Eye-Opening Assignment: Rebuild a Ravaged Nation

The junior class at International Polytechnic High School in Pomona was assigned a weighty task for the spring semester project: Come up with plans to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan and set that nation on the road to stability and democracy.

The 95 students at the public school on the Cal Poly Pomona campus used books, the Internet, interviews and other research to examine such issues as how to have fair ethnic representation in a new Afghan government, how to bring the rule of law into areas beyond the capital of Kabul, and whether new roads are more important than computer technology.

The juniors, who will formally present their plans next month, said the assignment exposed them to new places and realities.

“It opened us up to realizing the U.S. isn’t the only country in the world,” said Sabrina Gonzalez, 16. “I think it made us more interested in foreign affairs.”

Gonzalez said the thing that most shocked her was learning about the life of Afghan teenagers: “People our age in Afghanistan are physically fighting; they are holding guns, and they are killing people. It was a shock to see they don’t have that innocence like other children.”

The assignment was a stretch from their usual semester-long projects, which are based on more theoretical situations, such as how a city can prepare to host the Olympics.

But the Afghanistan project is aligned with the efforts of Polytechnic High, usually called I-Poly, to be an alternative to a large, traditional school. The 446-student campus emphasizes international and global studies, teamwork, interdisciplinary course work and project-based learning.

“They push us to think beyond what’s right and wrong,” said Kara Mayol, 17. “It’s more understanding the concepts rather than memorizing it.”

I-Poly opened in 1993 and is run by the Los Angeles County Office of Education in partnership with Cal Poly Pomona. Classrooms and administrative offices are in temporary brown buildings arranged in an oval on a former university parking lot. Students have access to university facilities, including the library, and can take college classes.

A minimum 2.5 grade-point average is required for admission, and selection is based on an application, transcripts, standardized test scores, letters of recommendation, an essay and an interview. Students come from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties.

The teachers are not textbook-driven, and they are given leeway on how to teach, said Principal Elsa Martinez. “The school is based on collaboration, not competition,” she said.

English and history teacher Maricel Edwards, the lead instructor for the Afghanistan project, said it grew out of a general idea to have the students study the challenges of building something and do research in a manner that would engage them. Professor Cesar Larriva, who teaches at Cal Poly’s College of Education and Integrative Studies, suggested Afghanistan as a subject. Larriva also arranged to have Cal Poly professors help out, in one of the first academic exchanges between the high school and the university.

There was no formal class time for the projects; students were expected to complete them on their own time, though on Fridays they were given two hours to work on them.

“I thought it was definitely an interesting experience,” said Nolan Pack, 17. “As far as the growing and learning as a group, I knew that already; it was more what I learned about Afghanistan and government. I learned about the role of the U.S. as a nation builder.”

Pack said he focused on rebuilding Afghanistan’s government, and his group decided to stick with the U.S.-led efforts to establish a democracy and proceed from there.

U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan nearly three years after ousting the Taliban regime that apparently was harboring Al Qaeda, the group that claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. An interim government has been established, but the laws of the land do not extend far beyond the capital.

“The primary thing right now is that the government is pretty much confined to the capital, Kabul,” Pack said. “Our primary focus was to expand [security] outside of Kabul so the government would actually have an effect elsewhere.”

Pack said his group looked at the U.S.’s role in nation building in places such as Kosovo, Bosnia and Japan. They also used history books, periodicals and the Internet, consulting the United Nations’ website on nation building in other developing countries.

Students from another group came to a different conclusion on how to run the country. Mayol said her team chose a more pluralistic government, with Afghan tribal leaders working together, instead of having a single leader. The students looked at other regional governments as models, and used the websites of such groups as NATO and the U.N., as well as news sources such as CNN. Mayol said meeting with the professors helped her group dig deeper into certain issues.

“I think the biggest obstacle was we had to be able to identify with the people,” Mayol said. “We were always thinking from a Western perspective.” Mayol said watching news broadcasts and documentaries about Afghanistan helped open up that country to them.

Some students jumped on the idea of improving Afghanistan’s economy through technology such as high-speed Internet, science teacher Jason Petty said. The problems with that approach were soon evident.

“We wanted to do Internet and trade, but then there was no business in Afghanistan that could trade over the Internet,” said Josh Behnke, 17. The country’s low literacy rate -- 36% for adults, according to UNESCO -- was a problem, as was the lack of good roads to move imports and exports.

Soon they had pared their focus to “let’s just build some roads,” Petty said. “Through the process, we saw the proverbial light bulbs turn on. We were talking about real people in a real place in real time.”

The students’ plans are not going to be sent to the State Department or the Pentagon. Still, Cal Poly professor Sidney Silliman, who teaches international relations and helped work with the I-Poly students, said of the Afghanistan project, “Conceptually it’s just great. It gives students a chance to present, and it opens up the possibility for feedback from professionals.”

Silliman said he felt there were some misunderstandings. He said students put a lot of emphasis on the role of Islam in Afghanistan but did not give enough thought to how gender and the role of women would affect nation building.

Still, Silliman gave the high schoolers credit: “It’s tough when you take on a whole country. I think these are good students. It’s probably a question of what’s available, and guidance.”

Gonzalez was among those students who did learn more about the low status of many Afghan women and their struggle for basic rights.

“When I first started, I didn’t care,” she said. “It was like, it’s overseas, it’s not our issue. But now it’s more like, they are people, they don’t deserve to be going through these kind of things.... It’s made me a lot more aware of what’s going on, stepping back and looking at myself and saying you can do something about it.”