Thomas Education

In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire, by Robert Hoyland. (2015)   This book brings some objectivity to the typical sweeping claims about the explosive Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries.  Ironically, in demystifying the implied claims that the Qur'an was the primary driver of the conquest, the author removes the rationale for the title of his book.  According to the preponderance of the various contemporary sources, and the latest historical evidence, the conquests were mostly Islamic, and mostly Arab; but a substantial proportion was neither Islamic nor Arab.  The original conquerors from Arabia were not innocent shepherds suddenly motivated by the will of Allah; rather, they were nomads with a long fighting tradition, and had long served (and trained) in other armies. His more radical conclusions are couched in careful language: for example, the Qur'an itself makes little mention of iconography, and mostly ...

One of my two phones today reflected a timezone change, as it is set to West European Summer Time, which falls back one hour on Sunday the 27th.    However, we are in Morocco, not Western Europe.  Reportedly, last year Morocco decided to spring ahead one hour in the summer, and stay that way (except for the Holy Month of Ramadan, but that's a different story!).  So, during summertime we follow West European Summer Time; but in the fall, we are on West African Time ?  or is it Central European Time?  Which name would our tourism & marketing department prefer to use?   There were rumors that Morocco would suddenly decide to fall back again, as had happened a few years ago -- but evidently not.  Son Excellence Le Roi is apparently opting for stability.  I agree, stability is better, where clocks are concerned.  The E.U. has declared that every member nation should decide on its single timezone by next year.  I'm sure that'...

Today, October 22nd, is the first day of serious rainfall in Rabat since May.  It stifles our outdoor activity a bit, but is a welcome cleaner of streets and sidewalks.  Americans do not realize the important cleaning function of regular rainfall.   While I was working in the Fulbright Commission’s library last week, they brought in a book recently published by one of their alumni, about ceramics in Morocco.  Then separately I get an invitation to attend his book talk at the American Legation in Tangier. We attend the book talk on Thursday evening (yes, we bought his expensive book), in the stunningly beautiful rambling old Legation building, and I urge Barbara to walk to the other side of the Medina to a notable café -- googlemaps can lead us through the Medina, surely. Narrower and narrower alleys, with stray cats and young men standing warily, then a group of young men in the alley ahead arguing loudly...we beat a hasty retreat to our hotel by the t...

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.) ...