Excerpt:
Aziz Fooladvand is never really off work. The Islamic religion teacher at the Freiherr-vom-Stein school in Bonn gives students his cellphone number so they can reach him after class as well. Recently, a student sent him a text him to say that a classroom discussion earlier in the day had really made him think. That is Fooladvand's main goal: getting his students to think for themselves.
"My concept is to give my students room to think and to contemplate questions about their religion," Fooladvand said in his classroom."I want them to emancipate themselves from authorities and be brave enough to question information that is presented to them as absolute."
Fooladvand fled Iran after the mullahs rose to power during the Islamic revolution in 1979 and worked for Amnesty International in Bonn as a translator and advisor for refugees and other people in need for 18 years.