Now, in previous blog entries, I’ve mentioned loving my job. I really did. This sounds corny, I know, but there’s something about a child’s smile that makes me get all bright and giddy inside. I learned so much about Moroccan culture from my students, and they were overjoyed to learn about life across the pond. I walked to the bus after work with a goofy grin every day.
That said, I’ve waited to fully expound upon the less-glamorous aspects of the Moroccan schooling system.
Anyway, I taught at a school in Sala Jadida.
A little bit of geographical background: outside of Rabat is Sale. Outside of Sale is the underdeveloped and agrarian New Sale, otherwise known as Sala Jadida. My commute clocked in at an hour and a half each way.
The school was underfunded, disorganized, and all kinds of chaotic. Classes invariably ran ten minutes behind schedule, and teachers spent half their time disciplining kids.
At the front of every classroom, there was a wooden block – square on one end, trapezoidal on the other. It was used for two things: banging the blackboard to quiet kids down and corporal punishment. It was used very, very, often. From 8 to 5, the halls of the school rang with the oppressive knocking noise of the infernal blocks clanging against blackboards.
A fellow English teacher would often complain to me about how the children don’t listen, pay attention in class, or do their homework. She would then roll her eyes at me and sigh exasperatedly, as if to elicit agreement. I never gave her one.
These were intelligent kids. They picked up the vocabulary I gave them very quickly and were always eager to learn more about all things America. The problem was that this teacher would write a sentence or two on the board every day and force every student in every one of her classes to sit still, be silent, and copy it verbatim. These children were as young as six.
When kids screwed up, she would approach them and yell or just scoff dismissively. If a student talked too loudly, she would pick up his or her book and wail on his or her head with it. (Just to be clear: the books were soft cover – but still!) If a student forgot his or her book or didn’t do his or her homework, she would make them stand up at the front of the classroom and hit them harshly on the palms with the unassuming wooden block.
Never once did I hear her verbally laud a student. If they did well on a homework assignment, she would write “Good”. No exclamation mark, no smiley face, no fun swirly thing – just “Good”. I made a habit of grading my papers with large, grinning, cartoons. Kids went nuts as soon as I returned the first batch of papers. They actually rushed my desk with completed homework assignments, desperate for some sort of affirmation.
The most jarring part of this whole mess was that this teacher was a genuinely gregarious person – outside of class. She was always amicable to me and laughed and smiled with her students as long as she didn’t have chalk in her hand. The contrast made her in-class causticity all the more disconcerting. It wasn’t just her, though. Every single educator I met at the school was liker her: kind, warm, and gentle - except for when teaching.
It was an intense job. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen kids beaten. I try not to think about how many times I’ve seen kids cry. I realized that I couldn’t single-handedly stop that from happening. I resolved to do my best as a teacher and lead by example – it was really all I could do. In my classroom, I traded copybooks for skits, blows to the head for pats on the shoulder, censure for praise, tears for smiles, and fear for happiness.
On the last day, I saw the aforementioned teacher hit a kid. I had suggested alternate methods of discipline since I began working at the school, but my input went unheeded. I approached the teacher and asked calmly why she hits her students, noting that we never do that in America. She was uncomfortably cavalier in her response: “They don’t do their homework, so I have to…”
She raised the wooden block to hit the next student. He broke down in tears, begging for forgiveness. She put her head in her hand, dropped the block extravagantly, and sent the kid back to his seat.
So that felt pretty awesome. I really did feel like I had made a difference.
Here are some pictures. Enjoy!
