What we hope they keep learning

It is that time of year again. A neatly pressed barong and trousers. Brushed-up hair. A faint whiff of cologne. The small rituals of graduation day make parents and children alike aware that something has been reached — and something is about to begin.

On the way, we passed by a flower shop. Parents of graduating students with academic distinctions had been asked to offer flowers at the altar. At one point, I was gently asked whether that might pose a problem for us, or whether it might run contrary to our faith.

My answer was simple. Mary is revered in Islam, and I did not see anything detrimental in making the offer.

That brief exchange stayed with me. Perhaps because it said something not only about faith, but about education itself. At its best, education does not merely fill the mind with lessons. It forms in us the capacity to recognize what is good, what is worthy of respect, and what can be received with gratitude even beyond what is most familiar to us.

Our son, Sameer, and in a wider sense our daughter, Saalica, as well, have both carried themselves well in school from an early age. I say this carefully, and not in hubris, but with the simple gratitude of parents who have watched their children try, grow and persevere. This year, after balancing academics with sports and other interests, Sameer completed his elementary education with a “With Honors” distinction. For that, we are deeply proud.

But what stayed with me that day was not only the honor itself. It was the reminder that every academic distinction, however welcome, is still only one marker along the much longer journey of learning.

In between portions of the program, I found myself looking back on my own years in school. I was not as studious as our children, and I cannot claim a shelf full of distinctions, apart from one preschool recognition for being a “trouble-buster,” which perhaps says enough. But in that quiet space between songs, speeches, and applause, I remembered what my father used to say about education and the lifelong work of forming oneself.

As Muslims, we are taught from the beginning that knowledge matters. It is no small thing that the first revealed word in the Qur’an is a command to read. That spirit has long stayed with me: that learning is not merely about credentials, but about discipline, humility, and the willingness to keep seeking.

Across faiths and circumstances, many parents endure hardship and make quiet sacrifices to ensure that a child completes a formal education. The pursuit of knowledge is rarely a solitary effort. It is borne by families, and by the wider circle of people who help keep a child’s path steady.

I know this personally. I cannot thank enough those close to our family who have helped us carry what I have always regarded as a moral obligation. Among them is one of Sameer’s ninangs, Ms. Candy, who was once a senior to me at work and has long been a source of encouragement not only to her inaanak, but to us, Sameer’s parents, as well.

There is another person we must thank, Candeling, short for Candelaria. She is more than our nanny. She helped raise our children, just as she once helped our mother raise us. Her sacrifices have long taken the quiet form that love often does: waking earlier than the rest of us, preparing what needed to be prepared, fetching Sameer from school when I could not or when he missed the bus, and doing the ordinary but essential things that help hold a family together.

An elementary graduation is, in one sense, a small thing. But for parents, such moments are rarely small. They remind us that education is never only about completion. More often, it is about beginnings.

Perhaps that is what we really hope for our children. Not only that they do well in school, but that they never lose the humility to learn, the discipline to keep seeking, and the wisdom to use what they know for something larger than themselves.