As War Enters Classrooms, Fear Grips Afghans - New York Times

As War Enters Classrooms, Fear Grips Afghans - New York Times

This article from the NY Times made so angry and so sad this morning that I needed to write about it. The main focus is two girls who were killed in a Taliban attack just for the "crime" of wanting to learn.

As a teacher, I guess I'm extra-sensitive to something like this. I thank God that I was born into a time and a place that makes no differentiation between the rights of women and men to be equally educated. I cannot imagine the hunger and the pain of these women in places like Afghanistan who have been denied the right to satisfy that God-given need to know, to learn.

The bravery of these Afghan girls and women is humbling to me. There were so many days when I got up to go to high school or even my college classes thinking, "Why do I have to do this?" Now, I often hear my students complaining about "having to go to school." Oh how I wish they could know, if only for a second, what it is that these children of a torn and destroyed world feel about a chance at an eduation.

They huddle under tents and try to learn despite climate conditions and persecution. How often have I heard complaints and been guilty of some myself about our huge old building. We're forgetting what it is not to have. Even though Katrina brought some of that to our state, it's amazing how fast we lose our gratitude.

I pray for those girls and those women. I pray for safety for them and for a cultural change in which those fool Taliban animals begin to see children as a sacred gift again. And yes, I pray for vengeance for those poor ones who were gunned down for imagined crimes by rabid dogs with more bullets than intelligence. I refuse to believe that the sacred text of their religion in any way endorses these acts.