Ttrek Salama

It might be that when you’re living abroad, if you’re not romanticizing your home country, you’re romanticizing the one you’re in. In Morocco we said: isn’t it nice? Nobody bragging about where they went to college or how many miles they ran, nobody giving you the evil eye when your baby makes baby noises. People sitting down with their families every Friday, taking a moment to pray five times a day, or stopping in the middle of the day for coffee, no matter what, sitting for hours on end, maybe not saying much but being together.

But then, sometimes in the same breath we’d say: in the U.S. (fill in the blank) works so much better; people are on time; a woman can have a beer in public; lunch doesn’t take seven hours.

We alternated between falling head over heels in love with Morocco and getting sort of frustrated. Did we romanticize it? Probably. Did we learn some things? Definitely. Ultimately it seems like the goal of living in another country is to come away with a respect for both the country you’re in and the one you’ve left. So instead of telling you “what we’ve learned” or pretending like we’re experts on this place that we're just starting to know, we’d like to wrap-up this blog with a few stories about things that happened, and that meant something to us while we were here.

It goes without saying that the overwhelmingly positive experience we had here, and the fact that we will be so sad to leave has to do with the people we met in Morocco, the people who made the trip to visit us and the support of the Fulbright organization. We are so, so grateful.

Evening

It’s bedtime for Cecily. While Kate is putting her down, I slip out the door to catch the last bit of light before darkness falls on Essaouira. I’m riding the bike that I bought the previous day from Said, a broken down old steel frame bike that I repaired in his shop and took home. I weave through the walkers in the medina, past the fish carts and cane sugar juice salesman, and past the beggars who cluster by the medina gates, kneeling on the ground or sitting in wheelchairs.

I miss the sunset by just a few minutes, and already the sky over the ocean is darkening oranges and purples. The wind is tearing down the beach, and I ride the bike on the hard sand just at the water’s edge, propelled by the wind, carving half figure-eights down the beach. The sky reflects off the damp sand, and, though it isn’t a particularly literary analogy, everything looks like the Rainbow Road level in Mario Kart—primary colors everywhere.

Time to go home, and I fight the same wind all the way back to the medina gates. In the darkening evening, I see one of the beggars pushing her empty wheelchair out of the medina, clocking out for the day. She gives me a smile and a cheery wave as we part.

Trek Slamaa

It took us three tries to say goodbye to everyone at Katerina’s, the amazing café below our apartment in Tangier. The first time, we wanted to say goodbye early, because we had a flight the next morning, and wanted to catch Katerina and our favorite waiters. Because they weren’t all there, we came back again that afternoon. That would have been it, but we realized that we wanted another cup of coffee in the morning, so we just kept showing up.

At Katerina’s, Cecily makes her usual rounds, held by everyone, laughing. Someone takes her behind the counter while we finish our coffee. One of the waiters is instructing her to remember him: “One day you will return here, and you will remember that you knew a waiter in Tangier.”

We take a last photo, and bid goodbye. In English, now: “I’m sorry that you are leaving. We had gotten used to you.”

Rebellion

I smoke…well, I smoke because I have to, she explains. But also, because it is a rebellion. The men do it. They sit openly, smoking in cafes. So I will do it too. She takes cigarettes out of a leather jacket. I had a big night last night. Do you like Pink Floyd?

Months later she sits on the floor with my baby and her nephew, helping her mother in the kitchen, translating between us. I’ve been invited over for Fridaycouscous. Elliot can’t come because her father is away. She doesn’t wear a headscarf. Her mother does. It’s complicated, she says.

Gifts

Cecily has received the following gifts during her time in Morocco:

· Three silver Hands of Fatima
· One banana wearing prison garb
· Three Dishes of Flan
· One turtleneck
· One Smurf
· Five Yogurts
· One beach bag with word “Tanger” stenciled on it
· Four Candy Bars
· One vial of Rosewater
· One small djellaba

Inshallah

I’m walking out of my French class with Hichem. I am extra proud that he is my friend, because I met him all on my own, and he doesn’t speak any English. We are taking a French class together, though his French is much better than mine. In class, Hichem is engaged and outspoken, while I sit and listen and rue my accent and vocabulary. He’s nice, though, and we share a workbook most days.

When we walk out onto the streets at 9 PM, everything is alive. Cars race along the cobble streets, students buy popcorn from a street vendor, and the restaurants and cafés are packed. I realize that it’s been a long time since I was out, at night, with other people around. Our home in Idaho is so quiet at night, which is something that I like. But I realize, I also really like this. Hichem and I talk as we make our way back towards my apartment. As we part—he headed to join friends, me headed home to my wife and baby—I tell him that I’ll see him next Thursday in class. “Inshallah,” he says—God willing. I never see him again; he’s stopped coming to class.

Khlii 

“I’ve been thinking about your question, the one that you asked the students,” Hussein says to me in his faintly British-accented English. When we visit schools in Tangier, I often ask the students if there’s anything that I absolutely can’t miss while I’m in Morocco—foods, or things to see, or people to meet. “I did think of something, and I have a proposal,” says Hussein. He explains that there is a breakfast dish particular to Fes called khlii, and he suggests that my time in Morocco would be incomplete without trying it. I ask him what it is.

“Well,” Hussein says, “Khlii is a way of preparing meat. First, you take beef, and season it with many special spices. Then, the beef is cooked in fat for a whole night, the fat of the same cow from which it came. You see, it must be beef, because only beef could withstand this type of cooking. Then, it is stored in a jar for many months or even years.” He looks at me earnestly. “It’s extremely healthy.”

He Will Always Be Moroccan

He puts down the coffee and takes the baby, and just like that we’re sitting together, drinking our café nousnous on a quiet street corner, and it’s suddenly okay that we got up at five am because across the street there’s bougainvilla on a white wall and from the kitchen we hear the familiar greeting: squeals of delight and loud enthusiastic kisses followed by Cecily’s maniacal laughter.

He returns with the baby on his hip he gives her back. Your son, he says, he will always be Moroccan.

In The Market 

 A Moroccan man on his bicycle carelessly bumps the table, which has been carefully arranged by the strawberry vendor. The berries are perfectly ripe, and, almost as if in deference to the quality of the berries, the vendor has arranged them meticulously. The man on the bicycle stops, dismounts, picks up the strawberry that fell to the ground, kisses it, and returns it carefully to the table. Both men smile.

The Wonky Educational Blog Post

Friends,

You've all been dreading it, known that it's been percolating. We've regaled you with tales of camels and exotic vistas, made you laugh with Kate's misadventures in the market, and warmed your heart with literally dozens of pictures of different Moroccans kissing our baby. Yet, all this time, you've known that AT SOME POINT, I was going to say something about the educational system here, and perhaps you would feel obligated to read it. 

Well, fear not, faithful reader. I am, in fact, going to follow this preamble with a wonky educational blog post. Words like "pedagogy" and "administrative structure" will be bandied about. But there will be no "quiz" at the end. In fact, if you're not interested in the Moroccan educational system, you are hereby excused. That's right, recess! Go hit the swings!

Why is Elliot welcoming Moroccan students to Morocco?!

Still here? 

OK. A couple disclaimers. First of all, I participated in the school system in a way that was limited by geography (I really only went to schools in Tangier and Tetuoan) as well as language (I attended classes only in English, with a couple of French classes thrown in for good measure). Also, I typically attended schools with Hussein, an inspecteur, who is basically like the big boss of all the teachers in the region, so that obviously affects what I saw in terms of both student and teacher performance. Because of all this and more, what I've observed about the Moroccan school systems should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

A family letter project from a middle school English classroom.

With all that disclaiming done, though, I've been lucky to visit more than 15 different schools, at every level, public and private. As I've alluded to in previous blog posts, the experience of visiting schools has been perhaps the most meaningful part of my whole project. Interacting with Moroccan students, teachers and administrators has taught me a great deal about the country, left me with mad respect for Moroccan educators, and has been something that will certainly inform my own teaching practices. I've divided my thoughts up into sections, loosely based around the stakeholders in education: students and families, teachers, and administrators and policy-makers. Throughout, I'll intersperse photographs, but these are largely just "artifacts" of my time in schools (as well as a result of my obsession with photographing students' desks), rather than a representation of any specific point or idea.

Students and Families

While it's obviously foolish to generalize about students (after all, what are students like in the United States? Singapore?), I've been impressed with the Moroccan students with whom I've had the good fortune to spend time. They are clearly driven, and most are quick to articulate that they really value their education, for reasons that are both practical (jobs, college) and idealistic (civic duty and culture of Morocco). Similarly, students are often engaged politically, both in the life of the country, and that of the school. During one visit to a Tangier-area secondary school, word got out that a popular teacher was being reassigned. A protest materialized outside the school, chanting commenced, and Hussein was called on to explain the situation to the growing group of students outside.

Hussein addresses the protestors.

Students in Morocco were similarly engaged in the life politic of the country, and, particularly in secondary schools. Students asked me pointed questions about American foreign policy and islamophobia at home. While these interactions sometimes bummed me out (it's very important to tell someone that it's NOT true that most Americans oppose Islam, but it's too bad that the conversation needs to happen at all), it also made me feel more at home in my role as ambassador, and opened up new avenues of dialogue between us.

This view is further complicated by the easy access to Western culture, particularly technology, music, and movies. From Adele to Facebook, Moroccan students are very much like their American counterparts. They are connected through Facebook (I am currently awash in Facebook requests from students who I met), entertained by YouTube (or Dailymotion, which seems to be more popular here), and texting on What'sApp, which is ubiquitous among all Moroccans, young and old. Of course, this is really great in some ways; the cultural and technological products that we export represent us, and there's no getting around that the United States is more fully represented in the life of the world than probably any other country. On the other hand, Americans know that observing Taylor Swift and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson may not be the best way to understand our national character, or the lives of most Americans (and, just to be clear here, I think that T Swift and The Rock are great).

So where does this leave the kids? Pretty much in the same place that we all are: swept along by forces that we don't fully control, both participating in and receiving culture from parents, community and media. In one of my first observations, I made a chart of stuff that seemed the same, and stuff that seemed pretty foreign:

Same	Different
Switching seats	Headscarves
Kids on phones secretly	Lots of background talking
Raised hands (most of the time)	“Sir” or “Teacher”
Scary end-of-term stuff	Sort of adversarial questioning “British-ey”
Know it all in front row	Bird in classroom (actually, this has happened in my classroom, too, but was not met with general disinterest)

One thing that I did note was the level of autonomy that students are granted. No one, for example, is taking roll to make sure that students are in class. It's assumed that students want to be there, and it's certainly not the teachers' job to make sure that they attend class. Similarly, in a class where students were translating an Arabic poem to English, one student obviously had used Google Translate to make the translation, and the teacher "caught" the student. Instead of convening a disciplinary committee meeting, the teacher just dryly noted that students will learn more by translating using the dictionary, but their homework will be quicker using Google Translate. So...there you go.

For me, I noticed way more similarities than differences between my kids and these Moroccan youngsters. In particular, I went to visit my friend Abderrahim and his class of secondary school students right after the exams. As any teacher knows, getting kids to do anything educational after the semester exams is a real challenge, so Abderrahim did something clever: he invited an American, and asked the students to prepare presentations about Morocco for him. These presentations were great, really thoughtful and interesting. One of my favorites was on "Geeks," which showed a super solid understanding of geeks & nerds (though, regrettably, had exactly 0 references to Revenge of the Nerds). One thing that stuck with me, though, was the last 15 minutes of the class: all of us, together sang the pop Power Ballad, Aisha. Why did this happen? I don't know--it was the last day of school. Shit like that just happens, worldwide.

Teachers

Teachers in Morocco have a good gig. In saying this, though, keep in mind that I think that teachers in the United States also have a good gig. Many of the things that make teaching in the US less of a good gig are also factors in the profession of teaching here in Morocco and some of the things that make managing teachers difficult in the United States are also issues here. However, I'd hate to lose the forest through the trees, so I'll just state up front that teachers in Morocco, like teachers in the United States, are doing a great job in a challenging and incredibly rewarding profession.

One of my first introductions to teachers in Morocco was an English teacher at a Middle School, who was holding a roomful of 12-year olds spellbound with his lesson on the family tree. However, when it came time to look at his teaching log, he was months behind. As a middle school teacher myself, I wrote in my notes: "CLASSIC MS teacher: open, friendly, funny, great rapport with students...behind on paperwork!"

Like Mr. Marhraoui at the Middle School, I saw much that I recognized in the pedagogy and personality of Moroccan teachers. Teachers in Morocco have a similar teaching load to teachers in the US: 21 teaching hours a week for HS teachers, 24 for MS teachers, and 30 for primary school teachers. These hours are what we would call "contact hours"--actual time in the classroom, though some of that time is used for things that we typically don't use class time for, such as corrections and conferencing. In terms of pay, as far as I could figure it out using back-of-the-napkin math, teachers in Morocco are making about the same as teachers in the United States, adjusted for standard of living. So: underpaid. 

Also like teachers in the United States, Moroccan educators are feeling the pressure associated with changes in the educational system: bigger classes, more subjects, and the pressure of exams are all big changes that Moroccan educators are dealing with. Hussein makes a huge effort to help mentor teachers in using technology, and wants to see their use of technology as part of the lessons. Often, these take the form of streaming videos or translations (which they call a "data show," when they use the cellular networks to make it happen). Other uses of technology is simply playing songs or audio clips for students to practice English. I did, however, visit a school recently called Groupe Scolaire Nilufer, that was totally kitted-out with Smartboards. Like many classrooms with Smartboards in the US, though, they were largely used in the same way that you'd use a project or chalk board.

In terms of assessment, teachers are assessed on a scale from 1-20 by an inspecteur, but these assessments are rare. For example, Hussein has more than 150 teachers to supervise, so it's pretty easy to see that teachers aren't going to be getting regular feedback on their "performances" (which I think is an interesting way of describing a class). With that said, Hussein was very diligent about observing teachers, and also tried to prioritize visiting teachers who needed help, or needed a mark for the purpose of promotion or transfer. For teachers who need that extra help, Hussein often tries to link them up with a colleague who can mentor him or her. Though it's hard to fire a teacher in Morocco (harder, actually, than in the US), I think that there are similar causes for attrition: burnout, or finding better-paying work (especially for teachers who have excellent English language skills).



Of course, reading back over what I've written about teachers here, I am confident that I haven't captured the "spark" that I saw in the best teachers classrooms, and which I'm lucky enough to see in my colleagues' (and, occasionally) my own classroom. I think of the work of teacher far more as a marathon than a sprint, and I wondered what one could really tell from one observation. However, I was impressed by how much one can see about a teachers rapport, organization and methodology in just a short lesson. I know, for me, that I always came away with something that I will use in my own classroom.

Administrators and Policy-Makers

The final stakeholders in education are the administrators and policy-makers. Of course, I don't know any policy-makers personally, but I will take a chance to speculate a bit on changes that seem to be coming down the road for Moroccan education. Before I do so, though, I thought that I'd just speak a bit about the administrative structure (remember when I warned you that this post was going to be boring?!) of Moroccan schools. The Moroccan schools follow the French model of administration, which means that each school has a principal, who is in charge of scheduling, attendance, facilities, interacting with students, school safety...mostly of the same things that your principal did for you when you were a kid. Interestingly, though, the principal is not in charge of evaluating, hiring or firing teachers; that's the inspecteur's job. 

So, basically, Moroccan schools have an extra layer of administration, who, like Hussein, spend all their time working on evaluating and developing talent in teachers. What are the advantages to this? As far as I can tell, the advantages include a less adversarial relationship between principals and their staff, as well as professional development that's subject specific: Hussein only observes teachers of English, and he's super good at helping them with their specific subject. Principals in the US may not know or remember how to diagram a sentence or solve a quadratic equation, and are often giving feedback to those who do. The big disadvantage--and this is one which Hussein recognizes--is, as I mentioned above, that teachers get feedback very infrequently from their inspecteur. I get the impression that Hussein is among the best--very dedicated to seeing as many teachers as possible. I do know that some teachers don't even know who their inspecteur is! Hussein thinks that the system will eventually change to give building principals more power, but teachers generally oppose this. Many think that the principal wouldn't know enough about their specific subject to give them feedback, and, for others, I think that the idea of having the big boss right next door is unappealing. Either way, I've learned a great deal from watching the way that teacher evaluation is handled in Morocco, and it makes me realize that empowering administrators to provide meaningful feedback to teachers is among the biggest challenge that both Moroccan and American schools face.

Finally, like much of Moroccan society, the educational system is undergoing a great deal of change right now. There is currently a strike of teacher-trainees, due to changes proposed by the Ministry of Education. Now, instead of guaranteeing that all teacher-trainees will be placed in a school (and thus, employed), they promise that only most will be. This has embroiled the teacher-trainees in a months-long strike, but may be a step towards more teacher accountability, a movement which has obviously been going gangbusters in the United States.

A protest of teachers in Essaouira. I really like that they wear these cool white coats in schools.

In another move that's sure to bring change, King Mohammed VI has asked the Ministry of Education to re-examine the Islamic Studies curriculum for the country. Now, when the King asks you to re-examine something, it's clear that he wants some kind of change...but what?! Fortunately, the group in charge of making a recommendation about this curriculum is quite diverse, with scholars, religious leaders, human rights activists and teachers, and the King seems genuinely receptive to changing (I won't use the word "modernizing") this curriculum. Certainly, this change is part of an overall effort to combat religious extremism in all avenues of Moroccan society. A friend told me: "We watch what happened in Libya, in Syria, in Tunisia, and, obviously, we fear that we are next. The King is doing a good job--our leaders are doing a good job--but we are all looking over our shoulder." What effect this change will have on the overall course of study for students is a huge question, and one which will surely be hotly debated in educational circles and the larger community.

Some Thank Yous

There's no way that I can individually thank the dozens of teachers who welcomed me into their classrooms, the principals who sat with me in their offices or toured me around their campuses, proudly showing off trophies or ribbons won by their students, or the students, who asked me so many thoughtful questions, told me where to get the best pizza in Tangier, and argued with me about which football team to support. Thank you all for reminding me that the work of education is a shared, joyful, lifetime endeavor. 

As special thanks to Hussein, who is an inspiring educator, great administrator, and amazing friend.

And our distinguished panel of judges...two experts and one guy from America.