North Central High School: Unkind words fuel Qand Al Karkhi’s desire to succeed

Unkind words from a teacher can devastate a student, but Qand Al Karkhi turned shaming words into fuel to light the fire of her determination to succeed.

In 2018, her family decided to leave Iraq and move to the U.S. When her eighth-grade math teacher found out, she called the student to the front of the class.

“Then my teacher told me, ‘You are going to be a failure. You will never have a successful future, especially in a country where you don’t speak English,’ ” Al Karkhi said. “I felt so awkward in front of 21 other students.”

Those words haunted her when she arrived in a country she didn’t know anything about aside from what she’d seen in the movies.

Instead of going to high school, she was placed back in the seventh grade in a program for students learning English.

“I was really depressed,” Al Karkhi said. “I remembered what my teacher had said.”

But she found a welcoming staff at Shaw Middle School.

“They helped me so much – especially Miss Truman.”

Just when she began to find success and catch up to her peers, COVID-19 struck.

“It was so difficult learning online,” she said. “I didn’t know how to use a computer and I was just learning English. It was hard, but I had to deal with it.”

How she dealt with it was thinking about what her math teacher in Iraq had said.

“Every morning I remembered what that teacher told me, and I pushed to do better. I didn’t want to be the person she said I’d be in the future.”

Competing with her younger brother helped improve her English skills

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“It was a challenge. Whoever spoke best got to be the translator for our parents.”

When in-person school resumed, North Central counselor Macie Pate was delighted with her student’s progress.

“She hit the ground running. She got all A’s and B’s,” Pate said. “She’s such a hard worker and she’s always smiling.”

While English still took some effort, she excelled at something she didn’t believe was possible.

“I hated math because of that teacher,” Al Karkhi said. “But the teachers here are so kind and respectful – math is now my favorite subject.”

In her senior year, she enrolled in the pharmacy tech program at NEWTech Skills Center.

She’s enjoying her studies there, but has her sights set on a loftier goal – medical school.

“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “It’s much easier to enter medical school here than in Iraq. It will be easier to reach my dreams here.”

Al Karkhi has been accepted at Gonzaga University and Whitworth University and is deciding which to attend.

“I’m really proud of her,” Pate said.

“She worked within the structure she was given. She went from not knowing English to being accepted at two colleges.”

Pate has no doubt that this determined student will succeed.

“She has a bright future ahead.”

Al Karkhi is already envisioning it.

“I’m excited about becoming a doctor,” she said. “I’m going back to show that teacher my degree and show her she was wrong.”