The Dreams of Children in Iran: In search of Happiness

It is around ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun is pretty scorching on the pavement of Behesht-e Zahrah Avenue. Beside the avenue, the children flower peddlers have laid their wares. A young man and woman emerge from a car carrying a tray and a carton, giving out dolls and pieces of bread, cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes; the sandwiches taste cold to the sun-browned children, and several of them take a second one. Having extracted a Barbie doll with white hair from the box and put it under her arm, one of the girls asks the young man for permission to get another doll for her sister and plunges her small arm up to her elbow into the box. She pulls out a boy cloudbaby, then merrily runs towards one of the flower displays on the ground. 

In the center of the city of Tehran, several paintings on the wall of a private kindergarten meet the eye: kites with colorful ribbons, a spaceship with sparks beneath it showing it blasting off, bees flying with smiles on their faces, and a butterfly that has opened its wings and soared high in the air. Half-pint and full-size children between two to five years old are busy playing in front of the painted wall. A small boy they called Milan with his arms outspread forming an airplane is making the sound of whooshing through the air, a little girl with pigtails is hugging a tiny girl with a ponytail crying for her mother. At the foot of Mount Tochal, several four- or five-year-old boys with small colorful briefcases, one of which has a picture of Spider-Man, enter the yard of the educational complex in north Zafaraniyeh with their coach trailing behind them. They have just come from the pool of the complex as evidenced by their flushed faces. 108 million tomans is the yearly tuition for the pre-school and kindergarten of this complex.The ceiling for children’s hopes and dreams slopes upward from south to north like the gradient of the capital and other cities in other regions, from the outskirts of the cities and deprived and rural areas until it can reach a peak in small and large cities. The secret to fulfilling dreams these days is linked to deciles of economic and social status and the aspirations nurtured in the minds of children and adolescents, and, with certain exceptions, this is directly related to the family wealth and facilities for life, and the school. One can see this in the results on the Concorde National Test of Education.

According to official figures of the Assessment Organization, among the forty top scores on the 2022 Concorde, only one person studied in a state high school, 29 studied in schools for gifted students, and nine were also in private schools. Likewise, around 80 percent of those ranking below 3,000 on the exam were students who grew up in the top three deciles of society. But contrary to these statistics, the greatest percentage of students who dropped out of school in the past decade were in the lowest five deciles of society. According to the report of the Parliament Research Center, in the school year 2021-22, more than 279,000 students left school and more than 911,000 Iranian children six to seventeen were left behind; among the students left behind, around seventy percent were the children from the first to the fifth deciles of society. Ms Safapour is a ninth-grade literature teacher in the Robat Karim district and in schools in area surrounding Tehran. She has been teaching for four years in this region and in the previous year has had 200 pupils. Safapour says, “Among the pupils I teach, every year a large number leave school due to financial and family problems. During the COVID Years, the school dropout level also increased. Most of these students go to work; in just one of my classes last year, out of 38 students 20 were working as laborers, many of them with very little income, which they had to give to their families. They are employed without insurance in textile factories or beauty salons. I recall that one of the children was a cleaner in a supermarket, and another gave injections.”

She says many of these pupils are talented, but as students they were very weak because they didn’t have the opportunity to study and worked for several hours after school. She goes on to say, “The children are interested in studying but don’t have the opportunity, and the cost of education for them is burdensome. They ask, for example, ‘If, according to the law, education is free, why must we pay for books?’ They are well informed kids and usually participate in class discussions; many of them say, ‘We don’t have the right to exist under these circumstances.’ They participated in the protests last year and explain, ‘Miss, we go to get our rights and say what we have to say.’ My pupils compare themselves with other children in places like Elahieh and Fereshteh and ask, ‘Why do we have to be miserable?’”

What are their dreams? This is perhaps the most crucial question that one can ask these children. The teacher says, “I teach the ninth grade, and since after this grade, pupils must choose an educational track, I always ask them which track and vocation would they prefer. I’ve found out that the only important thing for them is earning money and that they have absolutely no thought of university. Most of these pupils have no hope for the future and no motivation, nor do they have their eyes on any particular vocation. For example, last year I believe out of five classes with 40 students each, less than ten pupils wanted to go to college and only one person expressed a desire to become a teacher. When I asked why the pupil chose teaching, the pupil said, ‘Miss, I saw on the internet the college furthest from Tehran is the one in Bandar Abbas, and acceptance to the college of education there is easier than acceptance to other majors. The college also has a dormitory, and I can earn money as well; for those reasons I’ll choose to go to the Bandar Abbas Teacher’s College and escape from the vile conditions at home.’ You know the economic situation of most pupils in peripheral regions is very bad, and their families are beset by social problems like unemployment, domestic violence, addiction, etc., and they themselves smoke tobacco and marijuana.” Most pupils search for a way out of the evils of poverty and when the subject of the future comes up, most of them choose cosmetology, dressmaking, working in a confectionery, retail sales and the like.”

Private and Non-Specialized Schools

According to the latest national census published by the Center for Statistics of Iran in 2021, 19.9 million people (10.2 million boys and 9.7 million girls) in a population of more than 84 million in the country are under 15 years old (more than 23 percent). And more than 5.5 million people in the population are 15 to 19 years old. In addition to this, according to official statistics, 15.8 million students today on the first day of this school year (2023), among them more than 2.4 million will enroll in school in the capital and about 13.4 million girls and boys will enroll in school in the other provinces. Also, the rural and tribal school population in the past year was 3.5 million persons.

On another front, according to the Center for Statistics, 85 percent of all schools in the country are state schools and about 15 percent are private, in which in the previous year there were 2.05 million pupils. Also, in terms of numbers, most of the private schools are located in Tehran. In the other provinces, private schools which are directly linked to metropolises and to those that are privileged and those that are underprivileged [?]. For example, the number of private schools in Mashhad, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Shiraz are more than Zahedan, Sanandaj, Yasuj and…. In previous years, the number of private schools has grown in the country; statistics indicate the number rose from 16,700 in 2019 to 18,670 in 2022 which shows the establishment of 1,970 new schools. Again, according to official statistics from the Organization of Private Schools, last year actual people [?] administered 2,206 private schools and actual people administered 16,554 other schools, which indicates that the license to start up and administer these schools is the Ministry of Education’s precious gift to people.

Socioeconomic experts believe that education is one of the last rays of hope for children and adolescents from the lower classes to realize their dreams, to pull themselves up, and raise their social status. And, in a time when educational inequality is reaching a peak, the dreams of these children are, by the same measure, declining. Mohammad Malju, the economist, believes that we are witnessing the emergence of the “education marketplace.” In his words, when education becomes commercialized, the lower classes of society’s only hope of changing their social status and realizing their dreams by means of education and literacy fades away.

Several years ago, Mohammad Ali Movahed, a distinguished researcher of our country, who himself has founded a school in Tabriz, at a ceremony honoring him said, “Our educational system from top to bottom, from the elementary level to the top tier of higher education, has fatal problems.” When his grandson took the Concorde and saw the questions, he asked in dismay, “Why are such questions asked in the official system of the country?”

The Wishtree

The director of a private library established in Fardis in Karaj County upon reading pages from the book Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, said, “You also can call me ‘Red,’ but neighborhood people often call me Wishtree! The reason goes back to the distant past to the time when I was tiny little seed full of hope and desire. Now people from everywhere in the city come to decorate me with bits of paper, cloth, yarn, and even athletic socks. Each one of these gifts signifies of a dream—a dream, a yearning. It also makes no difference whether they make simple knots or butterfly ones or toss them among my branches, all of them are hopes, hopes of something better…”

Ms Khumari, a teacher in the first year of elementary school in the Sarasib Malard District, asked her students to put their wishes down on paper and give them to her so she can affix them to the Wishtree. In recounting the last recitation session of this book conducted at the end of the school year, she said, “Before the end of the school year, I brought my pupils to the school library, and after reading the book, I asked them to write their wishes down and give them to me so I could attach them to the Wishtree I had made out of cardboard. The wishes and desires of the kids were astonishing and strange to me. All the girls had written they wanted to become manicurists or tailors and clothing designers, and only a couple of the pupils wanted to become teachers. Previously, the diversity in their dreams was quite great, and many wrote they wanted to become doctors, engineers, and surgeons, but this year I saw that the ceiling of their hopes was very low. For some days, this matter preoccupied my mind, and I thought it was as if even these children believed the reality of life’s circumstances and knew it would be difficult for them—living in an underprivileged district—to fulfill dreams and aspirations, and at this point they acceded to those circumstances. They have no dreams and only want to earn money, and the material aspect of the dream has acquired great importance compared to the childish fantasy. Referring to a book reading session she had conducted the previous week for a number of pupils, she said, “We were reading the book The Lion Who Shot Back, the protagonist of which is Lafcadio who becomes wealthy. I asked the pupils, children from seven to ten years old, if they become rich, what would they do with their money? Out of thirteen people all of them except for a couple said they would leave Iran. This was very painful to me.”

When asked about what hopes the parents of these kids ordinarily had for their children’s future, she said, “The families of the children in this district are so consumed by making a living that they had no dreams except to raise their children. If a child were to see the father once or twice a week it would be very good. Some of the fathers of these children are in prison for drug addiction or other infractions or work from morning till night and have absolutely no time for the child, all were focused on filling the stomachs of the family. But we have here families in which the father is not addicted or is not a criminal but has abandoned the family and gone. Actually, not having the ability to provide for the family, he fled, leaving the mother alone to shoulder the heavy burden of living.”

But in contrast to what this teacher in a public school on the outskirts of the capital says, the teacher in a private boy's school in the north of Tehran says, “Many of the students spend the three summer months outside of Iran. For example, one of them was enrolled at the Manchester Football Academy in England, and subsequently several other boys attended classes at the Academy.” He says, the relationship of a number of the teachers to some of the parents is like the relationship between a boss and a worker, “Most of the parents are constantly making demands of us and since they have paid a lot of money for the school and the extracurricular classes, they think the teachers should work miracles. From the very start of elementary school, they plan for their children’s future and their eventual enrollment at universities abroad. Many of the parents absolutely reject the system of education in Iran, and don’t consider the country’s universities, even the Sharif University of Technology, to be adequate. Once in a math class I told students about the life of Maryam Mirzakhani and said she had studied at the Farzanegan High School and Sharif University; then one of the students got up and said, ‘Miss, if Maryam Mirzakhani had not left Iran, she wouldn’t have become a professor and not gotten the [Fields Medal] prize. If she had stayed here, she would have passed away from cancer several years earlier.’” About the dreams of students in the private system, he says, “Most of the future occupations chosen by the pupils depend on the fathers’ jobs and situations. For example, they want to become general managers or factory owners or start gold dealerships or ironmonger businesses. Some also are interested in engineering and programming and working at Google and NASA.”

From an Island Full of Fish and Animal Keeper to Becoming a Writer 

Childhood dreams and aspirations are typically spruced up with a new coat of paint and their words are expressed fancifully in the first-person singular. Barani, a six year old whose father has a master’s in architecture and whose mother studied software at college, aspires to having a dog and dreams of going to an island, “My dream is to go to an island with waters full of fish, to go and kick my feet in the water, to jump into the water, for it to be crowded, have a boat, have a bridge, have a park.” When the mother asks if he knows the meaning of the dream and aspiration, he says, ‘No’ and laughs.”

A young girl says she want to become an astronaut and go to Mars or the moon, because she is beautiful and has a spaceship. Karen, five years old, also wants when she’s older to be “in the middle,” and when you ask the meaning of “in the middle,” she says, “In the middle of jobs. For example, I want to be an important engineer and do important work and have everybody cheering for me. See, I, you know, I want occupations that I like, jobs that stir up a lot of energy: like football, basketball, rock, football [sic].” And when her mother says to her, “What about music?” She says, “No, I want to be a zookeeper, then when people want to come to the zoo, we’ll say there’s no need for a ticket, no need also for money.” Eight-year-old Termeh’s defines her desire as something she would love to obtain, “My wish is to go to Australia because there they have koalas and really love koalas.” But as the children get older and become young adults, their ambitions fade and their dreams become more realistic, and at times they even try to think like their elders. Like fifteen-year-old Sara who recently read the book The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry and would like him wants to domesticate people. She wishes to travel to other planets, but this is impossible: “Even in Iran it’s impossible for boys to become astronauts—for girls there’s no chance whatsoever.” A resident of an outlying district of Tehran and a student at a state school, she says, “The dream is a goal, but it also has an element of fantasy. I want to become a writer and write a heap of crime fiction books. To date I’ve read three books: Almond, The Little Prince, and The Night Gardener. I think I can become a writer. It doesn’t require a lot of resources to become a writer, just the power to think and a pen and paper.” But right now, she’s realistic and knows writing doesn’t offer much money: “But writing won’t be my main job since it doesn’t bring in much money; I want to go to university and study programming because there’s money in that and money is more important thing for me.”

Unlike Sara, who will pursue her dreams in college, Abu Bakr wishes to score a goal in his life. He lives in a marginal village in Sistan and Baluchestan Province and has two sisters. Abu Bakr defines a dream this way: “A dream is something I see when I’m sleeping or something I wish for. For example, playing football like Messi or Ronaldo. But I know that’s impossible.” He goes on, “My goal is to become a football player. I’ve watched all the World Cup matches and love the German national team, and I really like Bayern Munich and Lewandowski because he played for Bayern Munich.” What dream does he have? “I have no dreams except to becoming a footballer. I think one hundred percent I can become a football player, and I try for myself, struggle for myself to reach my goal. My father also promised to register me next summer for the Chabahar Football Academy.” Abu Bakr says, “Many of the kids in our village want to be farmers or teachers. My close friend Yousef said he didn’t like football and wants to be a pilot.” He also speaks about what his sisters wish: “They go to school and work at home. Until now no girl in our village has become an office worker and in other villages, girls at most become teachers.” Abu Bakr’s main worry for the future is that he becomes injured or ill and no longer can play football. Don’t the droughts and dust storms of Sistan and Baluchestan Province worry him? Unfazed, he says, “No, we’re used to this kind of life.”

Unlike Abu Bakr who insists on becoming a football player, Raha, a student in a school for gifted children living on Ferdowsi Avenue in west Tehran, says that a person’s dreams change constantly, “Dreams are all about change, but, well, I most want people’s vibes to be up. All joyous, even trees, flowers and seas. But if by dream is meant what I want to do and what job I take…well…. Our chemistry teacher tells us we should become doctors. But I would like first to study law and help everybody, but it makes no difference now. Perhaps I’ll actually leave Iran; the conditions are better abroad and there people understand more. But for the time being, I’ll try not to think about that, since it will spoil my concentration. For some time also I haven’t been on Instagram.”

Hajer, an eight-year-old girl, residing in Sayyed Bar in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, wants to “become a police officer,” an occupation she read about in school and has fallen in love with: “Because becoming a police officer is exciting, and you arrest thieves with a gun.” She says her parents are against this occupation and have told her to become a teacher. When you ask whether or not she thinks that in Iran a woman can become a police officer, she says firmly, “Yes, why not.” Hajer’s main pastime is to play football with five other village girls, and they have formed their own team. She also does needlework and with a laugh says that her work is very beautiful, and that people buy it. When her preoccupations and anxieties come up, she says, “Let me think a little (she’s silent for several seconds). Father and mother don’t let me go places alone and confine me; I wish they’d give me permission.”

Sated Happiness

A young girl describes the facilities of the school with flare: from rock climbing to an art house, classes in German and French and workshops in psychology like self-care and managing stress. She says from the very beginning of first grade students' could choose based on their interests to become members of the theatre society or the environment association. While this is happening, one of the school staff members passes the room with a wheelbarrow filled with slices of watermelon slices going gaily towards one of the school’s extracurricular classes. The young girl, who works in the public relations department of this educational complex near Daneshjoo Boulevard in Tehran’s Velejak district, says to a mother who has come to enroll her daughter in first grade, “The pre-school children of the school are with us and we are not admitting any in first grade unless a student drops out leaving an opening that will quickly be filled. Pre-registration for the fall begins in the winter of the previous year, and you’ve come when there is absolutely no room.” On the cost of the school, she also says, “For the elementary level, under 50 million tomans.” Then she goes on, “Our tuition is not that expensive, but the fees for classes in physical education, language, the pool, music and all other extracurricular activities and lunch are separate, and, depending on your and your children’s interest, you can register them for these classes.” A plaque honoring those who have taken the Concorde during the period 2011-2021 is fixed to the wall: “twenty first place finishes, 26 second place, and four hundred and forty-four third place.”

This educational complex is on the whole very extensive with seven entrances that ultimately connect to one another. Here there are three large wooden door entrances on the alley above the school for elementary students, first and second year middle schoolers.There is a green steel entry door on the alley beside the school especially for pre-schoolers and, on the southern corner (the lower alley), is the door of the kindergarten, the café, and the art house. Those in charge of this complex think that the future of a student will be assured if he or she studies under its aegis, and this point is proclaimed proudly in a slogan on the wall: “The future belongs to children of yours, if they are nurtured in the shadow of knowledge.” Inspecting the various parts of this school is like going on a multi-hour tour; the most interesting parts are perhaps the café and art center, architecturally very different from the the other parts and resemble the Museum of Modern Art in Tehran with spaces constructed using cement. While you drink a latte in the café and munch on a cheese croissant and walnuts and peruse the various sandwiches on the menu, you see small children holding hands with their mothers with small bundles, passing through the bookstore corridor to attend the music class. The sound of an organ and of other musical instruments comes to the tune of the song “hello, hello sparrow, hello pigeon, hello beautiful sun, hello mother…”

Minutes from this school is another with facilities famed throughout the country. The complex’s charges 108 million tomans for the preschool and kindergarten and is located in the most northern reaches of Tehran and is built like a fortress. This school, a complex comprising 15 thousand square meters, is an educational infrastructure built on the slope of the mountain. To reach the kindergarten you must cross the school’s entry ramp and pass by the schoolyard and middle school buildings. About the conditions and facilities at the school the principal of the kindergarten and preschool says, “Registration is handled through the website, and, before final admission of your daughter a test and an interview are conducted; the child plays at various stations and, during play, her aptitude is measured, and she is asked some questions. And if she is accepted, the final admission is carried out.” The young woman asks whether it’s possible her daughter Hanna won’t be admitted. The principal answers firmly, “Yes, now out of 50 to 60 applicants they registered for the kindergarten, only six reached the final registration stage.” Hanna’s mother also asks about conditions in the kindergarten, the facilities, and costs. The principal says, “We operate under the Ministry of Education, and the operational hours of the kindergarten and preschool are respectively from eight am till three pm and 8:30 am to 3:30 pm. We provide uniforms and sports clothing for the children as well as lunch. We have a variety of classes: English language, Persian language, Quran, ballet for girls, theatre, swimming, and music. The tuition is 108 million tomans (13.5 times the monthly salary of a worker in Iran), which can be paid in four installments.” Then he laughs and says, “Till we see later on how much a kilo of rice costs.”

Sahar, the young woman who has been working in the public relations department and on the school website for three months, speaking about the school’s general atmosphere, says, “The founder of the school is a very devout woman and tries to maintain it this way and administer it strictly. But many of the students, especially the first and second grade middle schoolers, do not submit to these restrictions; they often bring their mobile phones and tablets to school and even order out for pizza during afternoon recess.” She says, “It was important for the families of these children to fill their school résumés with many certificates at the beginning of their education. For example, I remember once the school brought students to Urdu and Italian language classes. But on their return, it appeared there was an error in the name of one of the children on the certificate. The child’s mother came and said the Italian institute must be contacted to correct the name, because if, in future years, she wanted to get the child into Harvard or Oxford, there would be a problem.”

Among the special facilities at this school were the very large amphitheater, the laboratory, the center for psychological services, the private campgrounds with 20 thousand square meters of land, and, of course, the school’s medical clinic. The school had a doctor on call for day students, while many villages in the country with tens of households had no health center or resident doctor. 

Competition is Irrelevant

A little north of the Taleghani intersection, on one of the alleys near the Sahra Cinema, is a relatively old house with a yard that has been converted into a gallery for the sale of handicrafts and weavings made by village women of Iran. Mina Kamran, the director of the gallery, is a social activist and with her husband and her friends has carried out in past years extensive activities in the fields of empowering rural people and constructing schools, and for this reason she has come into close contact with many village children in various provinces like North and South Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Khuzestan, etc. She believes children in underprivileged regions, except for rare instances, in general don’t have the possibility to fulfill their dreams and aspirations: “When your basic needs are not met and your time is devoted to getting on with life, you can’t have high-flying thoughts. In underprivileged regions, families mostly think about what they will eat, what they will wear the next day. I think dreams and aspirations come into being based on education, and learning plays a big role; whether you should bring up children to have high aspirations and how much opportunity you should give them to think boldly about the future requires education, unfortunately in our official educational situation this doesn’t happen. At the same time, since families in rural areas are very weak and have to take care of their basic needs, they absolutely give no thought to what will happen five or ten years in the future.”

She says, “In villages where there are social services and people have gotten together, education has been offered and where there are good schools and teachers, the situation is very different allowing children to set their sights higher. For example, living in one of the villages in Sistan and Baluchestan, a girl named Hajer wants to become a singer and has been doggedly pursuing this dream for several years. Given that in Iran women are generally not allowed to sing, now, however, in Sistan and Baluchestan where the educational situation is even more problematic, a girl wants to be a singer.” In response to the question about the extent to which realizing the dreams of children in those regions is feasible, she says, “How much equality exists nationally in education and society? From the point of view of educational facilities do we find parity between underprivileged regions and large cities and private schools? Actually, how can a student from a rural area compete with private school students in large cities? Most of the dreams and aspirations of most of the village children, especially the girls, who face family limitations, are absolutely unachievable.” Recalling the story of two guests of the same age that shows the different lives of the two children, she says, “This year a Baluch child came to stay with us in Tehran for treatment of a skin disease. My cousin, who was studying in a school for the gifted in Amol, was also staying with us. These two girls were the same age and when they spoke you would become aware of the difference in their educations. When my cousin talked about a class discussion, she showed complete fluency, but when the village girl spoke, she’d say “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” The educational of the the girl living in a remote village near the border, whose teacher teaches three classes in succession, is not comparable to that of my cousin whose workbook is divided into three section to facilitate learning and is taught by three separate teachers. To escape the living conditions, the village girl dreams of marrying a worker from a surrounding town and setting up home on the margins of the town. My cousin, however, feels Amol is too small for her, and she should come to Tehran to study, then emigrate from there to another country to specialize. At most the dreams of the village girl are confined to going to a town or becoming a teacher.”

Kamran says that many girls from rural or tribal areas are forced to drop out of school because of the absence of middle schools in the areas where they live. “In rural areas household chores are the girls’ responsibility, and families given their cultural and vocational situations don’t allow their daughters to go to cities for education after middle school. I know a gifted girl who lives in a tribal area that requires driving four hours on a dusty road to reach. This girl was able to meet the requirements for enrollment in a school for the gifted in Masjed Sulemam, but her family won’t allow her to enter because her mother is ill, and, although no more than ten or eleven years old, she has to work for or five hours a day to accomplish the hard housework: gathering fire wood, fetching water from the spring, and cooking the food. I know another girl without a brother who has become a shepherd.” On Larestan Avenue in Tehran, there is a small bookstore with shelves full of books. In past years its doors were open to people intended to donate books to deprived or, or in their words “underdeveloped” villages and areas. Now that place is a great bridge that conveys rows and rows of books to children and residents of various villages of Iran and, as well, sets up libraries in those areas. This bookstore sends more than a thousand volumes to the villages of Iran. Shervin Naderi, who fancies himself a storyteller and promoter of books, is one of the people who, with the help of the booksellers of Larestan and other friends, collects and sends books to children in villages. With charitable help he has started a number of libraries in villages in several provinces as well. Naderi travels to villages in the country in underprivileged regions to tell stories and to make readers out of the children. On the effects of stories and education on the minds of rural children, Naderi says, “I choose stories that show children there are other ways to live. I both engage children in telling stories and reading aloud; for example, I use a book called Stories from Children around the World that tells the success stories of village children in various countries. I believe that stories can make children’s minds more creative and teach them the right way of life. I think that education and encouraging these children to raise their sights can have the greatest effect on their futures. For example, I know two young boys from the village of Kohnanikash one of whom now is studying medicine, and the other is a master’s degree student in the University of Tehran. When I ask them how they succeeded, they tell me about a teacher, himself a villager, who taught them and instilled the dream of being admitted to college. The say that to go to school outside of the village, they sometimes had to wade up to their waists in the Sar Baz River. The village sits like an island in the midst of the Sar Baz and there is no bridge, making it very difficult for the villagers to come and go. But these two village boys were able to study at the best universities. Although this is an exception, I feel it’s the miracle of education and raising sights.”

The Dolly and the Pyjama Party

The children at the private kindergarten in Yousefabad in Tehran in addressing their teachers use the suffix jan (“dear”). One of the teachers holds up a large monkey drawn on cardboard with hands held high, and another begins the math class in English. The teacher says in English, “Five,” then Ryan, a boy with frizzy hair stands beside the monkey and, choosing among numbers one through ten, holds up the number five and attaches it to one of the monkey’s hands. Then the teacher says the number one in English, and Ryan stands on tiptoe to reach for the number, which is on the wall, and puts it on the monkey’s other hand. Finally, the teacher asks him in English what the sum of the two numbers is, and Ryan says six in English and puts on the monkey’s belly. The teacher and all the kindergarteners applaud him, and Ryan goes dancing back to his small gold seat.

Zahra, a kindergarten teacher, who has studied teacher education, explains that this kindergarten uses the Montessori method, meaning everything is taught as a game to the children. She says, “Unfortunately, we live in a coarse society, and we try to focus most on the emotional health of the children so that their intellectual creativity will open like a parachute. For it’s important that girls and boys at various ages grow up together, develop and learn to work in groups.” 

When asked how much the children fight with each other, she says, “It’s natural for the children to fight occasionally, but what is important is that we teach them to converse and if they behave incorrectly for us to correct their behavior with instruction and games. For example, one of the children would sometimes talk trash, and we worked with him in a way that allows him to give up the habit.” On her worst memories of working in the kindergarten, she says, “at times there are families that forget to pick up their children which is very painful for us.” On the wall of the kindergarten is a large painting by Frida Kahlo, the famous Mexican painter. When asked about the significance of the painting, the teacher says, “We speak to the children about the great artists of the world, and this has a positive effect. For sample, once after we spoke about Salvador Dali to them, we brought them to the museum in the Niavaran Palace and asked them to find a painting by Dali. A worker at the museum was amazed and asked, “Do they actually know Dali?” When he saw that these children recognized a work by Dali he was shocked. The teacher says we have a practice in place to decrease the anxiety children feel being away from their families. They quickly set up a “pajama party” and all the children spent the night in the kindergarten.

Indicators of Child Mortality

Apart from societal discrimination, differences among classes, and educational inequality, which in previous years greatly effected the realization or lack of realization of children’s dreams in Iran and will continue to do so in the future, what can challenge the future of the children in Iran aside from social status are matter indicted by data. Such matters suggested by the data are the lack of water, draught, the environment, the drastic increase in air pollution, the spread of poverty and its impact in the last decade and in the future, the steep decline in economic growth and domestic raw production, the increase in unemployment, especially among educated people, chronic inflation in the Iranian economy, the embargo’s, the decrease in social expectations, etc.

In fact, today’s children and adolescents in Iran face huge impediments in realizing their dreams and aspirations in their mother country. Current conditions in the country are like a broken-down machine, but no one is prepared to replace its worn-out parts and provide the funds, or else it will rapidly break down or fall victim to serious damage.

Several socioeconomic statistics and indicators can serve to give a full picture of what children and adolescents will face in the future. According to official figures, the age when people expect to own a home has reached 90 years old. Moreover, investment in the Iranian economy in the 90s has hit minus 96 percent, and if in the next six years running, the country’s economic growth doesn’t reach eight percent (which from an economic point of view is nearly impossible) the state of the economy will return to what it was in 2012, that is, 12 years ago. 

In addition to these numbers, the value of the country’s currency, an indicator of the economy of economy of a nation, has fallen in the past years. It is only enough for us to consider 15 years ago when the first 100,000 toman note was printed, every one was worth more than $100, because, at that time, the price of the dollar on the free market was 970 tomans, but today the 100,000 toman note, still the largest in the country, is worth less than $2. Aside from economic statistics, a look at social indicators also reveals the problematic conditions in the country. For example, according to numbers from the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, more than 26 million Iranians (two out of every four) are in unauthorized housing and are located on the outskirts of cities. The poverty level in the country has reached 18 million tomans (more than twice the minimum monthly income of laborers) and 35 percent of Iranians are poor. Moreover, 25 percent of Iranian families are single parent household, and the country ranks highest in the number of aged individuals. Twenty to 25 percent of Iranian children suffer from psychological disorders and depression. In addition to this, 15 percent of Iranian children in the country are child laborers according to the Parliamentary Research Center. Children, portions of whom are Afghan or Pakistani immigrants, live under very harsh conditions. Several years ago, a picture of a nine-year-old Afghan child selling horoscopes and fortune teller notes circulated. He said he did not want to return to Afghanistan because of the war there. He said that in the future he hopes to collect garbage and sell it, and when the cameraman asked him to speak about what would be a large aspiration for him, he asked, “What should I do? What is aspiration?”

What Will Happen if Lake Urumia Dries Up?

But the most serious crisis facing children and adolescents in the future must be the lack of water, the increase in droughts and, in general, it must be known, the major challenges to the environment. The per capita renewable water supply for every Iranian, 2,000 cubic meters, has been halved during the past 40 years to 1,000 cubic meters. NASA has predicted that in the next 30 years, many parts of Iran will become uninhabitable due to wide-spread droughts and climate change. Likewise, 60 seas and wetlands, including Hamun and Urumia have become dry or are in the process of becoming dry. Also, 40 million Iranians live in areas endangered by subsidence of the land. Concerns about the environment now are seen in children’s speech and anxieties. For example, several days ago Kasra asked his father, “What will happen if Urumia dries up?” His father told us, “I see my own future tied up with that of Iran. If the situation in Iran is not fixed, our own future will be ruined. I would like something good or some calamity to happen the which would transform the entire world including Iran. But I myself don’t have much faith in my dreams coming true.”

Fourteen-year-old Baran also says, “My dream is to have all of us take an interest in cleaning up the streets of our town. From the beginning of elementary school, the teachers would say, ‘Don’t throw trash in the streets and keep the town clean.’ Many people throw their cigarette butts in the middle of the roads. People go to the park for picnics, but although there is a trash can nearby, they throw their garbage on the grass. I would like Iran to be a clean country without air pollution.” Baran’s father then continued, “I would like the roads to have less traffic; when drivers learn to drivers properly, all of the, would maintain their calm and not curse at one another. Now when we stop at red lights and I see children are working, I cry; I want no children working in the future Iran. Why can one person with influence get a good job when some student with a doctorate in accounting drives an internet taxi? All of this is due to injustice.” A girl of the 80s generation says, “we of the 80s generation have many concerns from studying and finding a job and personal relations to the economic and political situation in the country.” Sara, a 15-year-old girl living in an area on the edge of Tehran also expresses her concerns about the environment, “There are fewer and fewer trees, the air pollution is getting much worse and as the number of apartments grow, people pay les attention to the environment. Most people only think about themselves. I think people should one another and get together to change the world.” She feels sympathy for many people because they cannot meet the expenses of daily life and don’t have enough food to eat.

Alongside the environment challenges, income and food security have also become serious challenges to a significant portion of the population and, naturally, children and adolescents, who are vulnerable and have poor nutrition, struggle more than others. It is predicted that the per capita decrease in the consumption of certain necessary staples like meat and protein, milk and milk products, in future years will have a negative effect on the health of future generations. According to World Health Organization studies, every person needs at least 2,100 calories per day. The poverty threshold in Iran shows that 50 percent t of the society gets less than this number of calories daily. Also, according to Afshin Sade-Dadras, chairman of the National Union of Live Livestock Producers, the per capita consumption of red meat has decreased from 12 to 6 kilograms per year. Figures also indicate the per capita consumption of milk and milk products in the country has reached an alarming state of from 96 to 70 kilograms per year, half the world average. 

A middle school teacher in ind of the districts on the edge of Tehran says that a large portion of her students are struggling with hunger described one of her experiences, “Once to carry out group work and make the atmosphere friendlier I told the children to bring their lunches to school so we could eat together. Most of them had brought either a little macaroni or some rice flavored with turmeric or tomato, but there was no sign of meat in any of their meals. Convinced that nutrition for young children can effect their level of intelligence she said, “Some of the kids are pale and faint in class and when I ask them what they have to eat at home, they say, ‘Miss, we are underprivileged and don’t have enough money to buy meat and chicken.’” She said that some of the students suffer from skin problems, kidney stones, and women’s illnesses and continued, “Many of the students can’t afford to buy sanitary napkins and get them from me. And then they say, ‘Forgive me, miss. I’ve forgotten to bring them for myself.’”

An Uncertain Future

A poll published by the Iranian Students’ Polling Agency (ISPA) last year shows that around 59 percent of the citizens have no hope of an improvement in the situation of the country in the future, and 30 percent believe conditions will get worse. Among the signs of pessimism are anxiety about the future of children and adolescents and a lack of desire to have children.

Pravin Malaki, mother of two-year-old Paniz, has a BA in graphic design and is an MA student in management. An employee of one of the ministries, she speaks about her anxiety about the future of her child, “I’m completely worried about her future from the point of view of her education, of her place in society, of her behavior… from every point of view you can imagine. We are living in a society that has become totally alien. The superintendent our building posted a note saying, ‘Take care in leaving the building because a few days ago a man with a machete had entered the building intending to steal bicycles.’ The camera in the building filmed him. We live in the west side of the Punak neighborhood. Can you imagine that a thief would come to our building which has a 24-hour security camera and a guard? In this kind of situation, you can’t even let your child play in the yard and chill out. When she does go out you’ve got to always stand by the window looking out for her so that nothing happens.” Her child is registered in one of the Board of Trustee schools now. She says, “Last year Paniz went to a private school, but I noticed that the kids were into the brand of their shoes, watches, and the make of their father’s cars. So, this year I’ve registered her in a new school in Valanjak where the tuition differs from the previous one.” Asked about the dreams she has for her daughter, whether she feels her daughter can realize them in Iran or not, she says, “I would like it if Paniz could become a great painter or a writer. But I see she is not that interested. That’s why I feel she should study whatever she likes. Of course, I think it very, very difficult to  realize dreams in Iran.” She said that Paniz will enter the fifth grade this year. She continued, “I had many dreams, but as I got older, I put many of them aside. For example, I wanted to become a painter or play the guitar or violin, but that was too hard. From the time I was a child I had wanted to become an astronomer, and I still want to. Starting with childhood I was fascinated with the stars and planets and read many books about astronomy and looked at the pictures in them. Previously, I also attended classes in astronomy and, God willing, I’ll go to Canada. I know of a special teacher there and, if all goes as expected, I’ll go to his classes.”

Homeyrah is another mother who stays awake at night worrying about her children. She has two daughters, one six months, the other 5 years old. To register her older daughter, Nirvana, in preschool she spent several months doing research, and she visited 18 schools and educational institutions. She finally registered her in the famous preschool on Zagreb Avenue. Homeyrah has permission to live on Mellat Square near Pasdaran Avenue. Homeyrah says, “My mind set at first was to have a child be educated to be happy, but after giving that some thought, the things that made Nirvana happy might make the others unhappy. For that reason, I put that thought aside and, after reading many books and consulting a psychologist I concluded that Nirvana should be educated to be a good and responsible citizen and not be dependent on society.” At present Nirvana goes to the Tabitha-at School with a tuition of 4,800,000 tomans for classes and, in her mother’s words, there she became friendly with pets and plays with them and can play and draw in the carpentry shop, in the flowers and sand. Homeyrah said, “Nirvana wants to travel to many different countries. She has learned about world travel from books I’ve read to her like Fonchito, a girl who lives in Venice. She is interested in working as a firefighter.” On the preschool that Homeyrah has registered her daughter in, she says with a laugh, “The subject of the preschool and high school Nirvana wants to attend have been stressful for me. This is why I’ve bought a notebook and created a list of the good preschools, and I’ve visited all of them and participated in interviews with mothers and children. Ultimately, I’ve arrived at a conclusion. Through a channel on Telegram, I participate in classes on psychology and child rearing with nearly 200 members. All mothers in those classes are worried like me about where to register their children. This is why each mother has come and visited schools and made notes about them; this has been a great help to me.” On the characteristics of the school Nirvana is enrolled in, Homeyrah says, “It is an educational research center, and after finishing the sixth grade, students take tests at school under the supervision of the Ministry of Education to enter the first year of middle school. This pre-high school period lasts for for terms, i .e., 12 months and costs 5,500,000 tomams with separate fees for lunch. I must pay 1,900,000 tomans a month. This pre- high school also has classes in art and language.”

These days some families with the necessary means and who feel they cannot ensure their children’s future in Iran, either register them in boarding schools outside the country or they emigrate. It’s enough to Google the phrase “from kindergarten to high school: education abroad” to see a variety of ads for these schools. The most popular choices for registration are schools in Canada, Europe, Turkey, and Dubai for which the providers of these referral services charge from $500 to $1,000. One of these providers has the slogan “Emigrate before you reach 18,” and shows a chart of costs for schools in various cities and places in the world: Amsterdam 7,500 to 1,000 €; Berlin 3,600 to 9,300 €; Vienna 8,400 to 15,000 €; Rome 8,700 to 14,000 €; Madrid 6,200 to 10,000 €; Dubai 32,700 to 56,000 Dirhams.

Bahrain Salavati, Director of the Immigration House Observatory, in the summer of 2013, in response to a question posed by the newspaper Etemad about the level of emigration of students, said, “I don’t have any statistics on this; it is an unexplored topic that has to be investigated. I once asked for them to draw up a plan to investigate such students, at least those in gifted schools, but it proved impossible. The Ministry of Education has to say straight out how much students desire to stay in the country. “So long as we don’t have a plan to do research on the topic, everything will be limited to guesswork. There are, naturally, indications. For example, participation in language classes, mono-lingual schools, even on the elementary levels is noticeable.” According to research carried out last year, 60 to 70 percent of Iranians (about 50 to 60 million people) lean toward emigrating, but only 65,000 were successful. The Pink Panther theme ring tone of his mobile went off. Mohammad Amin picks up after a few moments. The sound of birds chirping comes. He is 14 and lived in Koliksara near Amol, and has entered ninth grade, Mohammad Amin has three brothers and lives with his parents in the village. About his future and dreams he says, “My dream is freedom, meaning I want to live in an Iran where everybody has the power to choose. I think all people must decide and realize their dreams in such a way.” On his choice of an occupation in the future, he says, “I would like to work in the field of animal husbandry, poultry farming, raising ornamental birds or birds for food.” On whether this is a well-paying job, he says, “Yes, there’s money in it. Right now, I have an egg machine, and I have a monthly income of 7 million tomans, but the money doesn’t have any value; you can’t do anything with it.” He says that in the village most kids would like to be farmers or football players and goes on to say, “Most of the kids are worried about making a living; the situation in our society is not very good.” Like someone who has spent years in psychology or self-analysis classes, he compared his life to that of children who are born into wealthy families, “I don’t with to compare myself to anyone because each person has his own dreams.” When asked whether he would like to go to university in the future he says, “No, not university. I would like to go but it would be difficult. Why? Because it costs a lot. You’ve got to buy books, go to class, pay for transportation, buy clothes, nice clothes and then there’s the whole tuition. That’s money I don’t have.”

[Note 1 on “Nonprofit schools”: ghayr-e entefa’ui is literally “nonprofit”, but I think what the author means is “private.”]

[Note 2 on “Open-menu schools, literally menu-ye baz. This may mean “General” or “Non-specialized” schools.]