By Saeed Matinpour – Monday, February 19, 2007
 |
Saeed Matinpour discusses the educational challenges of rural children in Iran, particularly Turkish speakers, who struggle with Persian. He criticizes the education system for not integrating native languages, which hinders creativity and fosters a form of linguistic apartheid, stifling innovation and critical thinking.
Let us read the text:
"What is the relationship of a teenager in society with the Creator of existence? In a relationship it must be understood that their relationship with the Creator is the foundation of all relationships and their connection with their deity must be based on ethics It is the best way to begin but it is not the only way to establish a connection with the Creator When they stand before their Creator in a state of divinity in terms of rank and status they establish a connection that strengthens every day with each new day being more solid than the previous one If the first goal is to reach God who is the ultimate source of peace in society all human relationships are derived from their connection with their Creator If they bear in mind the Quranic verse that calls for respect towards elders their relationship with others will be built on this principle Someone is always watching over their actions Their relationship with others should be based on honesty integrity and love These relationships form the structure of society and if an individual has the primary and most important relationship with God the Creator..."
This text, which has no commas or periods, is neither a draft that hasn't been proofread nor an elementary school exam paper. This writing is the exact transcript from the notebook of a middle school girl from a village near Zanjan. Last year, one of my journalist friends, who frequently visits that village, gave me this page. As soon as I read the girl’s handwriting, memories of my time teaching in the villages of Qeydar came flooding back, and I recited a phrase I used to describe the educational situation of my students: "Languageless children." During my teaching years in the village, I concluded that rural children and adolescents are languageless when it comes to life and work in modern society. Although they were fluent in their mother tongue, Turkish, and could use it more effectively than many urban children, becoming repositories of oral literature by the time they reached 12 or 13 years old, they had significant difficulties learning Persian and often struggled to write in Persian. Moreover, since they did not learn in their native language, they could not effectively use it to express scientific concepts. This problem became more pronounced in children as they aged. Through experiments conducted in middle and high schools, I found that in the first year of middle school, students were able to reconcile their mother tongue with academic language, and if Turkish was used properly in their education, they could learn and repeat content in Turkish. However, by the last year of middle school and high school, this ability wanes, and they become people with dual identities. These individuals express their regular lives and emotional relationships in Turkish, but when they encounter Turkish speakers from different regions with different accents or lifestyles, they feel a sense of distance and take longer than usual to establish a normal relationship. In the second aspect of their identity, they tend to reach conclusions that are pseudo-scientific or even reverse-engineered from real sciences, often creating clichés based on their first experiences in their careers and following these in the future.
The most noticeable consequence is the loss of creativity in such individuals. In the city, this issue exists chronically. A closer look at the bloated Iranian bureaucracy and the countless individuals working mindlessly in offices is just one facet of this disaster. This catastrophe, rooted in despotism, includes a linguistic apartheid and dictatorship.
Original Text in Farsi.