• Contact Us
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Kashmir Dot Com
  • Home
  • Kashmir
  • Jammu
  • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Health
  • Contact Us
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Kashmir
  • Jammu
  • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Health
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Kashmir Dot Com
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

An Afghan Teacher Laments Taliban Ban

by Kashmir Dot Com
January 7, 2023
0
An Afghan Teacher Laments Taliban Ban

An Afghan Teacher Laments Taliban Ban

0
SHARES
15
VIEWS
Share on Facebook

My name is Sediqa Farahsa Merzayee. I am a citizen of Afghanistan and an elementary school teacher. I started my career 10 years ago, when I was 18 years old, teaching children and women who were illiterate.

Before we had the Taliban regime, my main concern was how to be a good teacher, how to properly serve my students.

After the Afghan government fell in August 2021, I wondered if I would be able to teach at all. When a suicide bomber attacked the Kaaj educational center a few months ago, killing dozens of girls, I came to my classroom and hugged my students tightly. They had tears in their eyes. I couldn’t stop wondering: “Where will these girls, my daughters, be in 10 years from now? Under the earth? Or thriving, becoming teachers themselves or students at university?”

When the Taliban took over, many Afghans lost hope, both for the country and its people. But if you’re a teacher, it is impossible to accept the death of hope. Our job may not be easy — we have small salaries, and it is hard to find enough books and materials — but when you see these 7- and 8-year-old girls coming to class, lugging their notepads in old satchels, with no more than 5 afghani (5 cents) in their small hands, you see little angels before you. They are so poor yet so eager to learn. All their love is focused on their teacher. It is humbling.

My first days were difficult because I had no experience with children. I consulted books on child psychology and read lots of teaching manuals. I wanted to be the very best for them. I’ll never forget the first time I saw them write out the letters of the Dari alphabet, their lovely hands tightly grasping the pen between their thin fingers. Later, those same girls would write whole sentences and letters to me, “My dear teacher, you are always in our heart,” they wrote. “Dear teacher, I love you.”

For a teacher to read these words is to experience a world filled with hope and beauty.

Over my years, I have seen great joy and great sorrow in the lives of my students. In my first year of teaching, I had only three students, illiterate children from the same family. There were two brothers and one sister. They were afraid of me, of everything, of the world. But they still came to class each day, crossing the city to come to our school. They are now grown-up, and I even attended their weddings. In those early days, I really wanted to teach children who had been injured and displaced by the war. I even went around the makeshift camps on the edge of Kabul, looking for girls who wanted to learn, going from tent to tent to form my classes. Eventually, I taught their mothers how to read and write, too. I’ve had many different types of students. Sometimes they came from the upper class, others were orphans who worked in the morning before coming to afternoon science classes. I worked with children from Kunduz who were internally displaced by the war. Each child has their own unique way of acting, loving, behaving. Teaching urban children who had homes and the support of their families was of course very different from rural children who had lost family in the war and sought the relative safety of Kabul.

The first blow my students suffered under Taliban rule was immediate: Girls were separated from boys in the classrooms. We had only just reorganized when another restriction was imposed, ordering all women in public to cover their faces, including teachers as we came to work. And then came another: Our young students were forced to switch their white headscarves for black ones. Instead of light, there was darkness, mirroring the sad days that now filled our lives.

A few months ago, in September, my colleagues and I held a meeting to plan our winter syllabus and schedule like we usually do. As we were talking, some members of the Taliban barged into our school, where they told us that things were changing. Soon girls would not be allowed to study, even first graders. When I heard this, I burst into tears. Surely this won’t happen, I thought. How could it?

But it has, and I now feel I have watched hope vanish before my very eyes. With all my students, all my girls, banned from school, I worry about their dreams and am fearful for their futures. I hope, more than anything, that I will be able to return to my classroom, to teach them again, to hug them and tell them it will be all right.

24.

ShareTweetSendSharePinShare
Previous Post

SIA attaches more properties of banned Jamaat-e-Islami in south Kashmir

Next Post

CRPF Srinagar collaborates with IMHANS to curb alcoholism among personnel

Related Posts

‘Govt land’: Srinagar administration sealed shopping complex, land transferred by SMC via auction notice

KDC IMPACT: Srinagar administration sealed shopping complex build on State land, transferred by SMC

February 4, 2023
Friends Enclave: Outer wall of former bureaucrat’s wife, who had ‘grabbed’ state land, demolished

Friends Enclave: Outer wall of former bureaucrat’s residence, who had ‘grabbed’ state land, demolished

February 4, 2023

SIA raids multiple locations in Srinagar

February 4, 2023

NSA Doval, US defence official discuss military coordination over China threat

February 2, 2023

FM Sitharaman presents ‘first budget of Amrit Kaal’

February 1, 2023

Budget 2023: Cigarettes to jewellery, here are the items to get costlier

February 1, 2023
Next Post
CRPF Srinagar collaborates with IMHANS to curb alcoholism among personnel

CRPF Srinagar collaborates with IMHANS to curb alcoholism among personnel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ADVERTISEMENT

LATEST NEWS

Centre likely to increase DA of employees, pensioners by 4 %

Hackers stole $3.8 bn from crypto investors in 2022

MeT forecasts ‘fairly widespread’ light snowfall on Feb 6

Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf dies after prolonged illness at Dubai hospital

Status quo order would not come in way in case any action is required: High Court

Centre notifies appointment of 5 new judges to Supreme Court

DC B’la inspects PHC Singhpora; takes Stock of Medicare facilities

Lt Governor inaugurates SARAS Aajeevika Mela in Jammu

Lt Governor interacts with NCC cadets at Raj Bhawan

Protests, stone pelting during anti-encroachment drive in Jammu

ADVERTISEMENT

About Us

Kashmir Dot Com (KDC) is J&K's premier News Agency having a vast reach of audience.

Kashmir Dot Com is a News Agency based in Srinagar, J&K that offers syndicated multimedia news feed to plethora of news-bureaus in J&K and beyond. We also provide a range of facilities from foreign and domestic channels to package their reports in Jammu and Kashmir. We cover almost all areas of interest in J&K to viewers including news, entertainment, and life styles, bussiness, sports, human-interest features and social and developmental issues.

KDC can well and truly take pride in the legacy of it's work, and in it's contribution towards the building of a free and fair Press in Jammu and Kashmir.

Category

  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • JAMMU
  • Kashmir
  • Lead
  • National
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Uncategorized
  • World

Company Info

  • Contact Us
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers

© 2020 KDC

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Kashmir
  • Jammu
  • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Health
  • Contact Us

© 2020 KDC

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In