{"id":667,"date":"2013-10-10T07:57:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T07:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=667"},"modified":"2024-04-19T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T19:24:15","slug":"teachers-in-telouet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=667","title":{"rendered":"Teachers in Telouet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day of visiting teachers in Telouet is a study in contrasts: the movie studios we pass on the road out of Ouarzazate both opposing and imitating the villages themselves; the teacher’s thumbdrive serving as an unexpected counterpoint to his improvised, plastic-covered blackboard, and so on.
\n\"IMG_1091\"<\/a>
\nHere are some highlights of the trip:<\/p>\n

School 0<\/strong>:\u00a0On the road into the first small village, we pass a gaggle of children on the road.\u00a0 The tallest boy in the group runs to shake hands with Hassan out the driver\u2019s side window.\u00a0 \u201cHassan used to teach in this village,\u201d Ahmed explains.\u00a0 \u201cThat boy was one of his students.\u201d Clearly, Hassan was a beloved teacher. \u00a0Still, I wonder why the children are not in school this morning. \u00a0At this first stop, we don\u2019t even get out of the car.\u00a0 There\u2019s a small school on the left and a small residence up the hill on the right.\u00a0 Hassan calls to the children in the school, but there doesn\u2019t seem to be a teacher present.\u00a0 One of the children runs up the steps to bang on the door.\u00a0 After five extended poundings, Hassan calls him back, laughing.\u00a0 Enough is enough: either the teacher is not present or he or she is not in a state to meet with us. Hassan restarts the car and we drive on.<\/p>\n

School 1<\/strong>: As Ahmed asks the teacher, Lahcen, about the needs he would like to see addressed in the next training session, Hassan talks to some of the children, trying to help the little girl nearest me to see where she went wrong with the math problem in her notebook. What Lahcen most wants is a way to use the materials Hassan and Ahmed are bringing (a set of picture books and children\u2019s magazines) to really develop a love of reading in his students.\u00a0 It\u2019s a central issue: how to make these materials come to life for the children?
\n\"IMG_1094\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1098\"<\/a>
\nSchool 2<\/strong>:\u00a0We stop at a preschool where the teacher who\u2019s been participating in training has now moved onto a new placement in Rabat; her replacement asks eagerly whether she could participate in the training instead.
\n\"IMG_1141\"<\/a><\/p>\n

School 3<\/strong>: \u00a0A\u00a0husband-and-wife team divide the upper classes: Abdulrachman teaches French, and Hayat teaches Arabic.\u00a0 Only during this visit do I realize that the school day starts around 8:00 and ends at about 12:30, with a break at 10-10:15; after the break, the children who have been studying with Hayat go to work with Abdelrachman and vice versa<\/i>.\u00a0 In most of the schools in this area, education continues to be split evenly between Arabic and French, with the students speaking Tamazight at home.\u00a0 In this context, my limited Arabic and non-existent Tamazight make me feel like a slouch.<\/p>\n

The walls of Hayat\u2019s classroom have posters about H1N1 and others proclaiming Allahu akhbar: God is great.\u00a0 I\u2019m struck by the mix of state religion and hygiene.\u00a0 Hayat is wearing a bathrobe, as are some of her students, for warmth; she\u2019s just had a tooth pulled, and still suffers pain in that jaw.\u00a0 But she\u2019s sharply focused on the books and the discussion of pedagogical needs.\u00a0 She is looking for activities that children can do independently for a sustained period of time, to enable her to intervene more directly and extensively with those children who are struggling.
\n\"IMG_1119\"<\/a>
\nAs we are leaving, Hayat addresses me in a mixture of French and English, and we end up talking about family.\u00a0 It turns out that the teachers have a four-year-old son and eighteen-month-old daughter.\u00a0 The children sleep until 10, when Hayat runs home to make breakfast for them before coming back to teach the second half of the morning.\u00a0 I hope there\u2019s an adult home with the children as well, and I assume there is, but I don\u2019t want to ask.\u00a0 Still, I\u2019m struck by the lack of margin in Hayat\u2019s life, the pressure to be teacher and mother, even though I\u2019m sure she also celebrates the opportunity to fill both roles as fully as she can.\u00a0 I\u2019m missing my children as well, as we climb back in the car for the next extended drive down the rough piste.<\/p>\n

School 4<\/strong>: We wait for the teacher to come back from lunch. \u00a0The director of the school invites us to sit in his office, and eventually tea is produced. \u00a0Hassan and Ahmed take the opportunity to ask whether the teacher we\u2019re waiting for has been sharing her new resources with other teachers at the school.\u00a0 \u201cNot really,\u201d the director replies; pressed for detail, he specifies: she hasn\u2019t shared software or library books or teaching techniques.\u00a0 Ahmed recaps the conversation for me while the director goes off in response to a different teacher\u2019s request.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s not good,\u201d I respond, somewhat indignantly.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing you found out.\u00a0 People shouldn\u2019t hoard resources.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, but perhaps she didn\u2019t understand what we were asking of her,\u201d Ahmed replies gently, and I stand reproved.\u00a0 When will generosity come as my first response to other people\u2019s actions?
\n\"IMG_1147\"
\nWhen Sukhaina arrives, in fact, she is full of energy and ideas. \u00a0In the past training, she appreciated Lotto as a way of teaching students categories of French vocabulary.\u00a0 What she most wants from this next training is a demonstration of different learning games: she wants her students to learn by doing.\u00a0 Asked about what she\u2019s done to share what she\u2019s gained from the workshops, Sukhaina is quick to say that her fellow teachers haven\u2019t been interested in learning what she\u2019s been taught, and Ahmed quietly but firmly clarifies: even if the other teachers are not interested, you need to take books to them, you need to demonstrate the software or describe a new teaching strategy in staff meetings.\u00a0 Work with your director: he\u2019s keen to extend the read of the training.<\/p>\n

School 5<\/strong>: We spend quite a while at the next school: Ahmed goes off to talk with the director of the school and Hassan and I hang out in the preschool class. \u00a0Some seventeen 3-4-year-olds sit at two long rows of tables; another 4 children sit on a rug at the side of the room. \u00a0The teacher is working on Arabic: she’s drawn a stick figure on the board, and the children repeat the fusHa (or modern standard Arabic) after her: femoon, nefoon, eienoon, oudnoon. \u00a0It’s odd to hear this formal-sounding language coming out of these tiny mouths.<\/p>\n

Hassan focuses his attention on Leila, a three-year-old deaf girl. \u00a0She’s tiny, engaging, just on the almost-manageable side of hyperactive. \u00a0When it’s Leila’s turn to go to the board, the teacher has her point to the stick figure, then stroke the relevant part of her own body: modified signing. \u00a0Hassan calls a boarding school for the deaf in Ouarzazate: a school where he used to work. \u00a0The director there agrees to talk more with Hassan about Leila’s case, and the two try to set up an assessment for Leila. \u00a0Her best hope, Hassan thinks, is to go to the boarding school, even at age 3. \u00a0There’s no instruction for her, and almost no potential for communication, in her home village. \u00a0In the not too distant past, deaf people have been physically abused (Hassan’s word is “tortured”) in Morocco.
\n\"IMG_1168\"<\/a><\/p>\n

School 6<\/strong>: Ahmed tries to call ahead, but when we arrive, the teacher is nowhere to be seen. \u00a0“Moroccan mobile phones!” Ahmed jokes. \u00a0“Even when you talk to the person, the phones don’t work.”<\/p>\n

We sit in the director’s office and Hanan arrives, along with tea and little tea cookies. \u00a0I’m particularly impressed with the teaching books and materials Hanan has produced. \u00a0Talking about digital stories leads into a conversation about how much the children enjoy doing plays with home-made puppets. \u00a0She also shows us the story books her older children have produced–and the flip books she has made to help her students understand components of French words (syllables, prefixes, suffixes, etc.)
\n\"IMG_1190\"<\/a> \"IMG_1189\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bonus school<\/strong>: As we near the road back to Ouarzazate, we pass a new “community school” that has only just opened. \u00a0The idea here is that numerous small villages will send their children to this one larger community school. \u00a0The school is designed to hold some 80 boarding students and about 200 day students. \u00a0The whole place is spanking clean and new. \u00a0The students are practicing for an inaugural ceremony: they are singing the national anthem. \u00a0Hassan and Ahmed know everyone here, from the gardener to the director. \u00a0Everyone gives them a hero’s welcome.
\n\"IMG_1192\"
\nI’m struck by the fact that Hassan and Ahmed vanish briefly (sequentially, leaving someone to keep an eye on me) to pray. \u00a0We started the day at 7:30 in the morning; we were given some bread, butter, olives and honey at about 10 a.m.; it’s now 5 p.m. \u00a0One of the phrases from the dawn call to prayer (or just before) is this: “It is better to pray than to sleep.” \u00a0I think of this now: for Ahmed and Hassan, it seems, it is better to pray than to eat. \u00a0I am terrifically impressed with their dedication, their good humor, their attentiveness, their focus. \u00a0When I try to tell them this, they laugh. \u00a0“We work harder than Americans!” they exclaim, wonderingly. \u00a0It becomes clear that they are trying, quietly, to transform their country, to compensate for their countrymen and women who are not working as hard as they might. \u00a0Education is the key to the transformation they desire: a world of possibility and hope for all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day of visiting teachers in Telouet is a study in contrasts: the movie studios we pass on the road out of Ouarzazate both opposing and imitating the villages themselves; the teacher’s thumbdrive serving as an unexpected counterpoint to his improvised, plastic-covered blackboard, and so on. Here are some highlights of the trip: School 0:\u00a0On … Continue reading Teachers in Telouet<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4JDdJ-aL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2835,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/2835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}