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An Exciting Teaching Experience (Page 2) Huseyin Malgir from Turkey After almost three months, the Turkish military came to the school and ordered me to hang up the Turkish flag. After that, on every weekend, we hung up the flag on the school. Every Monday, when we came to school, the flag was ripped down. When we asked the villagers who had done it, they told us that it was the Kurdish guerilla groups that did it. Almost every weekend, the Turkish military were threatened us about the flag. Every weekend we hung up the flag, but after a while, we would see it on the floor, ripped up.
When I opened the school, one Turkish soldier came to the school and said that the Turkish captain wanted to talk to me. I said all right. After half an hour, the captain came to the school and said, "In the morning, I saw the flag on the floor that was ripped. Who did that?" I told him "I do not know. I was at home in the city. The captain told me;" If you know who did it, let me know." Besides this, I had another problem. The Turkish captain ordered me to teach Turkish history, culture, and language. He told me that if I do not teach only Turkish history, culture, and language, they were not going to let me teach anymore. One night that week, while I was going home, a couple of men approached me and told me to teach Kurdish history culture and language because it was a Kurdish village. They also said that if did not do that, they were not going to let me teach anything. I thought that those men were members of the Kurdish guerillas. I was confused. I did not know what I was going to do. I was caught the middle between Kurdish guerillas and Turkish military. Later that month, in the evening, when I was going home, I was waiting on the street for a taxi. While I was waiting, I saw a car driving by slowly. I saw a head looking out of the window and a gun. Before I knew it, the man fired at me. I fell down because I was scared. The sound of the bullet was loud. The car passed me and drove away. I knew that they were aiming at me. Whoever it was, they were trying to send me a message. They could have easily killed me, but I did not know who it was. In that decade about twenty-seven teachers were killed in that area. Fortunately, nothing happened to me. My students ran to me and hugged me. Some of them cried. They were scared for me. Finally, almost every child learned to read and write both the Turkish and Kurdish alphabets. When I saw my students learn something from what I taught them, it made me very proud of them. It was very difficult and dangerous, but somebody had to struggle for the children. After about one year, the government cancelled my obligation, and my adventure as a teacher was finished. I learned many things from the children. I really liked them, and I really liked teaching the children. I learned that the civil war was disgusting because many people, especially Kurdish people, got hurt, and many died. This experience made me realize how much children need education and that civil war is against human rights.
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