Malala Yousafzai starts school in UK

[TruthSeeker]

Taliban victim Malala Yousafzai starts school in UK

The Guardian, Tuesday 19 March 2013

Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan while advocating girls' education, attended her first day of school in the UK, weeks after being released from hospital.

The 15-year-old, who is among nominees for this year's Nobel peace prize, described her return to school as the most important day of her life, as she joined other students in Birmingham.

"I am excited that today I have achieved my dream of going back to school. I want all girls in the world to have this basic opportunity," she said in a statement.

Accompanied by her father and carrying a pink rucksack, Malala joined other pupils at Edgbaston high school for girls, close to the hospital where she underwent surgery to reconstruct her skull last month.

Alongside other students in Year 9, she will be studying a full curriculum in preparation for selecting her subjects for GCSEs. "I miss my classmates from Pakistan very much but I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and making new friends here in Birmingham," she said.

Malala was brought to Britain for specialist treatment after being shot in the head at point-blank range by Taliban gunmen last October in the Swat valley in north-western Pakistan. Members of the Pakistani Taliban said she was targeted because she promoted "western thinking".

She left hospital in February after making a good recovery from surgery during which doctors fitted a titanium plate to her skull and inserted a cochlear implant to help restore hearing in her left ear.

"She wants to be a normal teenage girl and to have the support of other girls around," said Edgbaston headteacher Ruth Weeks. "Talking to her, I know that's something she missed during her time in hospital."

Gordon Brown, the former prime minister and current UN special envoy for global education, said: "This is a great day for Malala, for her family – and for the cause of education worldwide.

"By her courage, Malala shows that nothing – not even bullets, intimidation or death threats – can stand in the way of the right of every girl to an education. I wish Malala and her family well as her courageous recovery continues."

Taliban victim Malala Yousafzai starts school in UK | World news | The Guardian

 

[TruthSeeker]

Malala Yousafzai's new challenge: navigating the politics of a British girls' school

By Jennifer O'Mahony2:31PM GMT 20 Mar 2013

Malala Yousafzai began classes at the independent Edgbaston High School for Girls yesterday morning, declaring there was "No more important day than this day" as she smiled and chatted at the gates with her father.

Back in September 2002, I had a few things in common with Malala, but not, unfortunately, her fortitude or clear-headed approach to geopolitics. I was new in Britain, enrolled at a private girls’ school and I thought the weather was freezing.
As I turned 14, my family decided to return to the UK after my expatriate childhood in Dubai, and the miserable cold, the stupid knee-high socks and the strict-looking teachers were already getting me down.

Then there were the other girls. Hysteria is not a word I use lightly to describe women, but there is really no other way to communicate the spontaneous sobbing and terrifying petty turf wars that characterised breaks and lunch time at my own school in Lancashire.

"That's Becky and that's Sophie," my classmate and assigned guide told me on my first day. "They haven't spoken for a year, so try not to mention one's name in front of the other," she advised.

"And that's Laura. She's a lesbian by the way, so watch out when we're changing for PE," I was told matter-of-factly. "During lunch make sure you don't sit with ‘the Rachels’, or Jess. They have to invite you first because they're the popular people, but they might choose you," she added, scrutinising the length of my skirt and how many buttons I had undone on my blouse to gauge my worth.

With my head spinning, I appreciated the insider's advice (most of it complete lies) while also pondering why my parents had landed me in this expensive asylum. Four years later, I wouldn't have gone anywhere else.

Malala will have the full support of the staff and girls at Edgbaston, who will have heard about the incredible barriers she has fought through to get there. However, nothing can prepare her for the mind games of teenage girls, which can only be managed, never eradicated.

With this in mind, here are my five tips for her:

1. Perfect the cool geek persona
Teenage girls are competitive, but also intent on giving the appearance of not caring. This is amplified by approximately a million times at an all-girls private school, where comparative wealth and extra parental pressure makes one 'C' grade feel like the end of the world.
Girls at my school would say things along the lines of: "Yeah I've done like LITERALLY nothing for this physics test; Dave came over with his friends until like 2am and we were drinking in my garden so I'm going to fail. Whatevs though."
The reality is that said girl had texted "Dave" maybe once in the last week because she was up until midnight (but no later) for the last month furiously memorising the difference between how transformers and transistors work. Malala is clearly very academic, but she should cultivate a look of studied detachment while somehow aceing all those tests.

2. Style it out in one of two prescribed ways
When it comes to fashion, the pressure on girls to be incredibly thin and spend hundreds of pounds at wherever is the new Abercrombie/Hollister/Miss Sixty is acute. The only exemption from this is a complete rejection of the preppy aesthetic: Malala will have to go emo. A few piercings, a cheeky tattoo and a giant black hoodie with a red anarchist symbol on the back should suffice. "Going emo" also has the odd effect (or social cachet) of everyone at school automatically labelling you as bisexual, and then sidling up for advice when they are troubled by their own sexuality, which you can use against them later if they are trying to bully you.

3. Join a fake band
Much of teenage life is spent standing around outside somewhere grim with people you don't like that much waiting vaguely for more people you don't even know to arrive. Malala can avoid this by cultivating an air of mystery, perhaps by "practising" with a secret punk band she has joined whose music is so good they can never play in front of other people for fear it will be stolen. Then she can just stay in and watch The Killing with people she actually likes.

4. Remember: he isn’t worth the digital drama
Around 90 per cent of the arguments at my school centred around imagined adulterous affairs conducted entirely through the medium of MSN Messenger and texts. I know times have moved on and apps such as Snapchat have complicated things, but if I could tell Malala and my younger self one thing, it is this: he isn't worth the drama. Hyperventilating over a 15-year-old covered in acne who won't even stop playing FIFA for ten minutes to talk to you is a nervous breakdown you can do without. Wait until sixth form, when this caterpillar will be a beautiful butterfly (or will at least have facial hair).

5. Relish every minute
Make the most of it. Girls' schools, for all their fustiness and preoccupation with petty rules, also tend to produce the best academic results in the country and provide a safe haven in which to develop critical thinking, safe from physical intimidation and humiliating remarks about your appearance, in class at least.
Something tells me Malala will be head of the school debating club before long (disclaimer: so was I) and having my views challenged but not shouted down (which happened a lot more at my mixed school) was key to why I valued my education. Girls' schools tend not to have the anti-intellectual feel of boys' and mixed institutions, where saying the funniest, not the cleverest thing, earns you respect.

Girls’ Schools Association president Hilary French said of Malala’s return to school: “It’s always daunting starting a new school, especially midterm, but Malala and her family have made an excellent choice. She’s been through an awful lot in a short space of time and needs time to enjoy being a normal school girl.

"Girls’ schools enable all girls to flourish, free from stereotypes and discrimination, and, whatever Malala’s academic or extra-curricular interests, at Edgbaston High she will be able to pursue them without any pressure to look, be or act a certain way. She’s in the best environment to thrive and become an even stronger young woman than she has already proven herself to be.”
More than that, Malala is uniquely placed to teach her fellow pupils what it means to suffer for principles, to hold your head up high when those around you want you silenced, and above all how the education of girls can effect real change for everyone in a patriarchal society.

So to the girls of Edgbaston High School: listen and learn from your newest classmate.

Malala Yousafzai's new challenge: navigating the politics of a British girls' school - Telegraph

 

[Ayush]

Best of luck to her.