 143 out of 306, aged between 31 to 40 years old. On average, 81 of the respondents have two children between the age of 4 to 12 years old, whilst majority (231) with only one child. The respondents mostly (89) have a Bachelor Degree. Most of them also have formal religious education that represent 181 respondents. In addition, out of the 306 respondents, 262 are currently serving in the UUM administration section.

The application level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology in children education

As explained before, there are seven methods of the Rasulullah s.a.w. education methodology that have been identified by most Islamic scholars. However, this paper is just focusing on three, which are conduct exemplary, admonition through storytelling, and monitoring. The findings and discussion on each method are as follows:

Children education using the exemplary conduct method

The most prominent method that was applied by Rasululah s.a.w. in the education is through the exemplary conduct which is more practical. Rasulullah s.a.w. never instruct anything unless he himself has performed it first, then only his companions will follow based on his conduct (al-Halabi, 2009). There are more hadiths that indicate the utilization of this method by Rasulullah s.a.w. One of it is the hadith narrated by Ibn ‘Abbas r.a. with the following meaning:

“I spent a night in my aunt’s house, Maimunah. Rasulullah s.a.w. went to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night. He performed light ablution from a hanging water container and prayed. I also woke up and performed ablution as he did. When I stood to his left to pray together with him, he moved me to his right. He then proceed with his prayer” (al-Bukhari, 1987, no. 138, p.64).

This hadith signifies that Ibn ‘Abbas has performed ablution exactly according to the way he observed Rasulullah s.a.w. did. Then, he stood up and prayed together with the Prophet (Ibn Rajab, 2001). This clearly illustrates the exemplary conduct method that was practiced by Rasulullah s.a.w. in education.

The findings related to the application level of the exemplary conduct method among the UUM woman staff are shown in the following table 01 :

Table 1 -
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The above table shows the five items contained in this method. Almost all respondents agree with all the five items except seven who did not agree with the third item, which is ‘I do not curse other people’ . The findings indicate that almost all respondents do portray exemplary conduct to their children by performing prayers five times a day and fasting in the month of Ramadan without fail. They also demonstrate good moral by not cursing other people, respecting the elders, and preserving cleanliness. The findings are in line with those of (Zakaria, 2009) that focuses on the preparation of children spiritual education by parents in Taman Batu Permai, Kuala Lumpur. Her findings reveal that the respondents always show good exemplary conduct to familiarize their children with virtuous moral.

Moreover, Yahaya, Ma’alip, and Ismail, (2013) support this findings by stating that children can easily follow and imitate the observed or watched behaviour, especially of those closest to them. The closest individuals to the children are their parents, siblings, caregivers and other family members that live with them. Without being aware, some examples of conducts that are being observed and imitated by the children include eating and speaking styles, conversation, as well as behaviour while being angry and honest. Therefore, individuals should demonstrate good and consistent behaviour.

Children education using the admonition through storytelling method

Admonition through storytelling is an effective method in educating children. This method has been used by Rasulullah s.a.w. This is evidenced in the hadiths that recorded the stories of previous community or ummah as conveyed by Rasulullah s.a.w. Among them is the story about a prostitute that was forgiven by Allah s.w.t. for saving a dog. This hadith was narrated by Abu Hurairah r.a. as follows:

Narrated by Abu Hurairah r.a. from Prophet s.a.w., Allah Messenger said: “Once, a prostitute of Bani Israel passed by a dog that was about to die of thirst, panting round a well, thus the woman took off her shoes (to go down the well and fill up the shoes with water), then gave the dog water to drink. So, Allah s.w.t. forgave her sins for her noble behaviour”. (al-Bukhari, 1987, no. 3280, p.1279).

The above hadith will certainly encourage children to do good and abandon bad deeds even to animals. In this matter, (al-‘Uthaimin, 2005) concludes that this method will be used by Rasulullah s.a.w. if he were to relay any story related to Bani Israel so that we can have a lesson learned from such story.

The findings pertaining to the application level of the admonition through storytelling method among the UUM woman staff is shown in the following table 02 :

Table 2 -
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table 02 shows that majority of the respondents agree that they have applied all the items contained in the methodology. Therefore, it can be concluded that most respondents do remind their children by relaying stories from the al-Quran and hadiths concerning those who Allah s.w.t. loves and detests. Storytelling has been identified as an effective method in shaping a child personality. According to Suaid, (2013), story can play an important role in getting children’s attention as well as their intellect and thinking consciousness. This method is ranked in the first place since its thinking technique can be enjoyed by children. This is supported by Bowkett, (2012) by suggesting that story exposes children to various ideas, perceptions, and perspectives as well as sharing of experiences.

Nevertheless, there is a small number of respondents, not more than two percent, indicates that they did not apply the storytelling method. This may be due to the time constraints faced by working mothers. Their busy schedules caused them to less time spent to tell story to their children. This assumption is backed by Ko Teik Yen, a clinical psychotherapy specialist and the Asian Parenting Academic Principle, who claims that the busyness in managing their children as well as the demanding office tasks have made most of the parents tend to ignore not only on their own selves but also those around them (Hafidzin, 2015). Hence, parents should be wise in managing their time so that their children’s education is not neglected.

Children education using the monitoring method

The monitoring method in children education is about keeping an eye on the child, always be with him or her in shaping his or her creed, moral, spiritual, and social besides continuous monitoring on his or her physical education and knowledge development (‘Ulwan, 2013). This is the method being practiced by Rasulullah s.a.w. in education. Among his monitoring examples is the one refering to the hadith narrated by Umar bin Abu Salamah r.a. with the following meaning:

During the old days when I was a child under the care of Rasulullah s.a.w., and as my hand used to wander around in the dish during the meal time. Rasulullah s.a.w. said to me, "Mention Allah's Name (i.e., say Bismillah), eat with your right hand, and eat from what is in front of you”. (Muslim, no date, no. 2022, p.1599)

The above hadith clearly points out that Rasulullah s.a.w. always monitor the demeanor of Umar bin Abu Salamah while eating when he was a small child. Rasulullah s.a.w. also taught him other appropriate manners while eating. When delving into this hadith, (al-Nawawi, 2016) states that Rasulullah s.a.w. taught us three eating manners which are mentioning Bismillah, eating with right hand, and eating from what is nearest to you (for example when eating with others in a tray). This hadith proves that Rasulullah s.a.w. has used the monitoring method in educating young children.

In this study, the findings regarding the application level of the monitoring method among the UUM woman staff are depicted in Table 03 .

Table 3 -
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Table 03 presents the application level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. monitoring method. This method consists of five items. The first item, which is to keep an eye on the way a child eats and drinks, is agreed by all respondents. This indicates that all respondents trained their children the proper manners and good conducts during meal time. This hour is identified as the best time to shape children’s moral. According to (Yahaya, Ma’alip, & Ismail, 2013), eating together during meal is the most appropriate time to educate and train children on being polite and courteous. In addition, (Jamaludin, 2007) emphasizes that at this time, a child will reveal his or her original character, which will then lose control against the desire to eat that sometimes he or she turn to behave badly. If both parents do not accompany their children during meal time and correct their eating misconducts, the children will be carried away with the bad manners until becomes part of their habits.

Furthermore, the findings also indicate that the fifth item, knowing the children’s friends, gets the highest consent by majority of 179 respondents. This number suggests that most of the respondents are very concern about whom their children are mingling with. This is supported by (Velayutham, 1997) by stating that parents must keep an eye on their children’s peers especially those who are becoming teenagers. He further explained that if a child mixed around and be friend with those having good behaviour, they will also be influenced to pick up the good habits. On the other hand, a child will have negative personality if the friendships are not monitored.

The remaining items, which are monitoring the television programs watched by a child, monitoring the types of game played by a child through the internet/mobile phone, and inspecting the books/magazines read by a child, are also agreed by majority of the respondents. The findings reveal that most respondents are aware with the influence of the mass media such as print and electronic media towards the development of the children’s behaviour. The UUM woman staff are found to always monitor their children who are exposed to these two types of media. Such practice should be praised because a lot of studies has shown that the mass media have strong influence in shaping children’s morals. For example, in their studies, (Stapa, Ismail, & Yusuf, 2012)discover that the mass media is one of the social environment factors that gives a significant impact to the formation of individual’s identity. According to them, exposure to healthy technology sources will increase the cognitive, emotional, and social developmental levels of the children. On the contrary, children who are exposed to a source of violence, yellow or tyrannical technology will develop a negative attitude and undesirable personality.

Conclusion

The main responsibility of parents is to educate their children using the right and effective method in order to save them from getting trapped into negative social problems that are currently becoming widespread among teenagers. The only way to prevent the occurence of such problems is by implementing the Rasulullah s.a.w. education method. Therefore, parents must be aware of the importance in educating children using the Rasulullah s.a.w. method. A quantitative study has been conducted to examine the level of the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology application by the UUM woman staff in educating their children. The findings that involved 306 respondents found that majority of the staff have applied the Rasulullah s.a.w. methodology in educating their children. This indirectly illustrate that majority of the UUM woman staff are using the right and effective methodology in educating their children.

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23 September 2019

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Future Academy

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Sociolinguistics, linguistics, literary theory, political science, political theory

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Mohamed*, S. S. B. B. P. (2019). The Application Of Prophet’s Methodology In Children Education By Uum Woman’s Staff. In N. S. Mat Akhir, J. Sulong, M. A. Wan Harun, S. Muhammad, A. L. Wei Lin, N. F. Low Abdullah, & M. Pourya Asl (Eds.), Role(s) and Relevance of Humanities for Sustainable Development, vol 68. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 503-511). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.09.56