High School in Kurdistan

What were your experiences of high school? Maybe, like me, your experiences of high school are from both sides - as student and teacher... and maybe neither experience was particularly brilliant. Although I rather enjoyed teaching high school in Japan and Korea, it's hard to imagine teaching high school here.

Like NE Asia, the learning is teacher-centered and students memorize everything from their textbooks (which are left over from the 70s - This is NOT an exaggeration). There is no library, there are no supplemetary materials, no photocopiers for teachers, no... Well, I think you get the point. The building itself it old, run down, decorated with graffitti, the halls and calssrooms lined with trash. But on a more positive note, the classrooms were unexpectedly energetic! Every time the teacher asked (or didn't ask) a question, the students hands all shot up and they squirmed in their seats anxious for a nod from the teacher - an invitation to stand up and speak. Soemtimes if the answer was incorrect, the teacher would nod at another student and they would start speaking overtop of the first one. All in all, it was quite intersting to watch. I viewed two lessons; English and Arabic before a bell rang signalling the end of school - or at least the first school. All the girls (schools are segregated) packed up and filed out of the school and the school's office was closed and locked. Then the office across the hall was opened and the boys filed in. The out-of-focus picture below is from the girl's school.

The school was in Sallahadin. The picture below this are all of the area:

Khanzad...

Sallahadin...

My host K and I.