Why Going Back to School for One Group of Children is So Significant

Teachers in the in the northern Iraqi town of Qayyara are working to get students back to a semi-normal school routine after a U.S. led coalition of Iraqi forces successfully drove the Islamic State out of the area.

Students are highly optimistic despite crammed classrooms and outdated textbooks. At one girls' school, there are roughly 80 students to one teacher, according to Reuters.

"We are happy to be back at school," said eight-year-old Iman. "They wanted us to come but we didn't want to because we don't know how to study in their language, the language of violence."

Two months into the school year, students are just now receiving Iraqi-issued textbooks, which were once replaced by extremist with the hopes of brainwashing the children.

Militants overran the school starting in 2014 and later banned all subjects they considered to be un-Islamic including geography, history and civic education.

In 2015, the extremist implemented an entirely new curriculum to inculcate children with their ideology, Reuters reported. Math exercises were expressed in terms of weapons and ammunition: "one bullet plus two bullets equals how many bullets?".

The boys' school was even used as a recruiting ground.

Most parents decided to stop sending their children to school and older pupils made up their minds to leave voluntarily.

Two years later many of the students have returned, but are now two grades behind.

"They have forgotten their lessons... Now we are reminding them," said teacher Maha Nadhem Kadhem. "We don't want them to be illiterate and ignorant."

Teachers admit that they have seen a negative impact on the children and recognize it is an uphill, but rewarding battle for them.

"The biggest impact is on children," said Farouq Mahjoub, the assistant headmaster of a secondary school for boys in Qayyarab, whose school was hit by an airstrike several months ago. "Children are malleable; you can change their opinion and beliefs quickly."