Father
Its not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy.
(son– away away away, I know I have to
Make this decision alone – no)

Son
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
Its hard, but its harder to ignore it.
If they were right, Id agree, but its them you know not me.
Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
(father– stay stay stay, why must you go and
Make this decision alone? )

Do read Cat Steven’s journey into Islam here .

p/s NO my sons are not getting married anytime  (this) soon

It is not easy being a father and being a father of four is another complicated story to explain .Looking back for the first 5 years, it was nothing more than mess, shouts , cries but yet full of fun, so far I think I still can "manage" it – everybody in the family knew how I love kids . But when my children started growing up (believe me it was so fast!) and suddenly madam wife reminded me that the kids need to start schooling or in a proper words "getting an education" – I am totally lost.

There were many reasons –
*First was due to the fact that my eldest son Ammar is autistic , among many questions that I had were – should he go to mainstream ? Should I send him to a government school or a private school? How much would it cost ? I know it is not cheap.

**Secondly, for Imran who was back then 5 years old, we need to find him a good kindergarten – which one is the best (and suit our budget too) ? Kumon? Smartreader ? Genius Gym? You just name it , (I am clueless!) but one thing I knew parents nowadays would spent $$ to this so called "best" school for their kindergartner! I bet all the parents now want their children one day to be as brilliant(and someday rich?) as Bill Gates or as genius ah hmm maybe Einstein? ( though I think Feynman is a more interesting character )

The other dilemma was, the endless issues regarding our education system in Malaysia, I am no expert to discuss about it but the fact that it kept on changing, makes me wonder if there is "something" wrong with the system and where its heading to (which is yet unclear at least for me).

Yet, another one – is a religous school the best choice for my children? It could be the easiest choice of many Muslim parents to play safe by sending them to a religious school – I am not against it infact being a Muslim, I am strongly agree the importance of religous education in shaping the akhlak (moral), ibadah and the faith – indeed thats the reason at least 17 times a day we’re praying to Allah "Guide us to the right path" AlFatihah:6 . But somehow, I also believe that with a proper guidance from parents (though not easy), sending to a normal public school would prepare them with a better immune system against today’s social influences. — thing that does not kill you makes you stronger!

All this complexities lead me to a new adventure , a new challenge, a new subject to search (I Google a lot finding answers!) in seeking the definition of education worthy my children.

For a start I made myself a few guidelines which I believe to be a basic foundations of my "research" .

i) Maintain the right path – Quran 1:7

(ii) school (s not equal to) education – school is no more than a place to stimulate and encourage learning process.

Later I found myself relearn a lot of stuffs :-
About what does it means of being Muslim ? – so that I hope I can explain Islam better to them . Once my son asked my wife why do we have to raise our hands during dhua? We are totally clueless- and I thought am I just a "blind" believer all this time ? I bet the question will get even tougher later – so I better get prepared ! I hope I can explain Islam to my children as good as Dr. Jeffrey Lang did
to his daughter

Teach the children to read was not easy so I did some research (bought few books on reading skill eg:- this and this ) and found out indeed I was never taught on how to actually "read" a book – its not a plain simple process.

Learning autism – I found myself reading new yet strange subjects like neuroscience in my journey to understand Ammar better Believe me learning about how mind works is like exploring another complex universe of its own. (darn! its been ages since I last open ETX-105 telescope)

What about the thinking process?

This is indeed very important to make sure my children knows how to analyze or evaluate statements or problems . Looking at the list at Wikipedia , I was again totally lost.

* Ammar went to IMC for a year before we moved to Riyadh and now in SEN at Multinational School of Riyadh

** My little Imran went to CEC and learnt Chinese for a year – like me before at Grace Kindergarten, Batu Pahat . Now he is in PREP class at Multinational School of Riyadh .

Interesting video from TED.com from Sir Ken Robinson "Do schools kill creativity?" . Really? Just check it out.