Back to School in Iran: How to Deal with a Bad Summer
TIME / Shervin Malekzadeh
07-Sep-2009 (one comment)

The first day of class in Iran comes with its own traditions, designed to help students ease into the academic year. First-graders have it the best. The children are designated as shokoofeh (literally, blossoms), and the teachers give each child a stalk of a fragrant flower. The principal raises a microphone and calls all of the kids into rows, regimented by grades. Then, at exactly the same time across the country, an official strikes a metal plate with a small hammer, the aural signal for the year to begin. The kids pass under a Koran and into their new classrooms, redolent with the smoky swirl of burning esfand, a fragrant herb for warding off bad spirits.

There is comfort in these rituals, in knowing what the first day will bring. But this year will be different, the opening-day rituals troubled by the events of the past summer. This was not a good summer. For many, school will be the first time to confront in a formal social setting what has happened to the country since the controversial presidential election in June. As the principal of a Tehran high school put it to me in his own understated way, "We will surely have problems."

"What will I tell the kids when they come back?" he asks. His school, known for its piety and commitment to the Islamic Revolution, lost a parent to errant gunfire during one of the protest marches, a mother who had gone out in search of her son. Another student was struck in the stomach and... >>>

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yolanda

Thank you for

by yolanda on

Thank you for recommending this very interesting Time article! The 1st day of school has neat tradition, the hammer. It is nice to know.

yolanda