For all Iranian students.
I am persecuted not to teach at the universities in Iran, because my mother was Bahai. So I miss all my Iranian students. So I tried to be good to the students here in USA, but they do not have the same love and respect for the teacher as the Iranian students. I saw the president of Iran is kissing the hand of his elementary school; that means that still the teacher has the love and respect of the Iranian students. I hope that this Love and Unity stay in Iran and will even grow. The teacher and leader are the spiritual parents and should always try to the best for their spiritual children. I hope Love and Unity will come back in Iran in every where. And the people will try to make our short life easier for each other and not harder. I hope the greedy people and people who want money and power for any cost any how will see that serving people and loving people is the best way of life. The name of nice and people who work for humanity will stay for ever, but cruel people and bad people will die and no name will stay in the world which refers to them. If there is a name is with hate and bad words…
I was invited in a gathering and saw the father of one of my student, Arman; he came close to me, but he was very sad. The tears were shining in his eyes. After a little bit conversation he left me. Few minutes after that one of my friend came to me and said do you know that Arman has killed himself in Germany after he passed his PhD with an honorable degree. I said no, I did not know it. Last time that I saw Airman’s father; he was so happy and told me that his son is passing his PhD and that is because in the high school you trained him so well. He thanked me many times and he was so lucky that his son has got such a good position at the university. But this time he was upset and not happy. Now I know why he was so unhappy. Arman was one of my best students. He was very intelligent and wrote nice and powerful composition and always gathers logical matters together and also his arguments were very good and nice.
It was very difficult for me to believe that such a nice and intelligent student of mine has killed himself. About two years ago as I saw Airman’s father ; he was so happy that his son had the doctoral degree in engineering field form the one the best German university and he hope and nice future for him. He was so nice to me and thanked me so many time that I was so proud to be his teacher in the past. He told me that am the fruit of your work you did in the past for Arman. And now the same nice boy had killed himself, but why? Arman wrote very nice and he read them also nicely and so the other students like to listen to his composition. He was fourteen years old, but he had a lot of knowledge and he had read a lot of books in that age. So he could speak good and used nice words and powerful sentences. One time he wrote about Moses a composition that all students have cried for his explanation and his powerful writing. This intelligent boy and this nice person should not kill himself; he did not belong to himself alone; he belonged to the people and should not eliminate himself.
I wished I could go to his father and asked him why Arman had killed himself, but as I saw the situation of the father who was so sad; I did not want to make him sadder and ask him something that he may did not want to speak about. I could not bring his wound in the present and did not want to make the sad father more desperate as he was. So I did not ask him, but even now after so many years passed; I do not know why he killed himself. I cannot even guess why that happened. He was a nice boy, he had a rich father and a nice mother; he did not fight with other students. He was one of my best students in the North of Tehran and had a nice life and was going to a very expensive private high school. He learned English, French and German as a child and was so good in theses languages that he passed a Doctor degree in Germany with excellent score in Germany. He could work in Germany or Iran or in any other countries with the knowledge he had. But he killed himself. It is still a puzzle for me.
I was in the first year of my teaching in a school in the South of Tehran. Here even some children came to school without having enough food. They were such students that fight with each other hate each other and were not quite as the students in the North part of Tehran. Here in the South the people are poor and they are not high class in the education and attitude. The hate even the teachers and they wanted to tease me first. As they know I am coming from North of Tehran. But I love them and want to help them to have a better future; they were nice to me and listen to me and did what ever I asked and cooperate deeply with me. They did to a teacher before me. Put plastic full of water in the top of the door and in the time that the teacher opened the door the plastic damaged and the water made the whole teacher wet. They put needle in the chair of the teacher and in the time the teacher sat, the needle went to his/her body. They break one of the leg of his/her chair and put it back, but in a very lose condition, when the teacher sat, the leg goes away the teacher fell on the floor and they laughed. Or they did sing with the close mouth and destroyed the class atmosphere; the poor teacher could not do anything as they were singing with closed mouths. Or they put knives in the books and treated other students or the teacher. They were all poor people and their parents did not have a good job. But they were nice to me as they feel I love them and I showed my respect to them and not like the other teacher tried to humiliate them.
As I was teacher there; I had no experience as a teacher. It was first year of teaching. No teacher wanted to go there. So for this reason they sent me there. I started to ask them and helped them to answer. They were happy to participate in the class. I asked all of them and let everybody speak and present himself. I helped them to complete the answer; and they were so happy that they could use their knowledge. Later I focus on the students who I know did not review the lesson; so I push them to learn and not to be passive in the class, but be active. After I asked many times and the students know I will ask them every day they have no other choice of listening carefully and learn carefully. I remember some students were lazy and did not want to learn every day and I asked them so many times that his friend said to him you have to learn; he will not let you to be in the class and not to learn.
Sorrowfully most of these children could not finish the high school and from nine or ten grade they had to work as their parent could not pay their costs any more, but I always encouraged them to learn even if they should go to the night high school. I pushed them and even sometimes forced them to learn. I explained for them that knowledge is power and without knowledge you are just a device in the hands of others, but with the knowledge you are yourself and nobody can misuse you. As I had the entry exam of university about four or five years ago, so I could help them even to pass the entry exam of the university. Some of them has success and passed the entry exam of the university and get their BA or BS degree.
It has passed few years until they changed my school and I came back to my area as a teacher. This time my students were not the children of worker, or low income classes. They were children of rich powerful persons. They were not children of poor people any more. They were children of generals, state secretary, rich business people, ambassadors, or princess or prices from the court. In the summer holidays these children went to the Europe or USA and they learn the language easily there. They were in a very comfortable life and they had everything what a person can wish to have. Arman was in this type of school.
After many years I was passing the Bazaar of Tehran and saw a little bit fat man is running after me. I stopped and a man with a fat face and big eyes came close to me and said hi my teacher. I remembered him quickly. He was Mojtaba one of my student in the South of Tehran. May be he was thirty five or fourty years old. He was so happy to see me. I do not know if he could finish his high school and I did not want to ask it either. He was a very bad tempered boy and he fight with other students every day. I asked him why he is fighting and he said they are calling me a beggar’s son and I do not like that to hear. He said that his father has burned himself as he was a child so he cannot speak and walk and for this reason he cannot work and just live as a beggar. He agreed that his father is a bagger, but he did not like the other students make fun about his father. His mother was a very short woman and she was so poor that agreed to marry a bagger. But they live not bad. The people helped them and they have food and a place to live and even they could go to school.
His sister was a beautiful girl and married a driver and he was a healthy boy and not any effect from his mother as she was very short and from his father who was burned in the fire as a child. He tanked me for my good attitude and as I gave him sometimes a pen or pencil or a not book or a book he remembered them and again appreciate my help at that time to him. He also thanks me that I did a close relationship to him and said to him that he should learn and not be influenced by the hard environment.
I had a young student some cold and very indifferent teacher; they had no interest about the students and were happy if they fail. One of them was a teacher named Hassan Sadeghi he was a mathematics teacher, but as I later heard he had no university degree in mathematics or any other subject, so may be he could not explain clearly. I asked one time him what is the difference between 2 xs and x 2 also X with 2 above it. He said go and read the book you will understand it. I do not know if he could not explain or he was not nice enough to explain it for me. Later I had another teacher named Mr. Hadadi he had a degree in law, but he liked mathematics and he could explain this to me. I promised to myself to be teacher and be nice to the students and explain everything they ask me. I did not like that cold and indifferent teacher and sorrowfully in the Shah’s time we did not have language teacher or good mathematics teachers. We had good Persian literature teacher like Jalal Al Ahmad or Jalal Moghdam, or Khobrehzade. So I was good in these subjects, but bad in English and mathematics as we have never teacher in some grade; sometimes the whole year we have no teacher and at the end of school year a teacher from other school came and examined us.
These type of teacher to have the class be quite just gave bad score to the students or let them fail at the end of the school and told the parent your child is going more for fun and play as for learning and some how were against the students. So that was one of my wishes to be a teacher and help the students as long as I could. For this reason I opened even now a boarding school in Orlando to help the students; to give a place to them to live and prepare work for them in the school area and help them to learn more. But sorrowfully the system even in USA does not help. They doubled my taxes and make so many difficulties for me that I have to shut the boarding school. As they are against learning. Some of my teacher wanted only respect and fear and they did not like or love the students. For them teaching was a job and did not care about the students at all. I wanted to help the student and be interested in his/her life. Guide him/her to be successful and not just teach and go away. If they did understand or not that was not problem. That was my problem I wanted that all my students understand and learn the matter I teach them. Sometime even I forced them to learn. The European and Middle Eastern parent and students appreciate this type of teacher, but the American do not like this type of teacher. American students do not want to learn in high school (not all of them, but to have just a bad student in the class; it is enough to disturb the whole class.)
I had teacher if you did not great her/him fast and did not say hello to him/her fast he/she was against you. And they try to damage the students, they did not consider that he/she is a child or youth and does not have enough experience to do the right things. So I tried to be a good teacher and have sympathy concerning them. So for this reason now this huge student was so happy to see his teacher. The other teacher punished the students with the score; I never did it and in the whole thirty years of my teaching activities I never gave a student a bad score. Now he was greeting me so deeply and with a lot happiness and interest. He told me that his cropped father and cropped mother died and he is married and has children. Both his father and mother were really disable and were sick, but now they had three nice children whom all of them were successful in the life.
He said that all these shops are his and he has a good business and make a lot of money. He was the son of a person who could not speak and could not walk and even could not sit properly. He married a woman who could walk but were not normal and she helped him. The son was upset as a child why they have give born him and why they make a child, the mother told him, but any animals had a child so I had a child, too. His father sit in front of the door and just could look at the people who were passing by and they gave him some money and with this money they managed to grow three children and one of them Mojtaba was a rich merchant. Mojtaba had may be a very hard life, the children tease him as he had a father as a bagger and a mother crooked and disable. But he goes through all these difficulties and now he is a very rich merchant.
Mojtaba as a child was very sensitive about his parent and always fight with them why they did make children. The mother said even a dog had a child. One day his sister came to school to see me and his brother was with her also. She said he does not want to accept the true. Yes your parent are crooked and disable, but you are Ok and healthy what do you want more. And the children they will tease any body that is their attitude. Do not take them seriously and do not fight with them. Let them say what ever they want to say. The sister told him in front of me they will not live unlimited; that am you who will live and continue to live. The sister married a pick up driver and had a blond girl now. Even her husband had a work, but still the father of Mojtaba makes more money from bagging than him from driving. The sister to help the brother had come back to his father’s house and was living with them. Just to help the brother not to see always the disable father and mother and play with her daughter and be happy.
Mojtaba rebelled very hard against the life, and cried always and disturb the whole family. Now the brother-in-law bit him badly and forced him to be quite and accept the life as it is. Mojtaba with time get quite and wise and started to work and make his own money as the father and mother died. Now as a rich merchant told me that all this wealth has not the same value of the book, note book or the pencil you gave me. And wanted to say that the help and you love as a teacher made me to come to this position and he was so thankful about the little thing I gave him at that time.
He may be could not finish the high school as the children were very rude to him. They said your father cannot even sit and move how can he have create you. May be your mother did the whole work. How can you be the son of a man who cannot even more? Your mother did a good job. And so they sent Mojtaba with hate of sex to his poor mother. And I could guess that he left the high school and went in other places to work in the places that the cruel children could not reach him.
Now I think Arman with an academic father and mother who were rich and intelligent and helped him to be a doctor in science could not continue to live and Mojtaba with all difficulties manage to be a rich merchant. To have a normal father and mother was the best wishes that Mojtaba could have or to have enough money or not to be teased by other students. That was all his wishes, but Arman had all of these privileges and even after having his PhD had to kill himself. That is another puzzle for me that Mojtaba with all these difficulties is now a rich merchant who has more than fifty personals working for him and managed all these problems and Arman with a life which was a dream for Mojtaba killed himself. I do not know the answer; may you know the answer.
