Many students consider preparing for school a burden. The act of physically opening one’s eyes from a relaxing snooze is arduous in itself. For some, however, waking up for school isn’t just a part of a daily routine. It’s also a religious obligation. Growing up in Pakistan, Adnan Hashtam woke up at 5:30 every morning. His slumber wasn’t interrupted by the high-pitched squeals of an annoying alarm clock. Instead, the prayer calls emanating from the mosque in his neighborhood beckoned him from his bed to worship. Prayer calls, or adhan, are traditional chants summoning the faithful of Islam for religious services. He then had breakfast and headed to Minhaj Public School.

In Pakistan and other countries influenced by British colonialism, private schools are actually called “public schools.” The equivalent of American public schools is known as state schools. To avoid confusion, Hashtam refers to Pakistani “public schools” as private and Pakistani “state schools” as public.

Hashtam’s family chose to pay tuition of 300 rupees per month in order to provide him with a better education. Speaking about the public schools in Pakistan, Hashtam says that the “education is very weak because you learn English in eighth grade, which is bad because you need English for good jobs in Pakistan.” Unlike in America, students must pay for their 10^th grade education and all other subsequent levels of higher learning.

In addition to his native Hindko and Punjabi, Hashtam learned Arabic and Urdu at school. “Everyone in our community spoke Hindko, but the teachers were from another state and spoke Urdu, so we had to learn Urdu.” At Minhaj, uniforms are compulsory and students have the same teacher all day for every subject. Teachers would even stay with the same class as it moved up in grade levels. There was no difference in the quality of education between males and females at Hashtam’s school. “In our private school we were together. The majority of the teachers were female and we were taught together.” Public schools, on the other hand, separate their students according to gender.

One of the main differences between the American and Pakistani school systems is how each deals with religion. In Pakistan, private schools do not require students to engage in prayer. Public schools, however, make prayer mandatory, a testament to the religiously-focused Pakistani government. The United States operates differently; private schools usually hold faith activities while public schools do not. Fridays in Pakistan are mutually reserved by public and private schools as a half-day for prayer. Hashtam says that everyone he knew growing up was Muslim. “I only heard about atheism, Christianity, and Judaism when I came to America.”

Hashtam was born in America, but he left for Pakistan at age 7. He returned here when he turned 14. At first, Hashtam noticed the clear cultural contrasts between the United States and Pakistan. “When I came to America, I wanted to talk to everyone, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know anyone.” Hashtam refers to his neighborhood in Pakistan as a “community,” symbolic of the closeness and familiarity of each person there. He lived in the village of Jalaliya, where “everyone helped you and cared about you. In my community, everyone knew me and my grandparents and parents, so they knew who I was.” Two years later, Hashtam is now a junior. He appreciates how his parents sent him to Minhaj since the quality of one’s education determines one’s future in Pakistan. In other words, the son of a tenant farmer would most likely remain a tenant farmer. “For the people who don’t have education, you really inherit the work from your parents.”

Though his time at Minhaj is long over, Hashtam still remembers how his school day came to a close. At 2:00 pm, classes ended and he was free to go home for prayers at the mosque where he read the Qur’an for three years.

His life seemed to revolve around his faith, from sunrise to sunset. Prayers still mark him as an individual. When he compares life in Pakistan to America, he knows one thing is for sure. Pakistan is “more religious.”

Hashtam hopes to one day return to Pakistan as a history teacher or dentist and offer his services to the country he called home for seven years.