Muslim families turn to home-schooling

Cilia Ndiaye vividly remembers her parents’ worries that she was suffering in public school because of her Muslim faith. Fellow students, she said, would mock her and tear off her hijab, the head scarf worn for modesty.

“We were called Nazis,” she says.

Her parents’ solution — to home-school their daughter — was a radical step in 1987, but one that a rising number of Muslim-Americans are embracing today, shaking off the stigma that taking their children out of the public school system would increase the community’s isolation and cultural distance from the American mainstream.

“It was considered irresponsible and stupid” in 1987, Ms. Ndiaye said, but the experience was so positive for her that the Maryland woman now home-schools her own six children, who range in age from 1½ to 12.

A minority within a minority, Ms. Ndiaye said the number of Muslim home-schoolers is growing, as are the support networks, conferences and faith-oriented curriculum to support the community. In its most recent statistics, the Department of Education put the number of home-schooled elementary and high school students in 2007 at about 1.5 million.

Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute estimates that Christian students, Protestant and Roman Catholic, make up the vast majority of all home-schooled children, while the research-based data on Muslim home-schoolers amounts to “slim to none.”

But he said the anecdotal evidence within the home-schooling community suggests that the stigmas of the mid-1980s for Muslim home-schoolers no longer apply.

“Discussion with home-school leaders across the nation indicates that the number of Muslims in home-schooling is expanding relatively quickly, compared with other groups,” said Mr. Ray, who speculated that part of the rise could be attributed to the growth — and increased confidence — of the American Muslim population in general.

Some still worry that the increasing numbers of Muslim home-schoolers — an option that a number of families who recently emigrated to the United States have chosen — is a double-edged phenomenon for a community that faces questions and challenges about fitting in with American life and culture.

Research suggests that home-schoolers more than hold their own academically, even accounting for income and other factors, but that the movement has faced criticism as well as praise. Home-schoolers have included NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and Adam Gadahn, the Islamic convert from rural California who is now the highest-ranking American in al Qaeda.

Dr. Faheem Younus, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, said home-schooling for first-generation immigrants often impedes their assimilation into American society. Parents often are hesitant to send their children to public schools, where teachings can run contrary to Islamic belief. He said deciding to home-school often comes down to how to instill “family values.”

“If you are trying to shield your child from society, good luck,” he said.

Building a lesson plan

Sensing a need, Ms. Ndiaye created a home-schooling curriculum 10 years ago to help Muslim parents teach Islamic studies. Although she doesn’t know exactly how many copies of her curriculum are being sold, she says it’s in the thousands. She sells her materials around the world.

For example, she created a coloring book for younger students to learn the English alphabet with a story of animals gathering from around the world bringing food to an Eid al-Adha celebration (a feast day at the end of Hajj, Muslims‘ annual pilgrimage).

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