Thomas Education

During my years teaching English literature and composition in high school, I focused on showing students the impact of stories, of literature, of words well-crafted.  Frankly I was trying to stimulate their interest in a subject often seen as boring or difficult, particularly when compared to the social and personal changes they are navigating as adolescents.  Some literature, some writing, has a strong effect on us all. So this teacher enjoyed reading the recent op-ed piece by the head of the Wri ting Center at Harvard. " learning to write matters because some day they may have something to say that really matters"

As we prepare for teaching classes and seminars, and for conversations with local representatives, we are mindful of our somewhat liminal position: though we are supervised by the embassy, we are not direct employees.  Though strict security constraints may not apply, we are still clearly representatives of the U.S.  Though we may express our personal views, in our professional realm we encourage conversation and discussion, not conflict.  As invited guests in Morocco, we honor our hosts' sensitivities while bringing our ideas to the table.  In our orientation sessions we reviewed a few topics that are particularly delicate in Morocco though they may be regular fuel for classroom discussion in the U.S.:  the position of the King and the royal family; the role of Islam as the established religion of the state; the role of the police and the F.A.R. (royal armed forces), and local laws, particularly those regarding social mores such as reproductive rights and gende...

23 September 2019 we attended the USAID congratulatory closing ceremony for the Career Center program:  JT & Barbara, along with Fellows Turner and Mishra.   We arrived at the Sofitel soon after 9am, mingled with guests:  I had a long chat with Monica Carlson, Director Program Management Office USAID.   I also briefly met with the Technical Director of the Career Center (en francais), but again I did not catch his name.   The event proper started at 9:30, with the arrival of Education Minister Amzazi and DCM Green. It was well-run, almost completely in French, with a chipper Frenchwoman MC and her male Moroccan sidekick (the woman spoke very quickly, while his speech was more intelligible).   Minister Amzazi spoke about 10 minutes, completely from prepared notes, very polished and sincere and intelligible French.  He made particular note of the importance of teaching English (he named no other language), and of course a...

​An important technique of my classrooms has been cold-calling, using random selection of students.  Here's a progressive politics rationale for that! https://chroniclevitae.com/news/2244-what-elizabeth-warren-can-teach-us-about-teaching Actually, they don't fully describe her classroom process, as it sounds like she's only  random with a subset.  But the general idea is there! At least she's not simply calling on those with their hands raised--that's patently unfair, in my book. What methods have I used?  The best I've found, for K-12 students anyway, is the popsicle stick method, with a can that contains one stick with each student's name on it.  I publicly display the can, ask a question, then publicly select a stick.  Everyone pays attention.  Nobody's left out.  (I admit to occasionally cheating, in unusual cases, to avoid calling on someone.  But even then, I go through the motions so that the process seems fair.) ...

(Naive) Jimmy Stewart says to (questioning) Doris Day, eleven minutes into the film "The Man Who Knew Too Much"   I know this is mysterious Morocco, but let's not lose our heads. Film: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955), Alfred Hitchcock's remake of his 1934 film: the first half of the movie takes place in Marrakech, in "French Morocco", and contains a bit of Arabic and quite a bit of French dialogue.  The Hotel La Mamounia is there, as well as some scenes in the famous quaint old marketplace of Marrakesh. The only direct cultural reference: a key (French) character declares that a Moroccan wife will never allow her face to be unveiled in public.  Otherwise there is little specific reference to Morocco -- though Jimmy Stewart wryly agrees when his little son says that the name "Marrakesh sounds like a drink" ! Book: In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire, by Robert Hoyland. (2015)   This book brin...

Abortion is illegal in Morocco -- both the doctor and the woman can be arrested and sentenced up to several years in prison.  Extramarital sexual relations are also illegal, though only worth one month in prison.    Morocco has been gradually, ever so gradually, relaxing its patriarchal hold on women's lives; the current king seems to want to be an exemplar of enlightened (and enlightening) religious monarchy, granting more and more rights to women.  And yet... Yesterday a newspaper reporter was arrested, along with her fiancé and her doctor, as she left a clinic.  She claims that 1-she had a muslim marriage ceremony last week; and 2-she was suffering a miscarriage.  This has stirred up the capital's social media scene, and likely will remain a hot topic when we arrive in Rabat in a couple of weeks. To further stir the pot, a pro-government site published a medical report indicating that it was an abortion at the 7th week of pregnancy, contradicting...

Morocco has long been multilingual, since the Romans and then the Arabs conquered the coastlines and brought their languages with them, while the indomitable mountain tribes maintained their unique dialects (the Roman's designation of barbarian became our modern term "Berber").  When we plan a public school system, how do we decide which language to treat as primary -- or which two languages?  How many can we fit?  What is the medium of instruction at higher levels, for science and math and literature? Morocco has been a solid francophone country for over a hundred years, with a firmly-established francophone educational and governmental system.  The Arabic language has gained prominence since the development of the Arab League -- but Morocco's dialect of Arabic has diverged greatly from the classical Arabic of the Qur'an, Modern Standard Arabic, and the Egyptian or Levantine Arabic of mass media. So there is an honest debate about the selected language of instr...