Visiting educators participate in teacher-training course

By David Shelby
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- For a group of Afghan women educators visiting the United States to participate in an intensive teacher-training course, teaching is not merely a job. It is a passion driven by commitment and hope.

Gurdaafareen Amiri, a native of Parwan, north of Kabul, describes the period of Taliban rule as "the darkest years in Afghanistan." She says, "Those five years disappointed us. And they also gave us a special hope to be teachers. There was nothing for education in Afghanistan, and that was a force for us. That forced us to become teachers, to make our country bright for the future."

At 22, Amiri is the youngest of twelve Afghan women who have spent the last six weeks in the United States studying language-training skills in a Fulbright program sponsored by the University of Nebraska. The women have learned interactive teaching methods, including the introduction of computers, CDs, projectors, flash cards and music into the language classroom.

The women will be sharing these skills with their colleagues in Afghanistan when they return.

"We suffered a lot of sadness during the war, and we hope [our fellow teachers] will work hard with the children because they are the future of Afghanistan. The teachers can make peaceful, well-educated people in our country," said Nargis Ahmadzai, a native of Logar, southeast of Kabul.

"The base of our country is our children, and if we teach them with patience and hard work, we can get positive results from them," added Nazeefah Nazeer, a native of Kabul.

While all of the women are currently teaching at schools in the Kabul area, they look forward to conveying the ideas and skills they have learned back to the provinces through their students.

"Five or six years of darkness of the Taliban rule left a dark idea in the minds of the Afghani people, especially the people that live in the provinces, and we want to send our message by our students to the province," said Ahmadzai. She explained that many of their students come from the provinces to study in Kabul because of the limited educational opportunities outside of the capital.

The women spoke of their pleasant surprise at how warm and hospitable the American people have been to them. Ahmadzai explained that their expectations of Americans were colored by what they see on television.

Nooriyah Paarsaa, a native of Balkh, near the Uzbekistan border, said she thought "maybe some American people would be proud and selfish. But when I came here and saw the people, especially the people in high positions, they are so kind, so hospitable."

She added, "I like your people because all the time they want to be busy, and they want to be of service to other people, and they study a lot, and they're thinking about their educations and also about freedom."

Nazeer said, "We came here as ambassadors on behalf of the Afghan people. And after going back, we are going to be as ambassadors on behalf of the American people."

Ahmadzai expressed her hope that their message will be a lesson to the Afghan people.

"The message that we want to bring to our country is that they should be friendly like the people of America and that they should work hard for their country, and that they should be kind to each other always. They've spent all of their lives in civil war and they are not so patient sometimes. ... I hope they will learn a little bit from the American people, to be friendly, because we cannot bear any more fighting and civil war. It's enough," she said.

The women also spoke of their hopes for the constitutional Loya Jirga scheduled to take place in the coming days.

"The Loya Jirga is the only opportunity for the Afghan nation, for men and women to sit together and to decide about our future. ... Only with the help of the United States [do we have] this opportunity for us to decide about our future in our country and our nation," said Amiri.

Nazeer added, "From the peaceful situation of Afghanistan that we live in now -- peace and comfort, even -- we are hopeful. And in the provinces we have a positive response also. We are hopeful."

The Afghani women are visiting Washington on the last leg of their study program. After five weeks of courses at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, where they lived with host families, they have come to the nation's capital where they will meet with First Lady Laura Bush before returning to Afghanistan.

All of the participants spoke highly of their experiences in the United States and the training they received in the program.

"It's a wonderful program for the Afghan people, especially for the women, because we had five years at home and we forgot everything. Now we came back to our work and we need some more education and helpful methods for teaching, and when we go to our country, we will help ten or twelve more teachers ... to use these new methods," said Amiri.

She added, "This is the start of a new educational era in Afghanistan and the learning of new teaching methods is a great gift for the system of education in Afghanistan."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)