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I give up
Why don't we have learning material for Iranian kids

By Linda Shetabi
November 1, 2001
The Iranian

As the mother of a 22-month-old boy, I'm having a very difficult time finding educational Farsi books or video tapes. I went down to Westwood "Tehranjeles" and spent over $50 on three pop-up books, a puzzle map of Iran and a video tape that teaches the Farsi alphabet.

The pop-up books are very beautiful and well made but instead of adding more pages to follow the story line closely, they've decided to skip every other scene. So when I'm reading the book, I skip the parts that are not depicted in the pictures! Reading each book takes less than five minutes!

The video tape was a disaster. The quality of the picture and sound was terrible and by the time you get to the actual program itself, you've fast forwarded ten minutes of advertising for "learning chemistry", "learning algebra", "learning physics" etc.

Honestly, who's the intended audience? If someone doesn't know the alphabet, do you really think they'll go and buy "teaching chemistry"? At this point my son starts pulling out his "Elmo" video tape and shoving it in my face saying "Emo, Emo". I gave up.

Why don't we have learning material for Iranian kids made outside of Iran? Where there is an abundance of material and no censorship, no "Vezarateh Ershad" to ration your paper and approve the material, only to confiscate the published books later.

In the six years that I've come to the U.S., I have met thousands of die-hard Iranians -- you know the type -- who claim "honar nazdeh Irananian ast o bas". Well where is this "honar"? I'm told that there are plenty of things available for older kids six-years and above. What's the use? You've lost 4 1/2 precious years.

My son repeats everything I say to him, no questions asked. I write "masheen" and he recognizes it from the thousands of times I've written it everytime I drew the picture of a car. I sing and write the Farsi alphabet in my horrible voice and a terrible tune I've made up and he just laughs, fascinated that most of what I'm writing looks alike except for those funny dots.

He's accepted that Farsi starts from right to left and English from left to right. He's accepted that the letters are separate in English and stuck together in Farsi and he doesn't ask why. Will he be so willing to accept everything when he's 5? How do you explain that its important for him to learn reading and writing in Farsi when he's fluent in English, the language all his friends know.

Besides, he has enough homework from school that taking extra time for Farsi is going to be a challenge. So you send him off to after school programs to learn Farsi - if you're lucky enough to have something like that. Well what if all his friends are going to martial arts classes and that's what he wants to do instead.

If knowing Farsi is important for you as a parent, you should start early. Earlier than you think. They might start speaking a little later than other kids but when they do start speaking, they'll speak in all the languages you've taught them.

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