A Challenge Being Met 9/24/22

Over the past six months, a group of churches in the State College area has worked together to support the resettlement of six families from Afghanistan in the area through World Church Services (WCS). It has been a far more complicated a process than figuratively raising your hand to say "we will help" support the families of Afghans who worked with American forces or diplomats come to the US. There have been multiple levels of approval, verification, training, mandates, administrative oversight and paper work.

Sue and a retired English teacher got involved in mid-summer when it became clear there was a need for math and English tutors for a high school age student in a newly arrived Afghan family being sponsored by our church and two other churches.

After renewing the PA clearances for working with students that had expired since Sue retired, Sue met with the young man and quickly determined he was very bright, eager to be successful in school, and had a good understanding of the mathematics he had studied, even thought he had not been "in school" for an extended period while the family was in a transition. However, he totally did mathematics and had studied mathematics in a different language.

Note: The student's face is blurred in the photo above and his name is not noted

below for his safety and the safety of family members in the US and still in Afghanistan.

Thought we use "Arabic numerals", in Afghanistan (as well as Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and a number of neighboring countries) they use mainly Dari numerals. There are other significant differences in math notation, for example, in the way math functions (e.g., addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and variables are noted, in writing and reading from right to left, in using commas and decimal points differently. In addition, he was not fluent in English. That notwithstanding, S_____ and "Miss Sue" (as he refers to her) have made great progress. S_____ has settled into Algebra 1 missing only one problem on the first exam. Sue and he continue to meet a couple of times per week.