Spokane teacher helping shape democracy in Iraq
Instead of preparing this fall’s social studies lessons for Spokane teens, a Ferris High School teacher is helping create a civics curriculum for students in Iraq.
1st Lt. Clayton Colliton, a scout platoon leader with a Spokane-based Washington National Guard unit, has been in Baghdad since March and is expected to stay about a year.
In an e-mail message from Baghdad, Colliton describes his regular duties with the 161st Infantry’s 1st Battalion as “doing it all. … Kind of like a police officer, every day brings something new.”
His wife, Julie, in Spokane is a little more specific, explaining that Colliton spends his time monitoring mosques, acting as an escort and working to maintain peace.
But in addition to his regular unit duties, Colliton recently was assigned to help Iraqi educators teach the concepts of democracy and civic re-sponsibility. He is one of five citizen soldiers in the 161st Infantry’s 1st Battalion who are tackling the assignment. All of them are teachers in Washington state or elsewhere when not on duty in Iraq.
Their work is just getting under way.
“Currently it is in the beginning stages, but if we have success, (and) I know we will, the program should grow to encompass more areas in and around Baghdad and the rest of the country,” Colliton wrote in an e-mail message to The Spokesman-Review. He said this is the first attempt at creating a new curriculum for the country.
When Julie Colliton heard what her husband would be doing, she couldn’t believe it.
“I thought it was absolutely amazing,” she said from the couple’s south Spokane home. “He’s making history. The Middle East has never known freedom, and here he is writing it for them.”
She said her husband is particularly well-suited for the task because of his love of history, government and democracy.
“He is a very blessed man,” she said, admiring his ability to juggle a full-time job, three children, his work in the Guard and the pursuit of a doctorate degree. “He has a way of explaining things so people understand. He doesn’t see himself as others see him though. To him, he’s just doing what he’s supposed to do.”
The new civics curriculum for Iraqi students is based on lesson plans Colliton and the other teachers have used in the past and would be preparing to teach in the fall if they were in the United States now, he said.
Colliton, son of former Spokane City Councilman Jeff Colliton, has taught at Ferris for about eight years. He teaches economics, current world affairs and criminal justice.
“I don’t know what better combination there could be for someone to most effectively translate what a developing country needs,” said Ferris Assistant Principal Bob Crabb.
Crabb suspects Colliton will find similarities between explaining how democracy works to high school students in Spokane and to those who have no experience with it.
Colliton’s new task is not without challenges, however.
Though unable to give specifics about his unit’s operations in Baghdad, Colliton could provide some general comments about his work.
The most difficult part of creating the new curriculum, he wrote in his e-mail, is not having a real benchmark to start from. Some of what the five instructors hope to teach is democracy: what it is and is not; civic responsibilities at the individual, community, city, region, national and international levels, and different types of democratic governmental structures for grades K-12.
“Our starting point is to ensure all parties involved understand … We are simply here to assist the headmasters and teachers in the greater Baghdad area,” he wrote. “We are getting a general idea of what their concepts of democracy are and starting there … In my dealings with the general public, there is a vast difference in understanding of what democracy is.
“Some have the concept better than Americans, but some believe they are now free to do whatever they want. Our focus is to explain that personal freedom ends when others’ rights are violated.”
Colliton said the deputy minister of education in Iraq, Alaudin Abdul-Saheb al-Alwan, likes what the American teachers have discussed with him so far.
Besides the challenges of developing the lesson plans are the difficulties inherent in working in Baghdad.
Cultural differences mean having to learn the do’s and don’ts of what’s socially acceptable. Though most Iraqis are eager to learn English and most venture at least a few words, Colliton said he always has an interpreter with him when his missions call for contact with Iraqis.
“Sometimes,” he wrote, “translations don’t get the message across the way you intended.”
Ninety-nine percent of all of his interactions with Iraqis, though, have been positive, he said. “The kids absolutely love us … Most Iraqis are very hospitable, offering tea, water, food, and smiles and waves.”
Then there’s the heat.
“Put a blow dryer on high and hold it to your face, when it starts to get uncomfortable, keep it there longer, and you’ll get the idea of what driving around in the turret of a Humvee is like,” he wrote. “Everything metal is hot, and you sweat so much your uniform turns white from the salt.”
His surroundings – “still very much a war zone,” he said – contain a little bit of everything.
“Every type of vehicle you can imagine is on the roads, from brand new BMW or (Mercedes) Benz to donkey carts. There are areas that are absolutely devastated to neatly-kept million-dollar compounds. TV dishes are everywhere. People will live in a shack but still have a dish on their roof. Roadside stands are all over the place selling everything from sun glasses to fruit to cigarettes to gas to chickens.
“The cleanup and rebuilding is happening around the clock, and people are out and about and Iraqi police are patrolling and things are improving.
“But for me,” he added, “the hardest part of all of this is seeing so many young children living in horrid conditions. Raw sewage on the streets, lack of medical care, garbage everywhere and they are living in it.”
“Lots remains to be done, and they need help, but at least now,” he wrote, “they have a chance.”