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SABIHA ÇIMEN

At a Quran school picnic in Istanbul, a plane soars over a group of students who, with headscarves billowing in the wind, look as though they are ready to fly.

Two of the youngest students at an Istanbul school, both age nine, learn to roller-skate, a process similar to memorizing the Quran: making mistakes and trying again.

During the noon break at an Istanbul school, three students hold an intense conversation behind a curtain. Girls also find privacy under desks, on rooftops, and in hidden corners of schoolyards.

After prayers are finished, girls gather outdoors at the school in Kars to sing Kurdish love songs.

An amusement park in Istanbul draws Quran school students, who organized the outing themselves.

As a new student at a Quran school in Rize, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, Elif covers her hair for the first time.

At the same school, a girl named Reyyan gathers tomatoes for the cooks. Students help with such tasks during their menstrual periods, when, in the view of some Muslims, they shouldn’t touch the Quran.

As one of her chores, a student sorts lemons in the dining room of a school in Kars, a city in northeastern Turkey.

In an Istanbul schoolyard Aslıhan and a friend have fun with a gorilla mask. Afterward the two ran through the hallways to prank their schoolmates.

A student snaps a selfie during a school outing to Ada Park in Bayrampasa, a district of Istanbul. Later she gathered her many photos from the day and shared them through an Instagram story.