A primary school teacher in İstanbul, Turkey, has systematically employed fear-based classroom management and terrified her pupils with religious dogmas, it is reported.
The scandalous event was disclosed as one of the parents shared her son's classroom experience on social media. Zeynep Naz Aykan, the parent of the intimidated child, said that a recent event shared by another parent helped her to figure out the reason behind her son's unusual behaviours during recent months.
The parents learned that the teacher had made an inappropriate remark about of one of the students' name, making her cry. The teacher said to the pupil that the latter's name, İrem, is anathema since it means "forbidden heaven." The teacher forbade the pupil using her own name in the school.
The intimidated male pupil's parent, Aykan, said that the teacher was one of the new staff of the school and that her son had been in class since the beginning of the semester. She noted that her son had once warned her about her tattoos, asking her to "hide them with her cloth when coming to school to pick him up." In time, this unusual behaviour of her son evolved into a kind of reluctance to go to school and caused further psychological disturbances.
Aykan also noted that they learned the teacher had made other dogmatic remarks in the classroom. It is reported that she had said, "If you have cats or dogs in your home, the angels will not visit your home", and "if you do not come to the school when you are sick, your brain will shrink", and also "only the grandmothers can give names to the newborn babies, otherwise it will be a great sin."
Aykan and other parents protested the reactionary attitude of the teacher and stressed that it was a great scandal that such a teacher is allowed to educate their children with religious dogmas and coercion. They said that they are going to press charges against the teacher.
The ruling AKP government has been systematically transforming the educational system of Turkey in line with Sunni-Islamic codes. As the number of religious İmam Hatip Schools increased in Turkey during the rule of the AKP government, the curriculum of the regular schools has also been redesigned to indoctrinate the students according to Sunni-Islamic perspective. The chapters on the theory of evolution have been completely eliminated, and religious concepts like Jihadism, love of Allah and the prophet has been integrated into main classes.
