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Back in School, Iraqi Teen Lacks Motivation to Study

Zuhal Tayeh, 16, puts up her 7-year-old sister Rukaiya Tayeh's hair at their home in Amman, Jordan , while sister, Zainab Tayeh, 15, hangs out with them. In Iraq, they lived in a spacious house with a garden, and now must share a bedroom in an apartment with another sister.
—Christopher Powers/Education Week

Zuhal Tayeh was once a good student at a girls’ school in Baghdad with strong academics.

But somewhere along the line, after missing a year of schooling in Iraq, another year here in Jordan, and finally returning to the classroom in Amman this school year, she lost her motivation to study.

“I can’t bring myself to study here,” the 16-year-old says during an interview in her family’s sparsely furnished apartment in the Shmeissani neighborhood of Amman, where most...