My Addiction of Knowledge: September 11, 2013
I
am an addict of knowledge, reading and seeking wisdom of the life. These are
the most painful and also the most beautiful, healthy addictions of my life. I
have been thirsty to learn new things since I knew myself and started to
question the universe. This thirstiness is a lifelong specialty of my soul and
mind. I see the formal education as a bridge to reach a more free condition to
learn and do what I like by getting away from some dependents, but sometimes I
feel hard time to grasp in this educational system especially when I see it as
a trade system and political turning machine. I am an international student in
the U.S. I came here just to continue my educational life which was impossible
thing to do in my home country; Turkey. Studying in Turkish public school with
headscarf has been forbidden by the government and deep states for many years. I
had to work for a while as a domestic worker to collect enough money for my
school tuition. For
this reason, I feel tired and sad for being late, not to learn, but to study my
favorite topics deeper professionally and more freely. This is a modest story
of my educational journey. My educational life is full of sacrifice. This sacrifice is very big and
meaningful for me, because the object and subject of this sacrifice is my life.
I
was raised in a house that has more than 2000 books and no television by my
parent’s conscious decision. Reading was the main point of our lives. I’ve
learned that even my mother had given a book list to my father as a wish of
dowry. Unfortunately, sometimes this motivation was even too extreme for me,
because we were drinking tea with my family members only for reading or
discussing some intellectual, theological topics. My father was playing with my
younger 2 sisters and 2 brothers and I, and pretending himself as a horse and
trying to make us memorize many religious passages from books and when we were
making mistakes he was stopping and neighing to make our education process
enjoyable. This is the earliest teaching method that I remember in my life. In
addition, the second one was a modest race chart. It had some conditions, rules
and goals which ever we suppose to achieve. My parents were giving us points
based on our behaviors and when we reached to 10 points they were giving us a
book as a reward. For instance, some of the conditions from this chart were;
getting rid of a stone or something else from the sidewalk which might bother
people or helping an elderly person’s groceries bags by carrying them or
praying on time, etc. These are the things that made me proud and happy about
my parents and my childhood when I remember. However, my father was a teacher
not only in his school, but at our home, too. Sometimes, this was making him so pushy .
When I was in 4th grade, I was studying with a scholarship and once, for the
first time despite of all As, I got one B plus and my father made me stay awake
whole night as a punishment and forced me to study and summarize all the
chapters and examined me at the end of the night. Because of all these kinds of
discipline experiences, I was crying when I was getting A minus. Thankfully, my
only learning motivation was not my parent that is why I did not lose my
passion about learning. I am still a hard working person who is trying to have
balance between being perfectionist and modesty. Studying in a second language
creates a big pressure on me and tortures my self-esteem, even though I have
been studying more than native speakers and managed to learn many things in
English in such a short time. In addition, it is hard for me to be too
confident in a society that nearly all people have self-confidence obesity. I
had to take a break to collect enough money to continue my educational life and
became a domestic worker and this made my speaking rusty.
I
did not go to kindergarten or preschool, but I was reading before I started the
elementary school. In our culture, nearly all students manage to read in the
first grade and when the child manage to reach this level the instructor put a
red ribbon on his/her collar as a reward and honored the child. The first day
of the school I got the red ribbon and this made me very happy and proud. My
first elementary school was in a village. My first teacher was male, and I had
some kind of female teacher phobia due to being witness of many of their
cruelty. I realized that in many cases, people are more merciful to their
opposite sex. When I was a little child this was my belief based on my
observations and during all my elementary school history, I consistently had
male teachers. My family was agreeing with me and for this reason they chose
all my siblings’ teachers from the opposite genders. I had some good
experiences nowadays that balanced my old belief.
When
I was ten years old, I managed to finish reading all parts of holy Quran in
Arabic and my family organizes a big celebration to congratulate this success.
In Turkish culture, people organize these kinds of party only to facilitate
boys during their circumcision. I am against this feast because it produces and
internalizes masculine mentality. So, this reading party was a nice alternative
for my childhood to create a balance for my character vs. masculine culture. My
family organized a similar feast for my brother when he circumcised. Mine was a
fruit of my effort, his was not. I guess at least in my subconscious, I
realized that reading can give me some opportunities to fill this gender
gap.
After
the 3rd grade, we moved to a city center and I also received some scholarship
for a private teaching institution as an after school program. The new school
was very secular and nationalist which I did not like it. Moreover, all
children who are attending Turkey’s primary schools are expected to read aloud
the “Andımız” (“Our pledge”) every morning when they come to school. When I was
in elementary school, I refused to say pledge which contains nationalist and
dictatorial phrases such as: “I am a Turk; I am honest; I am hard working. Let
my entire being serve as a gift to Turkish existence.” My family was talking
about my country’s dictatoristic behaviors and criticizing it and even
imprisoned because of this, but at the beginning of my educational life no one
from my family told me specifically about the racist part of this pledge.
However, I did not like it and change it to a funny poem and always had some
trouble when my teachers heard. I was aware that my friends were from different
nations and culture and this phrase seemed to me unfair. More than this, also
it was very rigid, forced action and I hate all mandatory things from the
beginning of owning my unique willpower. As a Turk why did I need to sacrifice
all my existence to a nation that I even did not know the meaning of it and
also why we were shouting this pledge every day as a part of the brain wash!
The modern Turkish founder father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has a weird sentence
which is everywhere in public institutions’ walls: “Happy is the one who calls
himself a Turk.” As a reflection of this phrase, I sometimes ironically was
telling people that “I am Turk, but not happy.” They were trying to defense
this sentences by saying that he was not saying happy is the one who is Turk,
but calls himself Turk. It is basically the key stone of the assimilation. In
Turkey, many of Turkish nationalists are from minorities, because they think if
they can be so radical nationalist they can be the part of the dominant nation,
but normally they never can be. I guess, this can be similar with “model
minority” notion. I see these things in my very early ages, but years made the
meaning deeper.
After
the 5th grade, I wanted to practice one of my religious belief; headscarf, but
in my hometown wearing scarf in public school was banned. There was only one
private school which was letting some students wear it secretly. I created a
pressure on my family to apply there and the school accepted me with half
scholarship. This created many financial problems for my parents’ and
psychological problems for me. Spoiled, rich students were always making fun of
my unchanging dress during our picnics etc. and on the other side oppressive
system and scarf ban were making my life harder. Because of these conditions, I
became a refuge of the books’ world. Once, the school principals decided to
collect my private books from my locker to force me to socialize more with
classmates. While they were collecting my books which I was reading only during
my free break times, they took my diary, too, but only left my psychology
books. The only reason of this privilege was a psychologist who was also
involved to this unacceptable action. I was very pissed off and took those
psychology books and throw them to floor in front of the school principals and
told them they forgot to take those! When I remember this action, I am still
surprised that how I could manage to do this as a student with scholarship.
From
6th grade to 9th grade, I continued to study in the private school that I
mentioned shortly before in a hidden class room. Some of my friends and I had
to be locked up if some inspectors were visiting our school. The building was
an additional building inside the main school’s garden and did not have any
restroom, so we always need to get permission to use the restrooms to not risk
the school authority. Another thing, once, I have applied to a poetry
competition and won, but the school authority decided to pick someone from my
classroom who were not wearing a headscarf and brought her to the award
ceremony with me and introduce her with my name and made me clap to congratulate
her. They made someone played my identity in a fake person’s appearance which
can fit and fulfill to the system’s wish. For me, it was very an respectful
mistreatment. This is only a sample of a big picture of what I have been
experiencing for many years just to reach an upper education.
Hopefully,
one they all of these experiences can feed my intellectual world and be useful
skills for my Sociology major. I desire that all these steps help me to create
some meaningful achievements that can make my existence useful for this world.
All the paths of the education that I have been trying to pass are just because
of this. Based on my experience, I can say that after several years of private
school experiences, I believe that public schools are better than private
schools despite of all their disadvantaged conditions to able to gain an
intellectual and realistic world.
Moreover,
I believe that if I add the population of my classes to this autobiography,
during my elementary school, from the first to fifth grade it was about 35 and
during my junior high school which was private, it was 25 and same in the high
school. I did not remember any race discussion during my school life (except
national pledge) which might be a problematic and also a good thing, too. It is
a problematic from one side, because there are always some people from
different regions of the country and cultures I guess, but we did not have any
awareness of those richness. It is also a good thing, because I think we did
not have a highlighted racist dialog, either. In addition, for instance, when I
was around 14, my father gave me Alex Haley’s Malcolm X book as a gift. He was
giving this book to his students as an award. I have never felt Black people or
different nations as others. On my hometown’s street walls, young people were
making graffiti of Malcolm X as a role model of disobedience against domestic
oppressors. Based on racist perspective we were white, he was black, but our
discomforts about oppressor system were very close. He was very brave thinker
and good speechmaker. I have never questioned his and his same destiny friends
based on their race or color and I am very happy to have this quality about
this issue. I am not proud about it, because I think it must be the basic
humanistic way. However, in my class, I remember my instructors were crueler to
more poor and orphans and kinder to physically more catchy or rich children.
Most of the poor children were coming from Eastern part of the Turkey who was
minorities. After I learned that they came to the big cities because the
government burned 3500 villages of minorities at that time. I had always warm
feelings for gypsies of my town and cross breed people when I realized them
from their external appearance. They have
been experiencing not the same but similar institutional discrimination with
African Americans in the U.S.
When
I was 14, I took my parent’s permission and left my hometown and moved to a
different metropolitan city called Istanbul to continue my educational life
without scarf ban at high school. At that time, my hometown was a pilot city to
practice this scarf ban in public schools. A year later, scarf ban had started
to be practiced in my high school, too.
As a result of this limitation of our freedom, we were organizing
protests and arrested and physically and psychologically tortured. After a
while, my hundreds of friends and I was kicked out from our school or were
ironically plowed while they were not letting us to enter our schools. We had
to transfer our record to open high schools. I started to study at a Theology
Boarding school and continued for two years which was totally against my free
character. They were seeking to raise good followers and obedient teachers for
their world widely schools, but I was questioning everything. This school was
not included my goal, but I did not have a lot of options to make my time
useful after kicked out from the high school. I was longing to stay in
Istanbul, but my family was letting me to stay only if I was going to this
school. I used this boarding school as a tool to stay in Istanbul and to go
different Philosophy and Art courses at weekends. In Turkey the barrier for a higher education was
politic and here is financial. I still could not exceed these barriers, but one
day when I manage to graduate, I will use my experiences of these sacrifices to
help other people especially students. My educational autobiography will be
completed when the death finds me. This is a story of a meaningful sacrifice,
because the object and subject of this sacrifice is my life. I hope one day I
will share these memories with a bigger smile on my face.
Meryem Rabia Taşbilek
