At first, we were all astonished by the spiritual atmosphere of the school and the order and discipline that permeated every aspect, a stark contrast to the environment of insecurity and chaos prevalent in our country. Our Turkish teachers, who came from Turkey, were paragons of love, understanding, loyalty, and compassion. In my first year, we felt we had found the most trustworthy people to nourish our spirits and fill our hearts with peace. As time went on, we found ourselves fulfilled not only in a spiritual sense but also academically, and this was largely through the works of our esteemed teacher, M. Fethullah Gülen. Teachers who ventured from Turkey to over 160 countries held the highest standards in education. One of the fundamental principles of the Hizmet Movement was the union of heart and mind. Humans are multidimensional beings, requiring development on both fronts; it was first Hocaefendi and later our schoolteachers who explained and exemplified this for us.

Another prominent and important foundation of the Hizmet Movement is seeing people as individuals and treating them as such. In a world where people are judged and belittled based on their race, language, beliefs, color, and thoughts, the Hizmet Movement and the works of our esteemed teacher served as a remedy and elixir for us all, easing these troubles in our hearts. We observed through our teachers’ actions that regardless of a person’s color, race, or belief, we should extend a hand of help and compassion.

The aid campaigns held annually in our country also underscored the universality and humanitarian nature of this movement. These campaigns reached out to thousands and continue to extend a helping hand around the world. In a time when people were at war and in conflict, the Hizmet Movement embraced everyone in the spirit of Mevlana, welcoming all humanity with an invitation to peace and love. As Hocaefendi once said, “Only love can save this world,” a statement worthy of being written in gold.

One of the greatest ongoing issues in Afghanistan is the trampling of women’s rights and the extreme level of injustice they endure. The Hizmet Movement exemplifies one of the most democratic approaches, advocating respect for women’s rights and offering equal educational opportunities. The female teachers in Afghanistan were all highly educated, intelligent, and served as excellent role models, leading us to recognize our own rights. Girls’ schools were opened in various cities of our country, providing us with educational opportunities.

The most powerful element that has led this beautiful and positive movement to be accepted in 160 countries around the world is the selflessness of Hizmet volunteers. In the face of countless services and the provision of both material and spiritual education on every continent under challenging conditions, they never expected anything in return because Hizmet is a movement of volunteers, who would respond to aggression with neither hands nor words. This beautiful journey that I embarked upon in 2012 was truly our ultimate purpose in life, as shown to us by Hocaefendi and our teachers through their actions, words, and works. Now, our duty is to reach out to those who have fallen by the wayside and those who have forgotten they are travelers on this path, embracing them because they, too, are human.

Our teacher’s passing has cast a profound sadness upon us all, for “the death of a scholar is the death of a world.” Thousands of students from every continent shed tears at our loss. We hope that these tears will contribute to the development of future generations and allow them to encounter our teacher’s vision and ideas.

May our teacher’s soul rest in peace, and may his memory forever live on in our hearts and minds.

Following thirteen months behind my only sibling’s academic footsteps was hard. From elementary school on, she was a glowing student; absorbing, digesting, and understanding information seemingly by osmosis. She maintained straight A’s throughout her academic career and earned a college scholarship. I, on the other hand, struggled to maintain a C average and ran away from home at the age of fifteen.

Let’s take a moment and rewind…

I thought I was stupid. Compared to my sister, it certainly appeared that way. However, it wasn’t until many years later I discovered that I learn differently from how I was being taught.

There are three recognized learning styles:

• Auditory learners grasp things by hearing—the worst type of test for them involves reading passages and writing answers. They’re best at writing responses to lectures they’ve heard, and are also good at oral exams.
• Visual learners comprehend through seeing—the worst test type for them includes having to listen and respond. They’re best at diagramming, reading maps, essays (if they’ve studied using an outline), and showing a process.
• Tactile (kinesthetic) learners understand through experiencing/doing—the worst test type for them usually has lengthy tests and essays. They’re best at short definitions, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice.

When I was in school, the general teaching population were auditory teachers. A heavily tactile learner—with a smidgen of visual thrown in for good measure—I was missing the boat!

Fast forward…

Not having done any planning before running away, I didn’t know that if you leave high school before you graduate, you can’t test for a GED—General Education Diploma—until two years after your graduating class.

Biding my time, I went to work for a large, everything-under-one-roof store. Over the next few years I worked my way up to managing the women’s wear department, then added men’s wear, and topped it off with housewares and furniture.

I gained valuable life experience during that window of time. Part of this seat-of-the-pants wisdom was learning to say, “I don’t understand. Can you please explain that differently?” And that’s when I noticed that no matter how many times someone “told” me, it wasn’t until they “showed” me that I got it! When shown, I not only met, but exceeded what was expected of me.

I left high school as a sophomore in 1973. For four long years I waited and prepared to take the GED examination. On a hot day in late June of 1977, with the cut-grass tang of summer in the air, I slipped into a front row seat at the testing center; one of about twenty other people enveloped in the sterile classroom setting.

The all-day test was given in seven parts: Language Arts (writing), Language Arts (reading), Social Studies, Science, Math (calculator allowed), Math (calculator not allowed), and United States Constitution.

Hours later—head held high with a face-splitting grin—I left the facility with every confidence that I’d aced the test. Six weeks later I received my GED certificate, and that was just the beginning. Over time I earned my associate degree, then bachelor’s, followed by a master’s degree. Finally, two weeks before my fiftieth birthday, I sat and defended my Ph.D. thesis.

Hard-wired for buoyancy and tenacious as a terrier, when I set my mind on something I go after it with tremendous resolve. It took a while, but I eventually went from GED to Ph.D. And while I’m Ph.inisheD with brick-and-mortar academia, I’ll never be done learning.

The slight drizzle hitting the dry ground and dead grass was the highlight of my day. It’s been over three months since the last glimpse of rainfall, the drizzle dropped and filled the cracks and crevices of the tarnished ground. I could see the amazement and feel the excitement of the grass, as it was enveloped in water. But all good things have to come to an end, and the slight drizzle stopped as quickly as it started.

(Camera Clicks) “We’re recording in, 3…2…1… Hello, my name is Joseph and I am a 15-year-old in the year 2060. To many, this year has no significance, but to me, I see it as the 40-year anniversary of the last normal year on Earth. I woke up this morning and looked outside through my glass window to see the barren wasteland that I live in, the sun’s destructive rays continue to deplete the ground of any moisture left. But like a miracle, a cloud covered the sun and it began to rain. The sight was astonishing. I ran out of my motion detecting doors as they quickly swung open to grab my camera and record. But when I came back it was all over. I put the camera down, and here I am talking to you about the rather unpleasant world that I live in.”

“Joseph! I’ve made your breakfast. Come on, or you’ll be late for school.”

“Ugh, Grandpa! I was in the middle of something very important.”

Joseph forgets to turn off the camera and takes it with him to the kitchen, where he sees his food resting on the automatic stove top. The camera catches a glimpse of his Grandpa with his robotic replacement arm. Joseph places the camera on a book, facing towards him, and takes a seat at the table.

“Thanks for the food, but I am not that hungry.”

“What’s wrong, Joe, are you okay? I made your favorite, bacon and eggs. I know it is severely outdated but I tried my best.”

“Gramps… did you know it rained this morning?” Joseph looks up from his plate, and his eyes meet with his Grandpa’s. The old man’s eyes widen.

“Really? That’s the first time this year.” He walks towards the one way, sun protective glass window and looks outside at the slightly damp ground. “You know… back in my day, during this time of year it always rained, and not just a slight drizzle. Some days there were the normal routine rainfalls, and other times there were worries of too much rain and homes would flood…”

Joseph cannot help but interrupt his grandfather out of astonishment. “Floods? Grandpa, that sounds way better than what we are living through right now. What caused everything to change?”  he blurts out.

“… however,” Grandpa continues, “as I grew older and older, nature as I once knew it began to change into what it is today.” Joseph gets up abruptly, and quickly turnes the camera so that it directly faces his Grandpa, and continues recording the conversation. He walks towards his Grandpa.

“Can you tell me more about how life was when you were a kid?”

“Well, as you know, we live in New Jersey. Back then, it was known as the Garden State, which is ironic since there aren’t any plants or grass in a 10-mile radius of the state as of now. But I remember going to parks and playing football in the grass with my friends. Smelling the fresh air in the spring mornings and feeling the cold splashes of rain in the afternoon were some of the best moments of nature during those spring months. But as time progressed and America continued to modernize, changes began to occur in nature, Joseph.”

Joseph’s gaze is so fixated on his Grandpa that he doesn’t notice the notification from his school on his phone stating that school is going to start in 30 minutes. “Keep going Grandpa.”

“Technology began to advance, the government and even some people in the public began to stop caring for the environment. Gasoline and oil began to run out quickly, and thankfully, scientists were able to find more forms of energy, but that didn’t solve the problems that had already begun. The hole in the ozone layer began to increase, which is the reason for these reinforced windows, and the temperature began to gradually increase. It’s almost as if as the need for improved technology and futuristic things got greater, the environment of our world got destroyed more and more.”

Grandpa looks down at his right robotic replacement arm and strokes it. His voice is strained. “I wonder if people would’ve still disregarded the health of nature if they knew that it would lead to the environment that we have today…” Joseph’s Grandpa clears his throat. “Joe, it is getting late. Go get your jacket so that you won’t be late for school. We will talk later kiddo.” His Grandpa walks into the room and the sliding doors close.

Joseph runs to his room and comes back with his jacket, which is visible in the camera frame. The logo stated “UV Ray Protective Suit.” He gazes at the image for a moment, then clicks the red button once more.

“Hello guys, I didn’t realize that I had left the camera on… I learned a lot this morning, the world has changed a lot, and it looks like it’s too late for a change. I can’t believe that there was a time where nature was beautiful.” Joseph takes time to stare out the window, and his slightly happy expression fades into dread. He looks back into the camera.

“Well, I have to head to school. I’ll talk to you guys later. This is Joseph signing out.” 

The worst thing about cancer they don’t tell you?

The aftermath. The shock waves.

It’s surviving the quick earthquake, only to find yourself dodging falling objects and electrical lines for the next few days.

What they failed to mention was that fighting cancer was the easy part.

The real battle was learning to live again.

I got the news of my cancer diagnosis as a young mother, and after we had moved to a new city with no close friends or family. The kids were 3, 6, 11, and 13. Summer break had just begun, and to make things worse, I could not drive. We were in the wilderness and were fighting for our lives.

We went into “survival mode,” literally and figuratively, and assigned each older child to a smaller child with the plan and knowledge that we could survive if each of the “bigs” both did a load of laundry and dishes a day. At one point, I had a goal to drop off the kids at school, so I could get three uninterrupted hours of sleep after my chemo treatment. I had finally dropped off the children at their three different schools, and my head had barely hit the pillow, when I received a phone call from the school.

“Mrs. Estes? You need to come pick up your children. They all have lice!”

Trials, temptations, disease, and now pestilence were hitting our household simultaneously. I remember thinking, “At least I can’t get it since my hair is gone,” and then laughed at the absurdity that we were so low that my “silver lining statement” included the phrase “Praise the Lord I’m bald.”

But that was not the hardest part. Not by a long shot.

The hardest part was after the storm, when the casseroles stopped coming and prayers had grown weary. The hardest part of fighting a deadly battle comes afterwards when the dust has settled and the gunsmoke has cleared and you find yourself standing in total rubble and destruction.

I shouldn’t say total. We had our health and were still married. Most do not escape with that, I learned. But we both were battered and bloodied. I had a visual representation come to mind of an old battleship slowly pulling into port – disfigured and worn, riddled with bullet holes and laden with shrapnel. We were afloat, but barely.

I awoke from my six-month drunken chemo state to find my life in ruins. While the “bigs” had done a wonderful job helping with the “littles,” there were still unmet needs and unspoken questions that the youngest mind’s lips couldn’t form, which resulted in one regressing into wetting his pants again in first grade and the other becoming a hair’s breath away from becoming non-verbal, screaming “Aaaaaa!” fifty times a day. All of this in addition to the “regular” stresses of having four children about to enter high school, middle school, kindergarten and first grade – and not to mention the emotional withdrawal that naturally comes in a marriage during crisis times and having a son with extreme learning disabilities.

At one point, I was finally able to lift my leg again, and I was able to climb the stairs to our second story – after a year. When I entered the playroom, the scene rivaled the ruins of a never-ending frat party, with beer bottles exchanged for sippy cups and ankle-deep trash covering the floor. It was a sign of what the kids had silently felt during our ordeal, and it served as a visual symbol of my life: ruined and messy.

In World War II, my grandfather was part of the company that liberated prisoner of war camps. At one point, he asked one of the prisoners what the difference was between those that made it out and those that did not.

“The ones that made it found something to look forward to – they had a goal,” he replied.

I took that advice and decided that when all the chemo and radiation was over, I would celebrate with the other cancer fighters I’d met while walking through the fire.

None of them made it. It was heartbreaking.

I “made do” by celebrating with all the friends and family who had prayed and supported us through the journey, but the weight was still felt. In addition to feeling thankful, I also shouldered the burden of false guilt from having survived when my other comrades had fought just as hard, sometimes harder. Soldier syndrome had come home to roost.

So, what do you do when you get through the war only to (symbolically) return to your home to find the farm overrun with thorns and that your wife has run off?

You start from scratch. And you begin with baby steps.

God was gracious, providing me with advice from an “older brother” in the church just when I needed it. He himself had come out of a near death, eight-day coma experience. He emerged paralyzed on one side, but no one would ever guess it today. The first thing he advised when I called him in tears was, “small goals, baby steps, little sister!”

When coming through tragedy, we want our life to be like it was “before,” but the “after” contains components the “before” never had. It is an “apples to oranges” comparison and is unfair to expect them to be the same. Life “after cancer” contains side effects such as “less energy” and “Chemo Brain” that affect what and how much can be done for a while. Just as I couldn’t expect to instantly run three miles again, nor should I have expected to jump instantly back into life, either. The girl who used to pay all the bills, pop dinner into the oven, and get all four kids ready for school before breakfast was now merely able to pay the bills by the end of the day. But that was okay, because that was enough.

Second piece of advice: good enough is good enough. Lower your expectations. Gone were the days of thinking “everything has a place, and everything should be in its place.” Life was still, even now, about survival. Gone were the days of a pristine home ready for entertainment at a moment’s notice; the day of “push aside the mess and have a seat” had come. And that is okay. Because, again, you are now living in a different reality. The good news? There is no fairy that is going to come grade you on how tidy or organized your home is. Your home is there to serve you, not the other way around. Feel free to live as such.

In addition, it is imperative to “accept the new reality” and “don’t look back.” At one point in the recovery process, I placed blinder goggles and a bottle of salt beside my bed to remind myself, “Don’t look back, lest you turn to a pillar of salt!” (like Lot’s wife). I was amazed at how many Bible verses there actually were with the theme of “pressing on” and “not looking back.” The message was clear: the past is the past, and the present is the present. Make sure to live in the right one. Thinking back to how things used to be and trying to make your world look now like it did back then is a guaranteed, instant trip to Insanity Land. Accept that now will not look like then, nor is it supposed to. Celebrate every “new” baby step and make recovery a big ol’ party!

One of the hardest pieces of advice to follow is: try to humble yourself. As a natural giver, this concept was the most difficult for me until a friend helped me realize that life is not all about me, and if I do not ask for help, then I am literally robbing givers of the chance to use their spiritual gift to give. Ecclesiastes makes it clear that life is divided into seasons, and this is perhaps your season to be a receiver. Accept it as you would a blessing for it will bless others as they minister to you.

A final word of advice on the journey of learning to live again: have a creative outlet and take time to feed your soul. Anything from songwriting, to painting, to simply coloring will help balm your weary mind as you learn to do things anew again. For me, I finally completed my novel, began songwriting, and never missed a sunset at our local park for three months straight. Learning to live again is like learning to walk again – hard and tiring. You must make the time to restore and renew your mind, spirit, and soul.

Of course, this all goes with the understanding that we are constantly praying and praising God for every single blessing He brings our way. It can be big things, like climbing stairs again – or small things, like hearing the song of a robin or seeing a butterfly. Whatever the size of the blessing that comes your way that day, praise God for it! And remember: like the butterfly in the cocoon, this season, too, is temporary and will pass.

“It’s my fault, all my fault; I should’ve tried harder,” he said. A quintessential characteristic of his – always pinning the blame on no one other than himself.

They were closing us down; there was no more hope.

He had returned hopeful after the bidding: his paperwork had been in order, and he’d been at it for weeks, day and night. In fact, he hadn’t slept much since the great wave had hit them on the 16th of July. I recall seeing his worried sleepless face on the morning of the 17^th; he hadn’t slept a wink. He’d been up all night making “namaz” (prayers) for his country. He’d been confused by the events. The slowly emerging, dizzying “facts” confounded him.

The wave had been the talk of the staffroom in the days to follow. Some said that their country had just been making good progress and now everything, who knows maybe 10 or 15 years of building, had been lost, all in a single night. Teachers, first by the hundreds and then by the thousands, had been sacked, and their licenses revoked. I was shown a picture of a teacher with an angelic appearance who had been put to death because he had allegedly been involved in terrorism. The morale dropped with each passing day and the friendly smiles and warm greetings turned into frowns and drooping shoulders. I woke up each morning with a sense of angst and prayed for peace, justice, and truth to prevail in my colleagues’ country. The realization started setting in that they wouldn’t be able to return home that year. Their children would not be able to see their grandparents the next holiday. And with the school being shut down, they had no idea where to go. They told me that it’s become too dangerous to contact their families; people are being detained by the thousands. Some told me that their parents believed the news and not their own accounts of what had happened; a certain blindness had descended upon their countryfolk.

My colleagues are deeply patriotic. There were Turkish flags and laminated Turkish words labeling things and framed pictures of the Hagia Sophia and Istanbul on the walls of the school.

Talk about the failed coup eventually ceased in the staffroom and my colleagues refused to be dispirited further by it. Weeks went by and everyone kicked into survival mode. CV’s were being updated, job applications were being sent out in a frenzy, reference letters were being written, and my friends had nowhere to go. They were stranded or worse, they’d become alleged “terrorists.” My friends: terrorists? Ludicrous!

I’ve known them for over five years and the only allegation I could make against them is that they work too hard! Most work seven days a week. Our staffroom was open 24 hours and I’d often see them working in there as late as 11 at night. They had once compelled me to redo a video promo I’d made about the school just to insert a clip of the Prime Minister at the time, Erdoğan, and his wife who had attended a Turkish Olympiad (Türkçe Olimpiyatları) where Ghanaians had performed a traditional Turkish dance. Both Erdoğan and his wife were deeply touched. I’m not sure if I had gotten my facts straight… so he, Erdoğan, was blaming my colleagues of plotting against him? The reasoning behind this had confounded myself and my colleagues alike.

They’ve travelled land and sea to make other nations pro-Turkish and pro-Turkey. Never had I picked up on an ounce of resentment against Turkey from my devoted colleagues.

And when my colleague had exerted his final efforts and realized that the fight to keep the school open had been lost, he sighed and said: “It’s my fault, all my fault; I should’ve tried harder.” My heart broke upon hearing these words uttered by a man who teaches his students on weekends and until eleven o’clock at night to help prepare them for their exam the next day. My heart was shattered when I heard those words from the man who had learned to push on with his teaching responsibilities despite an onslaught of dengue fever, his shirt completely soaked and his eyes deeply sunken.  “You should rest Abi,” I said to him. “I will rest in the hereafter,” he stoically replied.

My heart was crushed when he still blamed himself when powers beyond his control had worked against him, the man who had once removed the tie from his neck and wrapped it up neatly and made it a gift to me following my comment about its beauty. How can my heart go on if the man – who took me to his unfurnished house, save for a mattress on the floor, to give me his own mattress when mine was infested with bed bugs – is labelled a “terrorist”? Tell me, how should I respond? What should I do to convince people that none of this is his fault, that he’s a man of peace, a teacher by trade and nothing more, that he’s nothing less than a saint? Tell me, what should I do?

Combining sports and education, and motivated by faith, Hassan Fofana is helping dreams come true for students in West Africa.

I first met Hassan Fofana in 2006, at a friend’s house in Baltimore, Maryland. Hassan was studying at Loyola College and I was at Temple University. The two of us were an unusual pair. Hassan, who was born in Guinea and grew up in Togo, is nearly seven feet tall; he was a center on Loyola’s basketball team. On my good days, I’m five feet, eight inches tall.

Despite the humor that ensued when the two of us stood side by side, we became fast friends, united by a shared passion for social justice. At the time, my experiences with the larger world were minimal, but at only 21, Hassan was already a worldly man. At the age of 14, when Hassan was still living in Togo, he’d been one of 55 kids to try out for an American basketball coach. The coach was offering one scholarship to a prep school in Massachusetts. It was, Hassan once told me, a hopelessly long shot. And yet, at the end of the try out, Hassan was chosen. Barely a teenager, he left his family and home to enroll at Hargrave Military Academy in Boston. He didn’t speak a word of English.

Despite being so far from home, and in a strange country, Hassan embraced the opportunity. He won a scholarship to play basketball at the University of Maryland, under hall of fame coach Gary Williams, and after that he transferred to Loyola College, where he earned a degree in International Relations and Philosophy.

Throughout his journey, Hassan was shocked by the kindness of people he met along the way – especially the Gibbons family and his mentor, Mike Zona. Generosity wasn’t unusual for Hassan, of course. He grew up with devout Muslim parents, who taught him both the value of an education and the generosity that their faith preached.

“For as long as I can remember, my parents ha(d) always ha(d) 1 to 3 guests in our home. They w(ould) stay there for as long as they like(d) for free housing and food,” Hassan told me.

These lessons, and the continual generosity he encountered, left a deep mark on Hassan. While he was at Loyola, he began to have an inkling that he wanted to spend his life serving others.

Shortly before Hassan and I met in 2006, he returned to Togo for only the second time since leaving for the U.S. The trip, which would change his life, had been made possible by a dear friend and businessman who had asked Hassan what he missed most about his home. Hassan said he missed the sense of community – the way that everyone knew everyone else’s name, and how neighbors watched out for each other – and he missed his family. Hassan has many siblings, and he missed their large, sprawling family meals and the easy camaraderie that brothers and sisters have together.

While back in Togo, Hassan and a friend were watching a group of kids – most of them around twelve years old – play soccer. Hassan still knew most of the kids in his town, and was curious why some children weren’t out there with their friends. His friend told Hassan that many of the children had been taken out of school. Because their families were struggling for money, the boys’ fathers had decided that school was a waste of time. They weren’t playing soccer because they were working – many of them for less than five dollars a day.

Hassan was troubled by this. Sports and education had always been linked in his mind. After all, it was a sport that had allowed him to pursue a higher education in America. Watching that soccer game, Hassan began to get a sense of what he wanted to do with his life. When I met him that fall, he told me that, inspired by his trip back home, he wanted to open schools for athletes in Africa. He wanted to help young kids, just like himself, to get a real education.

“I was convinced that this was my mission on this earth,” he says.

Now, eight years later, Hassan is beginning to make his dream a reality. In 2012, after a few false starts, Hassan formed Time2Ball Foundation, which aims to connect student-athletes in West Africa with prep coaches in the United States and Europe. The hope is that these kids will use their athletics to get the kind of world class education they can’t get in Africa – and through education, open up all kinds of opportunities for themselves and their communities. With the help of donors, educators, coaches, and local community leaders, since 2012, Hassan has brought eleven teenagers from Africa to study at high schools in the United States and Europe.

Though Hassan lives and works in the U.S – and though all his student-athletes are coming to study in the U.S. and Europe – Hassan still has his gaze focused on Africa. He firmly believes that the continent can fix its problems through its young leaders getting better educations. Inspired by his own devout faith, Hassan stresses the need to give back to others. He encourages the student-athletes that he works with not just to pursue their own goals, but to be generous and to help others achieve their dreams, too. Through this intense focus on community and generosity, Hassan hopes that many of Time2Ball’s student-athletes will ultimately return to Africa to help open up more avenues of opportunity in local communities.

I recently spoke with Hassan and asked him what has been the best part of his work. He told me a story about a young man who had dropped out of school in Togo and had found work cleaning roads. Time2Ball was able to connect him with a basketball coach in the U.S., where he’s now a junior in high school, with a B+ grade average and possible college scholarships on the table. As Hassan told me, being able to help someone like this boy achieve his dream of a better life is “a true blessing.”

Despite its early success, Time2Ball still faces plenty of challenges going forward, such as funding and housing for its student-athletes. Because it’s still small, unfortunately, there are many student-athletes Time2Ball hasn’t been able to help. Hassan says that he’s constantly looking for new solutions to these problems. He’s hoping that, in the future, a stable network of donors and schools will allow him to focus more on finding student-athletes. But he’s not there yet, and is looking for all the help he can get.

Even with these challenges, Hassan has big dreams for Time2Ball. Within the next five years, he’d like to expand Time2Ball’s influence by helping athletes in many sports connect with coaches (for now, Time2Ball only works with basketball and soccer players). He’d also like to help aspiring artists in Africa find better opportunities to develop their talents.

The long term dream, though, is still the same as it was when Hassan and I met over eight years ago: he wants to open a series of schools in Togo and West Africa that will utilize kids’ love of sports to improve their access to a quality education. Driven by faith and the generosity of many people he has met along the way, Hassan Fofana is helping dreams come true, one education at a time.

Please feel free to contact Hassan if you have any questions or you would like to contribute to our effort in helping young men and women improve their lives through education and sport. Contact via email: Time2Ballinc@gmail.com or via skype: fhassan16.

The importance of character education programs

There are some programs that are called character education for detection of problematic behavior and school violence prevention or reduction. Was, Woltz, and Drew (2006) underscored the need for character education programs through utilizing statistics concerning school violence, absence, and dropout percentages. Bohlin, Farmer, and Ryan (2001) utter that in the US, there is a rising demand in schools to provide effective character education, whose purpose is to increase moral values, respect, citizenship, social skills, etc.

One of the most significant goals of character education programs is to decrease the bullying and peer-victimization that pervade many schools (Batsche – Knoff, 1994). Hence, character education programs should be taught effectively to prevent behavior problems and help students solve their own problems, since effective character education programs can alter the climate of a school by influencing the behaviors and attitudes of the students. That is, when appropriately implemented, character education programs encourage a positive school climate, thus improve academic performance and learning (Sherblom, Marshall – Sherblom, 2006). In addition, Leming (1993) expressed that “teachers in the program classrooms reported a statistically significant two-and-one-half times reduction in problem behavior in students” (p. 68).

The need for computer-based animated vignettes

In order to cope with the aforementioned problems such as bullying, victimization, unwanted behaviors within schools, etc., character education institutions can hire more teaching staff, or teachers can work more than they have done before. However, neither hiring more staff nor working harder is an appropriate solution to help students deal with the problems encountered in schools, because students should learn to cope with the problems by themselves. Thus, they need to have the self-confidence and self-esteem to overcome inappropriate behaviors. It means that the implementation of the character education programs is crucial in terms of their effectiveness.

In this respect, there could be some efforts to facilitate social competence within the classroom and to lead to positive behavioral outcomes (Kam, Greenberg, – Kusche, 2004). Therefore, as an alternative solution, computer-based animated vignettes utilized in character education programs such as Clover, which “is a multimedia tool that empowers students to construct their own animated vignettes that meaningfully express personal experiences” (Baily, Tettegah – Bradley, 2006, p. 802) can be part of these efforts to solve students’ problems in moral and social situations by stimulating them to engage in problem solving (Bailey et al., 2006).

It is important for these programs to be computer-based, since, as Bers (2001) underscored, computers are influential tools for self-exploration. Computers are also beneficial for children in terms of socialization. Heft and Swaminathan (2002) mentioned in their study that children could interact with one another because instructors want them to work in pairs. This provokes them to ask questions to each other to solve problems. Furthermore, in the study done by Nastasi and Clements (1992), it was revealed that a computer-based program, Logo, could foster cognitive development by stimulating cognitively-based resolution of cognitive struggles.

Definitions of animated vignettes

Tettegah and Anderson (2007) describe Animated Narrative Vignettes (ANV’s) as “concrete examples of people and their behaviors, and stories about individuals, situations, and structures that can make reference to important points in the study of perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes” (p. 51). Some researchers, Zhou et al. (2003) define vignettes as ”emotion-evoking stimuli presented via audiotapes, videotapes, or realistic enactments that aim to make participants believe that the events and people involved in the stimuli are real, not hypothetical.” As understood through the definitions, animated vignettes are related to either behaviors or real visual events. Therefore, animated vignettes may be utilized in character education classes to make them more effective to reduce behavioral distortions.

Animated vignettes in character education

Bailey et al., (2006, p. 796) pointed out that when technology education is integrated within learning activities that are meaningful to students, it could be more effective. Therefore, they aimed to seek to link the delivery of technology and character education through the utilization of animated vignettes. In this process, students can gain and exercise technological skills and learn how to figure out concepts within a learning activity that is important to them while also building the vignettes via computers (Bailey et al., 2006, p. 796). Vignettes have been utilized to instruct Mathematics and Science, management skills, problem solving, and character education (Bailey et al., 2006,p. 797). In the sense of character education, Vignettes are typically used to facilitate some techniques, such as reflection, role-playing, problem solving, and ethical thinking and positive social behavior among students (Bailey et al., 2006,p. 797).

So far, this paper has discussed the importance of character education programs, the need for animated vignettes, and their definitions. Next, this paper will present the effectiveness of animated vignettes and how they can facilitate learners to recognize and reduce problem behaviors.

The effectiveness of animated vignettes

Vignettes are beneficial and effective as a teaching instrument; this is because they can provide real representations of situations, helping students solve problems (Bailey et al., 2006). In the article of Bailey et al., (2006), it is sought to link technology and character education through constructing and utilizing animated vignettes. Researchers illustrate that animated vignettes could be more beneficial when they provide three important features: meaningfulness, personal experiences, and having a dialogue.

a) Meaningfulness

Thanks to these computer-based animated vignettes, students will be able to learn via some activities that are meaningful to them. To provide effective character education, vignettes can be used as a significant tool (Bailey et al., 2006, p. 796). For example, in the study implemented by Tettegah and Anderson (2007), animated vignettes were used for gathering data. Vignettes showed an interaction between two children – “Scott, a 9-year old Caucasian boy, and Jamilah, a 9-year old African American girl; or Jamal, a 9-year old African American boy, and Erin, a 9-year old Caucasian girl) – and one teacher (Ms. Litts), and one parent (Mr. Young)” (Tettegah – Anderson, 2007, p. 52).

The vignettes were counterbalanced to determine if responses given by pre-service teachers are different from one another about the race of the victim and perpetrator. A child told the animated vignette; thus, the characters in these vignettes symbolized real people in real life. Ms. Litts (the teacher) was working with the class on a supportive learning activity, such as making paper puppets or building bridges. However, there was no difference between activities in terms of vignettes. That is, the same performances were represented in each vignette. In these processes, making paper puppets or building bridges, the teacher wanted students to work each other, like “Scott with Jamilah in the puppet making activity or Jamal with Erin in the bridge making activity, depending on the vignette” (Tettegah – Anderson, 2007, p. 52). In each scenario, the boy (Scott or Jamal) told the girl (Jamilah or Erin) that they did not want to be in the same group with the girls because of their skin color. They added that their skin color might influence them. After that, the girl’s fathers reported the event to the teacher, Ms. Litts, and the teacher was surprised, since they had talked about Martin Luther King Jr., which she believed was relevant to the topic.

After watching the vignette, participants were asked how they would respond if they were in the teacher’s position, and they wrote down their responses. In this example, participants were asked to put themselves into another person’s position through animated vignettes. As a consequence of the study, participants could place themselves into another character, and could try to consider helping their children solve the prescribed problems.

b) Personal experiences

As a solution, computer-based character education programs could be effective if animated vignettes are “based on personal experiences rather than on artificially constructed circumstances” (Bailey et al., 2006, p. 794). Students can improve both self-awareness and interpersonal skills by practicing some skills shown in vignettes. That is, they can also incorporate theory and practice in a personally related way (Barter – Renold, 2000). Thanks to this process, students are able to engage in their own ethical and social thinking. This allows students to become more engaged in their own moral and social thinking (Tappan, 1991).

To illustrate, consider this example: in the study implemented by Tettegah (2005), there was a real experience of a father, daughter, classmate, and teacher developed in the animated narrative vignettes and told by a real person. After viewing the vignettes, the educators wrote some responses for problem solving to questions like, “Who does the participant express empathy with? In whose position does the respondent imagine himself?” (Tettegah, 2005, p.383). Thanks to these questions, teachers could better understand peer conflicts related to classroom education. Responses were to involve educators and students in sharing with others to help them to be aware of conflicts that are both peer and teacher-related (Tettegah, 2005, p.383).

c) Dialogue opportunities

Through using animated narrative vignettes, it is possible to have a dialogue that will allow educators to talk over and also foster a better understanding of bullying and victimization (Tettegah, 2005). Computer-based animated vignettes are beneficial tools for discovering relationships between people (Fong – Woodruff, 2003). For instance, well-known educators are brought together to discuss issues about oppression and discrimination in their classrooms through cultural portals. In these meetings, they try to figure out how to cope with the problems in the classroom and within the school’s social environment. Using computer-based tools to find the cause of complex behaviors in the class is very useful (Tettegah, 2005). Although this seems to affect students’ problem behaviors indirectly, it may be effective in comprehending the problems and discovering some solutions to reduce problem behaviors.

Conclusion

Implementing computer-based programs to help recognize and solve problematic behaviors could be very beneficial to many schools. As emphasized above, researchers have shown that there are problematic behaviors observed in schools. Therefore, character education programs could be effective to reduce and solve these problems. Making the programs more beneficial as a means of computer-based animated vignettes helps students notice and reduce problems. They can be more effective if they are meaningful to students and if students can put themselves into the real characters in the vignettes to recognize the problems. The personal experiences underscored in the vignettes trigger students’ awareness through practicing the skills showed in the vignettes. And the vignettes can assist in generating a dialogue between educators and students to understand the issues and help develop some solutions together.

Namik Top is a PhD candidate in the Department of Educational Psychology at Texas A-M University.

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You know education is always a hot topic. Everybody has a share and interest in education: Parents, educators, government officials, elected public representatives, nonprofit organizations, religious groups, and so on. Besides, there are many aspects of education, such as finance, law, administration, etc. However, do you also think that teachers have long been overlooked regarding their authority in their own classes? Haven’t they been overlooked regarding their professional development, even though they are the backbone of the education system and they need some assistance in their efforts more than ever? It is good if you also think like me. It is even better if you don’t. Thus, you can share your recommendations with me once you see this school where things are done differently than many other contemporary schools. These teachers at this school see themselves as a learning society. They criticized the status quo they were in some time ago, and renewed themselves collectively. I want you to see the product. Let’s start our journey, shall we?

Room 114

We enter through the big doors of the school. Physically, it is not the best school you would ever see, but it can definitely be said that vitality and cleanliness of the halls stand out. The atmosphere is very welcoming; something is different, but it is hard to tell what it is. I point to the very first door on the right hand side. With pride, I ask if you would like to see this classroom. The sound coming from room 114 is not different from the sound that bees make when they work. As we approach the door, I understand that this is Ms. Williams and her eighth-grade students studying math. She welcomes us and tells us, “please come on in; there are some empty chairs over there,” pointing to two empty chairs, and we make our way towards to the back of the class and have our seats. This is a math class, but I don’t see any numbers on the board or equations being discussed. Soon, we understand that they finished the chapter on expressing roots of cubic equations last week, and today they are discussing a person named Omar Khayyam (1044 – 1123 C.E.). Ms. Williams knew that Omar Khayyam was a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and poet. She had formed her students into four groups, and assigned each of his professions to a group, so that they could do some research and present their findings to the whole class. I understand what you mean from the way you look at me: you’re sure this is a math class? you seem to be saying. You’re right to ask. Don’t they need to finish a chapter and pass to the next one immediately, and stay focused on the possible topics that are asked at the end-of-year tests?

Let’s hold on to that question; we can ask this after the class is dismissed. The first three groups already talked about his contributions to philosophy, astronomy, and poetry. We feel very fortunate not to miss at least the last group, who talk about him as a mathematician. I can see brightness in students’ eyes, and their excitement to share everything they have learned with their classmates. The first student, Omar who coincidentally happens to share a name with Omar Khayyam, begins. Omar Khayyam was a scholar among many others of his time. He is best known today for his poetry, but his contribution to mathematics was great. He showed how to express roots of cubic equations by line segments obtained by intersecting conic sections… Another student, Margaret continues: his work on algebra was known throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and he also contributed to calendar reform. The algebra (from Arabic al-jabr) of Khayyam is geometrical, solving linear and quadratic equations by methods appearing in Euclid’s Elements… April inserts that Khayyam also gave important results on ratios giving a new definition and extending Euclid’s work to include the multiplication of ratios.

They continue their discussion, asking how these scholars tried to seek knowledge and an answer to who they were; and the great contributions they made towards peace and understanding among people of different origins. However, I am currently very much impressed and I lose myself in the beauty of these students’ discussion that I have found myself holding my breath and forgot about your presence next to me. It was no different than waking up from a dream when the bell was ringing. Sure, I will introduce you to Ms. Williams. I understand that you want to learn more about the uncommon method she adopted for this class: Ms. Williams, do you have a minute, please?

Of course, she says: “I have some time. It’s break time now.” You ask her about the topic and the way she formed her teaching method: Why would you choose a person from old history to discuss? Why do you want your students to talk about poetry or astronomy or philosophy in a math class? Do you think they know enough math to solve the questions on the end-of-year test? Why did you choose a Muslim scholar? Is this an Islamic or a secular school? Would you… and you realize you have bombarded her with your questions. You halt and smile.

She smiles back and says: “Yes, this is a secular state school. We try to practice secularism in a true sense that we can talk about religion, and bring religious materials to school to study, but we never try to impose these ideas into our students’ minds. They actually study very different kinds of perspectives, and they enjoy it very much. We take each student as a whole. Since our topic was roots of cubic equations, and Omer Khayyam was the father of the idea, you happened to see this example.”

“But why would you touch on different areas of study in a math class?” You say without taking a second breath.

Ms. Williams smiles again. “This is very common in our school. I am sure Mr. Wraga next door will also get into some math in his literature class since he knows my course syllabus. We try to keep our teachings interdisciplinary as much as possible. I receive feedback that kids enjoy it greatly. I understand your concern about the tests. However, testing is the very last thing we think of. Most of our students do well at those tests anyway, and those who cannot do so well are seen to be still successful mostly as artists or musicians…”

There is a long pause and silence now, but hurricanes are happening in our minds. How is it possible? What kind of philosophy is this school following? Is it the principal who leads these teachers like a conductor leading an orchestra? As Ms. Williams answered our questions, more questions kept popping up in our minds. The bell rings again, and the break is over. We thank her for letting us sit in the class. We make our way back to the hall again, and I am already elated with the intelligence of these students. You look at my eyes without saying a word, and smile: Room 115?

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights … The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

The 50th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s assassination this year is poignant for those of us who were well along in high school or had begun college when we heard the news that awful Friday afternoon. We still remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the word came. I was in the locker room in the seminary dormitory with some classmates when a friend ran in to tell us. First came shock; then, hopeful denial. The television, however, confirmed the unbelievable reality. The next three days we rarely budged from in front of the television – not until the state funeral had ended.

Kennedy was, for many of us, the promise of our generation. His eloquence, humor, and charm captured our idealism, as certainly as his call-to-action inaugural address – “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” – inspired us to build our communities and bring our country further along the path of democracy. He urged us to reach out to the world. The Peace Corps, which Kennedy proposed at the University of Michigan during his campaign, captured our imagination.

Tragic history has a way of deadening dreams, and casting youthful idealism upon its ash heap. We strove to resist that trajectory and continued to push our energy forward in the civil rights movement, and those movements that followed … for women, the environment, and peace.

Many of my generation answered the call, and, with the help of Lyndon Johnson’s masterful implementation, and expansion, of Kennedy’s ideals, joined the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or the War on Poverty. Others of us dedicated ourselves to other visions of civil society. Some of us were brutally tortured to death. Many were beaten bloody at lunch counters and on buses, or had snarling dogs set upon them. Terroristic violence even killed four little girls at Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama.

We endured the pain of the unimaginable assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and strove with grit to keep the dream alive and steady the course, despite the odds set against us.

Of course, we were not alone. We were building on the shoulders of the other generations in our time, and marching with them. All of us were honoring the legacy, lives, and struggles of those who had gone before us and now rested in peace. But it was Kennedy’s clarion voice that called us younger folks forth.

I myself ended up in the farm workers movement, following the leadership of César Chávez, and eventually moved into broader human rights efforts.

As I look back fifty years, I have learned that the struggle is so much more difficult than what we had seen through our idealistic-tinted glasses. I still cannot bear to watch the anniversary replays of President Kennedy’s assassination, and this year is even worse.

But there is never a moment that I don’t feel a stirring deep within my heart when I watch his inaugural address or listen to his speeches calling upon our “better angels,” as another assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, did a hundred years earlier.

It is with the same stirring of heart that I watch the next generations so passionately pick up the struggle to make the dream real.

When I look back, I also see other formative people and events that helped move me in this direction. I have learned from this that everything we do well in life has a good impact on others and that we can always learn from the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Probably the person who influenced my life the most was my grandmother. She was an intensely devout Christian, who practiced every day what she believed. She gave her money to the poor, visited people in the hospital, doted on her grandchildren, helped my parents support our family of six kids and send us to Catholic school, and prayed and went to Mass every day. My grandmother lived a life of compassion, tolerance, and justice. In her late eighties, she was on a picket line, supporting the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott.

Another important epoch in my life was the eight years in seminary, high school and college, studying to be a priest, even though I eventually chose a different vocation to which I felt called because it offered a more activist role in human rights work; after a stint in graduate school studying philosophy, I went on to become a lawyer.

But my time in the seminary gave me a good liberal arts education and taught me discipline, spirituality, philosophy, and grounded me in Catholic social justice teachings. It was the era of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. Pope John was much like John Kennedy: he “opened the windows” of the Church and challenged us to bear witness to the Gospel in community life in new ways; to help build civil society, in effect.

And, in my later years, coming to know and work with people in the Hizmet movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen gave me yet a broader, more ecumenical vision of the world, and offered the opportunity of collaborating with people of the Islamic faith to help build civil society. This experience further deepened my own spirituality.

Few of us involved in human rights, I venture to say, are without a spiritual basis for our work. Like all generalizations, mine is surely excessive; but it does capture the point that very many human rights advocates remain in their work because of their spirituality, which comes in all shapes and sizes. As the Christian monk and mystic Thomas Merton warned, without spirituality, we find ourselves caught up in the frenzy of activism and overwork, which overwhelms us.

While in law school, I worked summers with migrant farm workers in Michigan, the vast majority of whom came from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, along the border with Mexico. It was the era of César Chávez, who galvanized the country around issues of justice, decent pay and working conditions for field laborers.

So it was that I ended up in the Valley and worked there for ten years, helping to support farm worker organizing efforts and undertaking other human rights endeavors. It was an amazing way to witness that people living in poverty had great personal wisdom and an amazing sense of family and community.

Eventually, my work brought me to Austin, Texas, and the Texas Civil Liberties Union.

In 1990, two of us located free office space in a benefactor’s community building and began the Texas Civil Rights Project. Over the years, through the help of many generous people and organizations, TCRP has grown to a staff of 38 people in five offices: El Paso, South Texas, West Texas, Houston, and Austin.

TCRP handles the full panoply of civil rights issues, including: voting, free speech and assembly, economic justice, jail and prison matters, police misconduct, discrimination, and disability. For 23 years, the Texas Civil Rights Project has been a tireless advocate for racial, social and economic equality for low-income people, through its education and litigation programs.

Some of the achievements of the TCRP staff include:

• Handling more than 3000 legal cases for poor and low-income people
• Developing a vigorous VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) legal program for abused immigrant women in rural Texas that includes our unique “Circuit Rider” component and counseling and support services provided by a MSW supervisor and social work interns
• Publishing twelve Human Rights reports on issues such as hate crimes, Title IX rights of girls in high school, and the death penalty, and seven “self-help” legal manuals, on matters like veterans rights, disability laws, and prisoner rights
• Conducting community and lawyer trainings for more than 50,000 persons
• Publishing more than 400 opinion editorials in Texas newspapers
• Giving more than 500 speeches and talks on civil rights to diverse groups (such as school conferences, law enforcement trainings, and senior citizen organizations)

Due to the tireless advocacy of many TCRP employees, jails in Texas counties now do much more in preventing inmate suicide, providing interpreters for deaf prisoners, protecting vulnerable inmates from sexual assault, and administering HIV medications.

TCRP set the national model in ballot accessibility for blind voters and has led more than 30 regional compliance campaigns in Texas under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Thanks to our intrepid staff, businesses, churches, and courthouses in Texas are much more accessible to elderly and people with disabilities, as are government programs.

TCRP’s Title IX programs on sexual harassment and equal sports opportunities have helped make rural middle and high schools more hospitable for young women, and respectful of them, and opened up the prospect of athletic scholarships to college for them. Our Safe Schools project works with community groups on anti-bullying programs for students and our “Equality under the Law” campaign addressed “benign” discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans in banks, restaurants, motels, and other public accommodation.

Efforts to help South Asian, Muslim, and Arab citizens, permanent residents, and students who fell victim to post September 11th discrimination included filing a suit against a major airline and enlisting Texas attorneys to represent, on a pro bono basis, individuals who were questioned by the FBI.

TCRP worked with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) to help create single-member school board districts and assisted in redistricting the Texas Legislature and congressional districts so as to protect the voting and representational rights of minority citizens.

We assisted the NAACP is persuading the U.S. Department of Justice to audit the Austin Police Department and make more than 200 changes, including its use of force practices in the city’s minority communities.

TCRP joined with the American Jewish Congress in one of the first court cases in the country to challenge the constitutionality of government funding of a religiously-orientated job training program that used the Bible as an employment text and proselytized its trainees.

And we are a leading voice in raising questions about the fairness of Texas’ death penalty scheme, and the possibility of executing innocent people. So, too, are we an intrepid advocate of traditional civil liberties, such as free speech and assembly, due process, and equal protection under the United States and Texas Constitutions.

Our work that I’m proudest of dealt with:

• Ending secret collection of and research on blood of all babies born after 2002 
• Directing 480 suits under the Americans with Disabilities Act and related enforcement campaigns
• Challenging grand jury discrimination against Mexican Americans, women, and poor people
• Eliminating the statutory exclusion of farm and ranch laborers from the Texas workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation laws
• Extending the Texas Equal Rights Amendment to minority voting and redistricting
• Establishing a habeas corpus mechanism to review claims of innocence for persons sentenced to death
• Winning the right of blind voters to cast secret, adapted election ballots 
• Banning mandatory polygraph testing of state employees (and establishing privacy as fundamental right under the Texas Constitution)
• Protecting United Farm Workers Union members from retaliatory employment termination
• Securing the right of blind people to use dog guides in public accommodations 
• Seven McAllen police brutality class actions suits that reorganized the department

The most recent and profound personal development, as mentioned earlier, was coming to work with hizmet. It started with one of the movement’s interfaith dialog trips to Turkey and eventually led to writing a book on the eight-year-long political trial of Fethullah Gülen, which ended successfully and actually helped the process of more deeply democratizing Turkey.

International human rights law had always been a passion, and it was an honor to write on a subject that no one else in the world had written on. In subsequent trips, I met so many people in hizmet and was always singularly inspired by their good deeds, hard work, amiability, and commitment. It reminded me that people from all walks of life and faiths are struggling for democracy and human rights.

There remains much to do, of course. Human rights is a life-long struggle; it is painstaking to build civil society. As Eugene Debs, the renowned American labor organizer, said, every struggle for human rights is lost, and lost, and lost, before it succeeds. Indeed, many people have given their lives over the years, and suffered enormously to help make the world a better place for its people.

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights, such as the right to employment, the right to a social and economic safety net, the right to medical care, the right to participate in community’s cultural life, the right to adequate standard of living, and the right to an education. The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

Eleanor Roosevelt put it well in her remarks at the United Nations in 1958:

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Such has been the journey of those of us inspired by John F. Kennedy all those years ago. It has been an incredible blessing to “labor in the vineyard” with so many good and decent people; they have contributed to my own growth as a person. I hope and pray that I have given back to them a portion of what they have given me. That, after all, is what living in the human community is all about:

We make a living from what we get.
We make a life from what we give.
What we have done for ourselves dies with us.
What we have done for others and for the world is immortal.
MaryAnn Evans

Harrington is founder and director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation, promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas, for low-income people. He is author of Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey: The Political Trials and Times of Fethullah Gülen.

Every human is precious with a special quality, and there are quite many of them at specialist schools. It is just a matter of being able to see that potential within every person, and be appreciative of

When I was requested to complete one of my practical teaching experiences at a specialist school,¹ I was worried. At the time, I was enrolled at a university to become a teacher, expecting to teach only at mainstream schools. The fear of unintentionally hurting the feelings of handicapped people in general was a big concern for me.

I prepared myself for the difficult task ahead. I was certain that this experience was going to be quite different to what I had previously encountered in regular schools, but what I experienced from the first day was beyond my imagination. I was surrounded with little children who could not see, hear, talk or walk. Normally, lunch time would mean kids running around and jumping with joy. It wasn’t like that here. Instead, there were a lot of students on wheelchairs, some walking slowly from one part of the room to another, some just sitting quietly, and some crawling on the floor. As I was watching them, I noticed a little boy approach. He crawled next to me and then patted the floor. I interpreted this as him asking me to sit next to him, so I kneeled down and said “Hello.” He reached over and gave the toy he was playing with to me and then crawled away slowly. For a brief moment I held the toy in my hands looking around confused. I did not know what to do.

Mike² was one of the four students in my class. He was visionally impaired. He could not walk either hence had to use a wheelchair. What was so lovely about Mike was his responsiveness; he would respond to everything, even to a question directed at someone else or to a conversation other people were having. Mike was one of the triplets; according to my mentor “he was the unlucky (!) one.”

Sam was another student also with limited vision. Some days he would surprise us by recognizing the person who walked in through the door; however, most of the time, he could not see objects that stood right in front of him, often tripping over them. Walking was also a difficult task for him; his teachers were teaching him how to use a cane. He was a popular boy at school. He would talk to everyone and most importantly, he would never forget them. His parents were considering enrolling him into a different specialist school due to his exceptional memory and fast learning skills.

Shane was the third student who could not speak. He was also using a wheelchair. Teachers were working vigorously to teach him how to use a machine that would assist him with his speech and also how to operate an automatic wheelchair.

Lana was the last student of the class who had difficulties with walking. In order to walk she needed support or had to use a walking stool. She displayed signs of timidity next to strangers, yet her friendliness towards the three boys in her class was remarkable. She would constantly talk to them and attempted to walk towards them. She was very responsive to some of our questions, but not to everything. If you insisted on a response, she would place her head on the table and start to ignore you.

Eating was an issue for both Sam and Shane; they had to be given some kind of a special formula instead of regular food. The formula was made up of a milky substance and it satisfied their hunger. It provided them with all the necessary minerals and vitamins that they could not receive from regular diet. Although teacher-aids would come at certain times to give the students food, it was not to satisfy their hunger; rather, it was to give them the opportunity to experience different tastes.

Everything in this school was new to me, so I was extremely cautious with everything I had to learn. Teachers and staff seemed to be very nice and talkative to the children. Initially I could hardly even talk to the students. If they had a question, I would reply with a smile. With each passing day, I grew confident. Before long, I was like their regular teachers who constantly talked and laughed with them. I began to assist my mentor by moving students around with wheelchairs.

The friendship and the relationship students had with one another were genuine, pure and innocent. They were just like other children; thinking about toys, playing games, and more importantly, cherished the love they received from family and friends. They had wants, needs, fears, likes and dislikes just like you and me. The importance of being able to “see the person, not the disability” meant a lot to me.

At this school each student had a machine called the “Big Mac.” The teacher (my mentor) would record information about students’ day at school and parents were also expected to record issues relevant to home. Every day, these Big Macs would travel to and from home with the children. The teacher and parents would listen to them. Shane had to use a more advanced machine called “FL4SH” to help him with his speech. He had to press a button with his head to indicate what he wanted to say. Every day Shane’s mother recorded news and jokes on this machine. During my entire time there, she recorded a message almost every day. My mentor would describe Shane’s mother as the best parent she had ever seen. It was at this school, I realized the sacrifices both parents were required to give and how much they should all be applauded for it.

Normally, it took students a long time to learn my name. I believe it is due to the difficulty of its pronunciation. However, at this school, the time it took for the students to learn my name was quite shorter than any other schools I went for placements. Mike was the first to pronounce my name… He would repeat my name so many times that it would be impossible for those nearby not to memorize it. I tried desperately to reply to all of his calls, but it was an impossible task.

Sam was a Sesame Street fan like any other child; his favorite toys were a vacuum and a car that had the pictures of Elmo and the Cookie Monster on them. He carried these toys wherever he went. He would hug, kiss and talk to them. One day, he began to say things like, “Rukiye the vacuum is sad” or “the car is crying!” I asked him, “Why Sam?” He replied, “Because, they can’t talk.” I smiled and suggested, “Why don’t you teach them how to talk, Sam?” I encouraged him to continue talking and to tell them “don’t be sad, don’t cry, be happy.” He never forgot this conversation. He began to repeat the words “don’t cry, be happy” to his toys, whenever he was next to me. I just loved the way he taught the vacuum how to talk. He would say “don’t cry vacuum, you can talk now” then he would press the “on”’ button, to which the vacuum would respond by saying words like “Hello.”

Sam’s birthday was another memory I would never forget. It was his ninth birthday. The following day, my mentor asked Sam to talk about his birthday to his classmates. He told everyone that he and his brother were sharing the same party due to having birthdates that were not too far apart. He continued talking about blowing candles and everyone clapping. He concluded by saying “Then I went into my room.” When my mentor asked follow-up questions like, “did you stay in your room after that?” and “didn’t you enjoy the party Sam?” rather than answering the question, Sam continued to describe the cake, candles and the singing of the “happy birthday” song. I was saddened by the story of Sam’s birthday party. I tried to contemplate how it must feel to not be allowed to attend your own birthday celebration. My mentor assumed that it was to prevent Sam from screaming loudly as he always did when he became over excited.

One day, I witnessed Sam’s unique emotional state with my own eyes. He was crying, constantly stomping from one place to another as he violently smashed and threw toys around. Even his favorite toys were amongst the victims. His sickness triggered this lovely boy to go through such a drastic emotional transformation.

On another occasion as we were waiting for the other students to arrive, Lana asked me to bring her a book. She imitated her teacher and pretended to read the book to Sam and me. She repeated the words “you can walk, he said; I can walk, she said” on every page. I wondered why she concentrated on these particular words. Was it because of the difficulty she experienced while walking? Perhaps, in her own way, she was expressing her desire to walk.

Observing these lovely children helped me realize how little we are thankful for what we have. We have so much, yet often we fail to display our gratitude. We often compare ourselves to those who are more fortunate, rather than thinking about those who have much less. If we are disappointed about not having the latest shoes, shouldn’t we remember Shane, Mike or Lana, who could not walk? If we complain about not having the best eye color, shouldn’t Sam or Mike be remembered, who could not see? If we cannot be bothered to talk with our family at dinner, shouldn’t we remember Shane? Because no matter how much he wanted to say a simple sentence like “I love you,” he was not able to.

It was my last day at this specialist school; a place I initially had doubts about attending. I bought each student a toy, and showed them how it lit up when shaken. That day, moments before I left the class, my four students chanted, “Rukiye…Rukiye… Rukiye!” They had made up a song with my name. As I pushed Mike’s wheelchair towards his bus, he was still shaking the toy madly as he shouted with joy, “Rukiye, Rukiye look, I’m lighting it, I’m lighting it!” I wondered if he really saw the lights. I was extremely sad to leave them, but I had completed the requirements of my placement. I can never forget these lovely students. Their smiling faces, especially Mike’s shy giggles and Lana’s loud laughter are still echoing in my ears.

About a month had passed when I went back to the school for a short visit. I was curious as to whether the students would still remember me. It was heart-breaking not seeing Lana and Shane there because they were away that day. Sam and Mike were having their snacks; the usual, cheese balls for Sam and sandwiches for Mike. Mike did not say my name which he repeated so many times before. Instead, he smiled and giggled as I spoke to him. This was enough to cheer me up; it seemed as though he recognized my voice. My mentor asked, “Sam who is this?” To which he responded “Rukiye” with a huge smile. I spoke with Sam for a while and then said a last “goodbye” to both, as their teacher-aid took them outside for recess. During our short conversation, Sam did not forget to update me on the mood of his car: “Rukiye, car is crying… don’t cry car, be happy!” Eventually, the students may forget me. But one thing is for certain, I will never forget them…

Notes

1. In the Australian school system, institutions that provide education to disabled students are known as “Specialist Schools.”
2. Names of students have deliberately been changed for privacy reasons.