Show Originally Aired: 4/22/2003 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
Re-Educating Iraq
A picture of Saddam Hussein sits in a pile of books and papers as a student cleans up damage left by looters at the Saddam High School in Kirkuk, Iraq Monday April 21, 2003. (AP) Email to friend
View images from Dick Gordon's tour through the El Tameen school in Baghdad
The twelfth grade English reader in Iraqi schools falls open to a full page photo of Saddam Hussein. Social studies books talk about him as "the Great Leader, may God preserve him."
The president may be gone, but the educational imprint of that man and his Arab Baath Socialist Party are well stamped on the minds of all Iraqi school children. Before the reconstruction of the education system can even begin, the propaganda of the old regime has to be purged.
Trouble is, the next chapter is still being written, and promises of democracy and freedom are still just that. Yet soon the schools will reopen, the teachers will want to know what to teach, the students will be looking for answers.
