Note From An Anonymous Moroccan Woman

The English center where I teach caters mainly to the upper middle and upper classes in Meknes. To try to balance out my work there, I volunteer at the Franciscan mission in Meknes's old medina, which gives language and computer skills classes. Year long courses there cost 50 Dh (~ $7) as opposed to the ten-week courses at my official job which cost around 1000 Dh (~ $130).

Last week I gave my first writing assignment, and I'm only now getting around to correcting it.

One paragraph in particular stood out. The woman who wrote it is in her late thirties or early forties, making her the oldest in a class of students in their teens and twenties. In class exercises she has spoken about her love for her children and her job cleaning houses. She is one of the most eager to answer questions and try out new grammar and vocabulary. Other than that I know nothing about her.

This is her paragraph verbatim:

A great thing in liFe is to find the kind of occupation that suits us it may even be said that this is on of the chief conditions For keeping perFect heath.
For my the best thing that I have in life is make cheldren and the worst is the Didn't study more in scool or in liFe.
this is the Fist stap let me begin studies.

Ramadan Ends

These days, the coffee shops close between 9 PM and 10 PM these days. They open in the morning rather than after sunset. The streets are remarkably quiet in the late evening. Step inside, the papered-over alcohol shelfs are now clearly visible. The population of prostitutes seems to have increased a few fold in the past few nights. There are fewer fights in the streets.

Ramadan is over.

Other than severely limiting my daytime consumption outside the house, Ramadan only really affected my life via teaching. Our intensive Ramadan term ended on Thursday last week, right before Eid al-Fitr. I'm proud to report my Advanced 1 students did quite well on the exam. Afterwards, in order to help them continue improving their English, I wrote up personalized evaluations for all those who have managed to find me online (a majority of the class in this case). Their responses gave me some warm fuzzies, but they also left me scratching my head a bit.

Thank you very much
You are a great teacher too
and a little bit crazy but it's fine
my writing was good thanks to you and your advice
and if you had any question about Darija, Arabic, or Moroccan culture you can ask me, I'll be glad to answer you ;D

I'm a great teacher, but I'm insane. That's a good combination, right? Well, he's obviously fine with it.

And another:

I will always be thankful to you .
For all the hard work and efforts you did . You are the bestest Teacher in the Alc .

I appreciate the thought, but the linguist in me can't help but notice that she calqued over "faire des efforts" ("exert oneself"/"try hard"/"put in a good effort") from French straight into English. And knowing the student, I'm pretty sure that 'bestest' is not a purposeful cutesy grammatical exaggeration. I'm left wondering if we should have reviewed superlatives this term.

Moroccan Teenagers On The Amish

For whatever reason the Amish occupy a special place in English textbooks. Perhaps it is because they give an example of an almost other-worldly culture that raises all sorts of interesting questions. Maybe they just serve as a nice counterpoint to any unit on technology and progress. But in any case, every time I turn around, it seems I am explaining the Amish way of life to my Moroccan students.

This time around I asked my teenage students, "Do you think you could live like the Amish?"

"No, teacher. I would kill myself."

I smiled at the hyperbole and proceeded to inquire with the rest of my students. One after another they gave similar answers. Not a single one would be interested in the natural peace of the Pennsylvania Dutch. While not all of my students agreed with the first response, a majority of them did concede the preferability of suicide to the Amish way of life.

There's a certain Moroccan sociability that overwhelms many Westerners. Moroccans' literally non-stop socialization doesn't allow Westerners their needed personal space and time. What we're witnessing right now is a shift of that cultural emphasis into digital technology, as Facebook, MSN, and Skype become practically indispensable for the new generation. While my students' parents likely would have related in part to the Amish way of life, coming generations will continue to find it depressingly inconceivable.

September 11th, Community Centers, and Koran Burning

"Teacher, al-Qaeda didn't attack the World Trade Center."

"Well, who do you think attacked the World Trade Center on September 11th, then?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't al-Qaeda," came the reply from the smartest student in my Advanced 1 class.

We had started to discuss the proposed mosque/community center a couple of blocks from Ground Zero and the huge controversy it has generated. Only one student had actually heard of it. None of them seemed to care. I took a stab at a one minute survey of American religious history and the 1st Amendment to give some context.

I tried to explain that many Americans conflate Islam with Islamists, that they don't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the much more numerous peaceful Muslims who repudiate al-Qaeda's tactics. But as I got to the part where Americans associate al-Qaeda's actions on September 11th with all Muslims, we reached a snag. Americans are wrong to associate September 11th with Islam not because al-Qaeda is unrepresentative, but because no one even remotely associated with Islam committed the heinous crime.

In contrast with their lack of interest with the "Ground Zero" mosque controversy, they were all well-versed in the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn Korans next week. All of them had seen the video I posted last week, and all of them were incensed about it.

So I tried to draw the two issues together. Did they realize that not all Americans and not all Christians wanted to burn Korans? After some thought, they could agree to this. After all, the CNN journalist interviewing Terry Jones was American, and he seemed to oppose the idea. I pointed out that Americans need to make distinctions among Muslims as well. The vast majority of people claiming to be Muslims have nothing to do with the attacks of September 11th.

I looked back at the student to see his reaction. "Do you agree, Oussama?"

He paused a moment. I don't know what he was thinking but I assume that in that pause he had decided it wasn't worth arguing with an American who presumably always believes the government's official story.

He grinned, perhaps a little mischievously, and said, "Yes, teacher."

Teaching With Skype

I am currently in the middle of a ten-day summer intensive session. Rather than sessions once or twice a week for ten weeks, an entire course is crammed into ten straight days.

It's a quick turnaround. If the students are bad, I needn't worry. They'll soon be gone. But it's also difficult to stay on top of preparation and keep the students' interest when they're spending so much time with me.

Yesterday to mix things up a bit, I had them prepare some questions and then led them in a 20-minute Skype conversation with my sister. She lives in Alaska and has never visited Morocco. Nor does she speak Arabic or French. So my students and my sister were about as culturally isolated from each other as possible, connected only by the English language, imperfectly mastered by my students as it was.

But that made the conversation all the more interesting.

One of the first things my students asked her aboutwas about the time difference. It was around 5 PM for us, and 8 AM for her. She had been up since 6:30 AM, which absolutely astounded by late-rising students.

They asked her what she thought about Morocco and what Alaska was like. They asked her if she had ever eaten Moroccan food. At one point there was some confusion because she said the temperature was in the 50's. The students thought in terms of the Celsius scale and imagined temperatures Morocco rarely reaches, when in reality it was just a typically chill Alaskan morning.

As a speaker of Arabic and French and as someone familiar with Moroccan culture practices, I often understand what Moroccans are trying to say in English where a typical American wouldn't. So, one of the challenges for any non-native speaker is moving beyond that crutch to communicating with a native speaker who is culturally and linguistically separate. Trying to do it with a temperamental technology like Skype makes it even more difficult.

But my students did excellently. I'm proud of them. I might even have to try the activity again during the longer courses.

Exam Answers: Tom Cruise Edition

Occasional humorous answers are the one consolation to grading final exams.

Here is a paragraph from a reading on one exam:
"Tom Cruise, like his mother, suffered from dyslexia and he was placed in remedial classes at school. He is right-handed when writing, but does most other things left-handed. As he was not an academic success at school, he focused on athletics and completed in many sports, including wrestling. A knee injury derailed his hopes of a promising athletic career."

The question about this paragraph read:

Why was Tom Cruise placed in remedial classes at school?

One student was a sentence off:

Because he is right-handed when writing and does most other things left-handed.

And another misinterpreted the phrase "like his mother":

Tom Cruise was placed in remedial classes at school because he likes his mother.

Taking Attendance

The secretary of our language school, who is also one of the many Moroccan teachers at our center, called me in after work.

"You've been writing a name on the attendance sheets that doesn't exist."

"Really? Whose name is it? And in which class?"

She shuffled the papers around for a while looking for the sheet in question.

"Here it is."

I looked at it. Along the top, my name, level, class period, and date were all correct. Sometimes I use the American [month/day/year] instead of the international [day/month/year] for the date. In this case, though, I had got it right.

My eyes scanned lowered. On the left side, I had written three students' names. They were all in the class, and they had all been gone that day.

I looked over at the right side. There I had written: "TARDY:" followed by another student's name. We weren't required to note the tardies, but I knew that sometimes they called the parents if students regularly waltzed in late, especially the young girls. She was definitely in the class and she had come 15 minutes late, I remembered.

The secretary pointed to the right side. "Tardy. Who is that?"

I read off the student's name. "Yes, she's definitely in the class. She is on the list."

"No, no. The name above it: Tardy. Who is that?"

I looked at her with a blank stare.

Suddenly it dawned on me. I explained to her, "'Tardy' means 'late'. I was writing down the names of the students who came late in case you want to call their parents."

"Oh...no. If you have a problem with late students just come and tell me directly."

Geopolitics According to Moroccan Students

In general, Arabs love to talk about the United States and its role in the world. So when we started the unit on "would have", "could have", "should have", I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about the relationship between the United States and the Arab world. How could the relationship have been better? What should have happened?

Surprisingly, most of my younger students couldn't care less. The issue isn't as pressing as it is in other parts of the Arab world; they live comfortably now. Solidarity is a bit passe. When they expressed their dislike for the topic, I asked for alternative topics. The most popular one was "relationships between parents and children".

Below I have posted the essay of one of my older students.

A long time ago, the relationship between the U.S. and Arab world was good until the problem of Palestine appeared. Every day Palestinians suffered and [were] murdered, while the whole world was watching those crimes without moving a finger.

Another thing, since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the policy of U.S. has changed, They consider every muslim as terrorist and they succed to convince the American citizens by using a dangerous weapon is the media of course.

By consequence, the U.S. military attacked Iraq and pretended to spead peace and achieve democracy to Iraquians but their major target is to control the sources of petroleum.

After that, the U.S. Army attacked Afganistan and tried to get Ossama Ben laden dead or alive, the friend of yesterday becomes the enemy of today, during the cold war between U.S. and URSS, the U.S. gave him weapons to fight against Russians but the things has totally changed now, he becomes the terrorist number one in the world.

In my opinion, the U.S. should be more [fair] about the Palestinian issue. It should also be aware about the danger of nuclear weapons in the middle east.

As a conclusion, I guess the relationship between Arabian governments and U.S. still strong but the citizens are disappointed about the U.S. policy.

This essay pretty accurately represents the average Arab's understanding of these issues. This student simplifies the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq war, and how the media works a bit, and he has a mistaken chronology of Iraq and Afghanistan, but otherwise he has a fairly decent understanding of world geopolitics. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he understands some of these issues much better than the average American.

As an Arab and a Muslim, of course, he is well-informed about the post 9/11 profiling of Muslims and the situation in Palestine. The average Arab has seen hours upon hours of footage from Palestine, but Americans rarely get a glimpse of Palestinian suffering. Unlike many Arabs, I am not a fan of conspiracy theories to explain this phenomenon, but the fact is: it exists.

Notice also the student's distinction between Arab governments and Arab citizens. The governments are allies of the U.S. The people (or the majority that cares enough to pay attention), strongly dislike (hate, detest?) American policy in the region.

And that's why this essay is important.

It demonstrates the average Arab's understanding of geopolitics. And when enough people believe something, exaggerated or true, it has profound effects in the real world.

Moroccan Cinema

Last night in class I had a difficult time coaxing a sustained conversation out of my students.

This happens from time to time. There are just a few subjects, like Islam, biased media, and parent-children relationships, where they're more than willing to share their thoughts. Oftentimes, there isn't much doing.

But this time the subject was movies, and the result surprised me a bit.

It wasn't so much that students didn't have favorite actors or hated movies. But any attempt to make the ideas of one student interact with the ideas of another student didn't get very far.

One of my students couldn't remember the last time she had seen a movie. The only part of the discussion she participated in was when we briefly mentioned "Titanic".

A lot of students just couldn't remember anything that they had watched recently. Most students had seen movies but couldn't remember names. This phenomenon, of course, is complicated by the fact that the French versions they often watch have been absurdly retitled.

Eventually our conversation drifted into the territory of "Why are Moroccan movies so bad?"

On that subject, my students found surprising agreement (the one woman who doesn't watch movies regularly, notwithstanding).

My students' diagnosis: Moroccan acting is pretty awful. Improve the acting and create real endings, and Moroccan cinema will be on its way to being taken seriously.

The Joy of Self-Censorship

The joy of self-censorship is that you get to stay in the country.

At least in theory.

A few days ago, my boss informed all of the American teachers at work that we were, under no circumstance, to speak about religion in the classroom.

According to Moroccan law, we are allowed to answer questions about our own faith but nothing more. Anything more might be considered proselytizing. Of course, that's our religion; we regularly talk about Islam. Any issue that motivates students to speak in English and exchange opinions is useful for language learning, and Moroccan students tend to have very strong opinions about Islam, particularly its role in modern life.

This new rule goes above and beyond what is required by law, and it takes away a useful tool that we teachers have as we try to motivate students to speak in English.

So why is it necessary?

The immediate cause of our new self-censorship rule was the arrest and deportation of a Canadian couple who had lived in Meknes for the past decade. I know nothing about them except that they owned a bookstore and were accused of proselytizing. It is likely that they were in fact in violation of the law about proselytizing. I do not know. But my boss had a passing acquaintance with them, and their deportation seems to have brought this crackdown a little closer to home for her. She has enough on her plate to have to worry about new personnel and legal issues.

Now, let's keep in mind what an English teacher would really be up against if he or she even tried to proselytize. Even if a Christian teacher tried to "shake the faith" of his or her Muslim students during one of our typical 30-hour English courses, it is extremely unlikely that he or she would have any success countering the 1000's of hours of Islamic Education required of all Moroccans before they leave school.

My personal goals teaching in Morocco are quite different from this imposing task.

The main reason I feel good about my job as an English teacher (compared with all the other unethical, societally unhelpful jobs out there) is that by helping Moroccans learn English, I am better preparing them for the challenges of globalization. It enables them to function in new situations almost wherever they go and whatever they do. And, as a well-educated native speaker of the language, I am in a unique position to help them.

But another, only slightly less important reason that I teach is that I desire to promote cultural dialogue. I firmly believe that ongoing cultural discussion is absolutely necessary if we want to avoid future violent conflict. Unfortunately, Americans have by and large decided that they are not going to learn other languages, and large numbers of them seem unconcerned by anything happening outside their borders. So the bulk of the responsibility now rests on natives of other countries, who must learn to express their religion, their culture, and their thoughts in the language of Hemingway.

Of course, in order for them to be able to convey their religion, culture, and thoughts in a way that a Westerner would understand, they must learn about the Western world. They must understand points of contact and points of divergence, similarities and differences. That involves both critical thinking skills about their own culture and knowledge about a foreign culture. I desire to promote both. Both are now severely handicapped by the current state of affairs.

On the content side of things, one of the most contentious (and yet one of the most important) issues in such ongoing dialogue is religion. The fact is the religions and the philosophies of the world disagree on fundamental issues; there is no getting around that. But, in an ideal world, we can learn about the other side and discuss those differences in openness and respect. People should be able to debate the divinity of Jesus, the prophethood of Mohammed, the textual transmission of scriptures, religious violence, and secularism. It will likely be heated, but it can still be respectful and based in true engagement with the truth of others' beliefs and practices.

I will be the first to say that Americans are certainly far from perfect; a better understanding of the Koran and the Muslim world would go a long way if we ever hope to seriously engage the Muslim world. But Moroccans also need to learn more about the Western world, its secular outlook as well as its religions, Christianity included.

There are impediments to respectful and thoughtful discussion on both sides. Of course, the fundamental difference is that in America the impediment is cultural, in Morocco it is legal.

These were my ideals in teaching: improve English ability, promote critical thinking, explain the West, and enable students to engage it. And yet, although I have stayed well within the law and the rules of my workplace, I still have a nagging fear that I too could be deported. Perhaps, it is a misplaced fear. But when power is exercised as arbitrarily as it is here in Morocco, one cannot know whether fear is properly placed or not.

I do know that in my writings and in my personal and professional life I have tried to promote the values that Muslim theologians expressed in the Common Word declaration:

So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.

I only wish that the Moroccan government would do the same.

I express these sentiments on this blog in English to a Western audience. Currently in Morocco, there are obstacles that prevent me from living out these ideals that I would hope we could all share.

The joy of self-censorship is that you get to stay in the country. The agony of self-censorship is that you silently watch the cultural misunderstandings of yesterday run untouched into tomorrow.

Coffee With My Class

My Proficiency class had no syllabus this semester--I made up the curriculum as I went along. A benefit of this set-up was that I could write my own final. I chose to make the combined score of their final presentation and their last essay count as their final grade, thus freeing up our last class session. So instead of meeting the last session, we went to a local cafe to chat in English.

The entire experience was very encouraging for me. After a number of discouraging events and encounters recently, it was great to talk with highly educated, highly motivated Moroccan youth.

One of my students, who speaks English very well and who also, incidentally, wears the head scarf, told me her goal is to eventually become CEO of an important Moroccan company. Another wants to go to France or the US for graduate studies. One student, in her essays and her speeches, has outlined what Morocco needs to do to improve the situation of women. Another has spoken eloquently about the beauty of Morocco and the pride all Moroccans should feel for it...and what that pride should entail in their daily life.

One thing I found a bit strange about our weekend coffee was the meeting place. I asked them where they wanted to meet, and the consensus pick was the local supermarket complex. This surprised me. There are dozens of excellent cafes in Meknes, but my students wanted to go to a cafe above the supermarket, filled with shabby green chairs and dirty tables.

I asked them why they wanted to meet there, and they told me that it was the most comfortable for the girls in the class. All the traditional cafes are filled with older men or couples. The environment created by the Western setup made it more friendly to a group of young individuals, male and female.

It's a similar story with McDonalds. In these places, designed with Western standards, there is a space for non-traditional interactions between the genders. More and more Moroccans grow up with an expectation that these sort of interactions and relationships are possible...but only in certain spaces: Western restaurant chains, supermarkets, and malls.

My Presentation

The past few days I have been in Agadir, Morocco for the yearly teachers' conference for our center.

On Tuesday evening I presented my American Culture Club to an audience of 30 or 40 other teachers. Despite some technical difficulties, the talk seemed to be well-received.

I explained the motivation behind the club (greater cultural understanding and the nuancing of stereotypes). Then I quickly surveyed my curriculum, showing clips of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech as well as Barack Obama's.

Afterwards, one teacher asked me how I handled a certain issue:

"So how did you handle it when students asked about the different terms: 'Negro', 'African-American', 'Colored', 'Black', etc."

I began to respond with a fairly detailed analysis, "Well, 'negro', which comes from the Spanish for black, was used in earlier times, but more recently 'African-American has become the more accepted term..."

"I know the history." At that point I suddenly realized that the man questioning me was an African-American.

"Well, I just write down all the terms on the board and say that they all have been used at different points in time. It's the simple answer to a complex question."

We agreed that the subject could be discussed at length but that in the classroom setting, a quick answer sufficed.

The questions continued, although we soon ran out of time in the question and answer period.

But then, that is probably a good sign for my presentation.

The American Culture Club Resumes

Yesterday I taught the first session of this term's American Culture Club.

Last term, we read Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred" and read parts of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. My goal was to help my Moroccan students better understand the American Dream and how the African-American experience related to it. I had four or five regular students, and by the end, I think they had a pretty decent idea of American history with a more nuanced view of American racism.

This semester, I hope to develop the same theme but move it in a different direction. We're going to watch "Remember the Titans" and learn about American football and school integration.

Most Moroccans don't have a clue just how much American culture revolves around football. Three of the questions on my pre-test I gave to the class yesterday queried them about which days of the week high school, college, and NFL games take place. When they realize that football starts on Friday night, continues Saturday, and doesn't end until Sunday night (or Monday night as the case may be), they start to come to grips with how much football the American fall weekend contains.

After the pre-test, I introduced my students to American football by showing them the highlights from the 2007 Fiesta Bowl when my beloved Oklahoma Sooners lost in startling fashion to the upstart Boise State Broncos. It was a good opportunity to show how a game works, explaining the key positions and rules along the way. By the end, I was asking them to predict what the teams were going to do. Impressively, all four of my students (three veiled girls and one boy) correctly predicted that Boise State would go for the two-point conversion in overtime.

The hour and a half allotted to the club flew by. At the end of the period, I had to smile.

I thought to myself, "I just got paid to talk about football for over an hour."

The American Culture Club

Today I taught the last section of the American Culture Club.

With just a few minutes to spare, I finished covering Barack Obama's Democratic National Speech on the American Promise. The students seemed to have enjoyed the club. Now they know a lot more about the African-American experience and the American Dream.

My goal was to nuance certain stereotypes I've encountered here in Morocco about racism in America and about the American Dream. At the very end, I asked my students if they had learned anything surprising or if any of their past assumptions about America were changed.

Only one student seemed willing to answer. He said, "It's good to learn about the history of another country, to see how it got to be where it is."

That wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I guess it's a good start. My club will continue next term with a new theme.

Another Veil

I was teaching this morning when the director of our center burst through the door.

I expected her to tell me something or to ask for permission to speak to my class.

But she immediately addressed them, "Do any of you attend the Paul Valery school?"

Three students out of my eight raised their hands.

"Are any of you students in the classes that were closed because of the swine flu?"

A bit of confusion ensued. All of them knew of the closed classes, and some of them confused that with being in the class. The director switched to French in order to clarify.

As it turned out, one of my students was in the class that was closed.

The director said to him, "Why did you think it would be ok for you to come here if you can't go to your regular school?"

There is a serious concern at our school about the swine flu. We take students from almost every school in the city. So if a student brings it to the center, it could spread further and faster. And there would be a chance that our center would be shut down.

She sent him home and walked to the next class. And I resumed my lesson.

After class, I was on my way out to eat with two of my co-workers when we saw something that stopped our conversation dead in our tracks.

Three girls, crossing the street across from us, had their faces covered. But it wasn't the veil that over half of Moroccan women wear. Instead, they were wearing medical masks.

The swine flu has arrived in Meknes.

Happy Independence Day!

Yesterday was the 53rd anniversary of Moroccan independence, and so I had the day off.

The past week I have asked class after class what they plan to do for the holiday. Are there fireworks? Parades? A special type of meal? A picnic?

Apparently, the answer to all those questions is "no".

I asked my students what they planned to do on the day off, and the most popular response in all classes was "sleep".

Welcome to the Monarchy

Sometimes when I teach, I find it beneficial to use examples that everyone knows. When everyone shares the same background knowledge, there is no interference with the vocabulary or grammar point.

So, the other day when we were learning vocabulary to describe physical appearance, I thought it would be a good idea to ask my students to describe some celebrities and public figures. I gave them a list of people including the President Obama, the soccer player Ronaldo, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

My students happily did the activity: "Teacher, teacher, President Obama is tall and has short dark hair."

But then, we reached the King of Morocco. And they balked.

I said, "Come on, what does the King of Morocco look like?"

Not a word in response.

One student tried to say something about not talking about the king.

"I just want to know what he looks like. This isn't politics or anything. Just tell me: what does he look like?" I understood that discussion of politics and the monarchy is a touchy subject. You can get sent to prison for offense to the crown. But I didn't think that describing him as medium height with short black hair and brown eyes would count.

Still: silence.

Eventually I gave up and moved on. I guess I learned something about monarchies.

Where Did The Weekend Go?

These days, it doesn't feel like I really have weekends. I work Saturday mornings for three hours and Sunday afternoons for three hours. I have plenty of free time every day of the week, but I have no 48 (or even 24) hour period that is completely free. In the end, it doesn't bother me too much, but it is a strange sort of sensation. Every week blends into the next.

The last month, I have had Mondays off, although I have used the day off to lesson plan. Starting today, though, I teach the "American Culture Club" on Monday nights. Students are allowed to come for free, but teachers receive extra pay to teach clubs. So some teachers go over the lyrics of popular songs or work on creative writing or direct dramas. I wanted to use the opportunity to help Moroccan students think about both the good and the bad sides of America.

So I'm starting my club with a section called "Dreams and Promises". We're going to read Langston Hughes' very descriptive but very manageable "A Dream Deferred" as well as selections from speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama.

I want my students to think critically about the much-touted "American Dream". It has been true for millions of immigrants, including everyone in my family, but not for everyone.

Here are some key parts of the three texts:

Dream Deferred – Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up 
like a raisin in the sun? 

Or fester like a sore-- 
And then run? 

Does it stink like rotten meat? 

Or crust and sugar over-- 
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags 
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Martin Luther King, Jr.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!

Barack Obama

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.
That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.
And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.
The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.
But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

A Tale of Two English Language Schools

Yesterday I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Franciscan mission Le Pere for the first time. One of the priests, who teaches English, was engaged with another activity and couldn't teach. So I substituted.

As I entered the classroom, the discrepancies between my employer and this mission became clear. There was no TV or any other audio-visual opportunities for teaching aids. And instead of a nice whiteboard, there was only an ancient green chalkboard that was not very amenable to crisp, clear writing. On a positive note, the class size was about the same as what I was used to, around 20 students.

We were studying the present continuous ("I am learning", "you are learning", "he is learning", etc.) and negation in the present tense. In my teacher training, I was instructed to avoid as much as possible the teacher-dominated mode. Language learning happens best when students have many opportunities to practice, with each other and with the teacher.

So after using the present continuous in a few different contexts and explaining how it was formed, I gave the students a question to ask their partners using the present continuous. All of the students just repeated the question very loudly. Then silence. I was a bit baffled. I assumed that they understood that I wanted them to actually converse with their neighbors. But the majority of their instruction up until then had been in such a teacher-dominated, rote-repetition sort of mode that they didn't even understand that I was asking them to try to communicate with each other.

I acted out what I wanted with one of the students and they appeared to get the idea. So I asked them to do the same thing again, this time with more success.

Beforehand, I was told that the class was an intermediate class, but they were more closer to the beginner level where I normally work. So I lowered my level a little bit.

Rather than frustration, this challenge inspired me. I started thinking about what I could do if given more time to work with them.

After the class, as I was walking to my real job, one of the students ran after me. "Excuse me. Teacher. Teacher."

"Yes."
"Is it good your center?"
"You mean the American Language Center?"
"Yes, that."
"I think it's quite good. But it's also quite expensive."
"That's ok. I will go."
I smiled, shook his hand, wished him luck, and headed back to the new city.

"Teacher, Teacher"

If I were to ask you which word you think that Moroccan students of English would say more than any other in the classroom, you might guess some boringly common word like "the", "of" or "and".

And in theory you would be right. But we all know that real life experience ranges far from the theoretical and statistical "truths" that we expect every particular situation to conform to.

After a week of teaching English to Moroccan students who range in age from 10 to 40 (not all in the same class, of course), I can testify with absolute certainty that, of the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, the most common word that comes out of their mouths is "teacher".

While they may use "the" and "and" in most sentences, the students match and surpass those words' occurrences with their repeated pleas for permission to speak in class.

From the very first day, this sort of behavior has baffled me. I admit my memory of elementary school has faded, and my conception of the real life classroom has faded into some sort of ideally-ordered learning laboratory thanks to a year teaching extremely well-behaved Ivy League students. However, it still seems that if a student is going to say something in class, it would be more logical for the student to say the answer, rather than repeating ad nauseam my job title.

What I do remember from elementary school (students of which compose only two of my six classes, in any case) is that we would get in trouble for "blurting out the answer"--readers who were forced to endure time in class with me when I was younger are free to comment on how often I was a perpetrator of this offense--but I don't ever recall being reprimanded taking the relationship of the person in front of the class with the rest of us and repeating it as if it were going out of style. And I am inclined to think that I do not remember it happening because it did not happen. I remember my fellow students and myself as the all-or-nothing sort of children: either we blurted out the answer or we respectfully attracted the teacher's gaze by straining our arms skywards and perhaps grunting to emphasize our exertion.

I realized today that my students' insistence on addressing me as "teacher" extends beyond merely those in my classroom. When one of the Moroccan employees came around to collect attendance, he held out his hand to request my attendance sheet and addressed me very respectfully as "teacher".

At that point, it dawned on me that "teacher" was being used as a form of address in the way that we might say "professor" or "sir", a conclusion that is confirmed by how the Arabic title for teacher (الاستاذ - "al-ustedh") is used.

This realization made me feel slightly better about the situation. Their use of "teacher" represents what linguistics call "first language interference". Students take a structure from their native language and extend it into the second language (or third or fourth language, as the case may be) without realizing how it fits into the new social and linguistic context.

However, I still think I would prefer that, if they are going to say something, they would just skip straight to blurting out the answer. At least then, I would be exposed to more of the lexicogical variety of the English language.