Four years ago, Samiullah Luddin was new to the U.S. His father had escaped the Taliban and brought him and his four siblings to Fairfax County from Afghanistan.
Arriving during the pandemic in March 2020, Luddin barely spoke English and knew little about computers. He would be enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools in virtual classes at Annandale High School.
Despite the learning challenges that came with a new country, a new school, new technology, and a pandemic, the Annandale student never gave up, and on June 3, he will graduate.
“I’m really grateful to have my friends and my teachers with me, always supporting me,” Luddin says about his time in high school.
Linguistic Challenges
Luddin speaks his native language, Pashto, at home, but was eager to continue improving his English. He and his siblings returned to in-person classes in 2021 — earlier than his classmates — as part of the English for Speakers of Other Languages program.
He participated in Dunya, a club for Afghan refugees that involves field trips and playing cricket. Luddin served as the social media organizer, and one of his best friends, Ibrahim Zamir, was the president.
“I had a lot of support, especially from Ibrahim. [Me and my friends] call him the ‘G.O.A.T.’, and he has always supported me,” says Luddin. G.O.A.T. is an acronym for Greatest Of All Time.
Testing Troubles
Both Luddin and Zamir are grateful for the strong network of friends and teachers who helped them get to graduation.
This support system helped Luddin pass the Reading Standards of Learning exam — something that took 14 tries before he passed.
The first time he took the exam as a junior, he confessed he did not take it too seriously. But through perseverance, resilience, and guidance from teachers including Tricia Kapuscinski and Meredith Hedrick, the multilingual department chair, Luddin succeeded.
“With all the challenges his family faced in Afghanistan and how far [they] have come, it’s just, for me, really incredible to think about his life in two different countries,” Hedrick says about how much joy and inspiration Luddin brings her.
Luddin’s father, Tahir, worked as a translator for The New York Times when he was kidnapped by the Taliban for six months, alongside journalist David Rohde and their driver. Rohde narrated their survival in A Rope and a Prayer: The Story of a Kidnapping, including how Tahir escaped out a window.
When Luddin finally passed the Reading SOL, the Annandale student promised to invite his friends to his house and prepare a feast of traditional Afghan food. He plans to make good on this promise and jokes that his friends are growing impatient.
The Future
After graduation, Luddin plans to begin classes at Northern Virginia Community College with hopes of pursuing business administration.
“In life, you should never give up, never lie, [and] communicate with friends,” Luddin says of the most important lessons learned during high school.
Feature image courtesy Donnie Biggs/Fairfax County Public Schools
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