Adam did it

Adam was among those students whom the system too easily overlooks. At the intermediate level, he struggled across languages: Arabic, English, and even his native Kurdish. While our curriculum is built upon Kurdish texts, reading remained a barrier he could not cross. Quiet, withdrawn, and burdened by deep-seated shyness and fear, he never raised his hand, never participated, and never spoke. When I asked our teachers to identify the student most in need of intervention, the answer was unanimous: Adam. He was the one who never read, never volunteered, and never believed he could.

I gave him a task that must have felt impossible: to prepare a passage—a poem, a story, a paragraph—and read it aloud in the school courtyard on the coming Thursday, during our flag-raising ceremony, before the entire student body, staff, and headmaster. His reaction was exactly what I expected. “I cannot do this,” he said. “I will die there. I cannot breathe.” He offered every excuse he could find. But I did not yield. “You can do it,” I told him firmly. “And you will. Prepare yourself well, because all eyes will be on you.”

For three days, Adam carried that weight home. He struggled. He could not simply memorize the words; he had to learn them. Family members read to him, and he repeated them until the shapes of letters began to hold meaning, until words connected, until sentences formed in his mind.

On that Thursday, as the flag of Kurdistan rose and the headmaster finished his address, I stepped forward. “We have a student who will read before us today,” I announced. Behind me, I heard murmurs of doubt. “An old-fashioned method,” some said. “What is the point? These children cannot perform like this.” But I did not waver. To me, criticism was not an obstacle—it was fuel. “Let mountains stand in my way,” I told myself. “I will climb them, if it means my students may rise.” For in every school where I have taught, I have been known for one truth above all: I respect my students, and I love them. That love is the foundation of every risk I take for them.

Adam stepped into the center of the yard. He read. His voice was low at times. He stumbled over words. Perhaps half the school did not hear every line. But none of that mattered. Adam stood. And Adam read.

Weeks later, I sought out Miss Runak—one of the finest educators I have ever known—to ask how Adam was faring. She looked at me, eyes wide with wonder, and said:

“Goodness—Adam cannot keep his hand down. Every question, every minute, his hand is in the air. 'Miss, pick me! I will read it! I will say it! I will write it on the board!' What has happened to him?”

I asked Adam the same question. “What changed?”

And he answered simply: “My eyes are open now. I can read. I can link words together. I can arrange sentences. When you gave me that passage, I could not read it. So people at home read it for me, and I repeated it. I learned to find the strong words, to build the sentences, to stand without fear of making mistakes. I did it. And because I did it once, I know I can do it always.”

Adam passed that year. He advanced to high school. Four years have passed since that day in the courtyard, and still I say it with pride whenever his name comes to mind: Adam did it.

Thank you, Adam—for proving what lies within when someone believes enough to ask. Thank you, Miss Runak—for seeing the transformation and nurturing it. And thank you to all those who said it could not be done. Your doubt became my motivation, and in the end, the only opinion that truly mattered was Adam's—when he stood up, found his voice, and changed his own story forever.