Since early this year, I have been teaching a group of standard 3, 4, 5, 6 and form 2 students mathematics. The class is held every Saturday and Sunday. It has been a very exciting experience for me since then. I think, the last time i teached was during my college years in UUM Matriculation in Sintok Kedah.
Those days i joined a club that did a lot of motivational camps to school students in Perlis, Langkawi and Kedah. So doing this kinda bring back the memories of teaching those student back then.
My wife also have a group of student of her own. She teaches English. So together, we both operate our small tuition centre together at our living room. Currently, we have about 20 student under us.
Our class is growing despite we do not do any marketing. Our marketing is mainly just based on word of mouth from the parents, aunt and friend which stays near our surrounding areas. Alhamdulillah...
A part from this children, my wife also teaches adult english class every Thursday night which i written in the previous entry.
Now, my wife and i seldom have the free time to spend during our weekends. The things that we enjoyed doing such as travelling, photography, etc, now had to be put on hold.
However, we don't miss much for not doing those things because we find teaching very interesting. Our students are very exciting as they are highly spirit, eager to learn and very competitive toward learning the topics that we covers. Their enjoyment towards learning provide us joy and spirit in our heart to teach our student the best that we can (with Allah's permission, Insya Allah).
My wife is not new in teaching world. She had teaches english since her teen years in Singapore doing tuition as part time job. Having her school years educated in English language makes her having less problem in teaching english to student.
The idea of setting up a tuition class comes from her. She started with teaching english to a bunch of primary students. At that time, she was having a luxury of time to be filled in so she take up part time in teaching english at our home.
When, she set up a training company for oil and gas training, she wanted to stop teaching but she doesn't have the heart to break the news to her students. So she decided to continue teaching until end of the year. How her joy and happiness shown every time she receive news that her student excellent in their english studies.
However, business can be up and down sometimes. Especially during early of the year as company had yet finalise their training budgets. So bad time requires for some sacrifices which i had to step in. As a man of the house, I know i had the obligation to provide for my family needs. I have been bless and thankful that my wife has help with some of the households expenses. Furthermore, i feel pity to see her exhausted every time she finished her class.
As we frequently travel to visit our sons in Kota Bharu, especially during school holidays, our resources can be drained quite fast.
Hence, we decided to expand our home tuition by adding mathematic for primary and secondary school with me as the teacher. After nearly 20 years leaving some of the subject away, a quick revision helped to refresh back the memory on how to solve problems in mathematics.
I got some request to teach form 4 student, but i had to decline as those level need some extra work to be done which i kinda not having the time to do it. Furthermore, form 4 involve not only mathematic subject but also additional mathematic subject. I need to do a lot of revising in order for me to teach both the subject.
Every time after class, my wife and i always discuss about our teaching methods and how our student response in class towards our teaching. We always worries whether our student can cope or not with our style or the most important thing is whether they understand the topic that we teaches or not?
Teaching is truly tiring and if compares with the returns that we get from doing this, it not that much but the experience we gain is beyond words.
We treat our work in this tuition business as our preparation for HereAfter. The is a hadith that says that after once we died, we still gain a reward from Allah if we got 3 things which one of its says teaches people of knowledge that can be useful to mankind.
The whole hadith mention like this :
Hadrat Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) as saying, "Among the actions and good deads for which a believer will continue to receive reward after his death are knowledge which he taught and spread, a good son whom he left behind, or a copy of the Qur'an which he left as a legacy, or a mosque he built, or a house which he built for the traveller, or a stream which he caused to flow, or a sadaqa which he gave from his property when he was alive and well, for which he will continue to receive reward after his death."
(Ibn Majah and Baihaqi)
I hope Allah will accept my wife and I action in teaching this as our 'amal jariah' for our preparation in the HereAfter.
As a human being, we can never run or avoid from making any sins in the past or in coming future. We hope Allah could grand us our prayers to end our life as a muslim with 'takwa' and 'Iman'
Say, "Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah , Lord of the worlds. (Surah Al An'am:162)
Ayat 162 Surah Al-An'am yang bermaksud: "Katakanlah (wahai Muhammad) "Sesungguhnya solatku, ibadatku, hidup dan matiku hanya untuk Allah, Tuhan sekelian alam."
For those who read this, if maybe in the past, my wife and i had any wrong doing that could hurt your feeling, either noticed or unnoticed, kindly forgive us please. Our weaknesses shows that we just a human being. As a vicegerent of Allah, we tried our best to do what was being told by Allah for us to do and what is not. Amin...
Some of our standard 2 & 3 students
