Mother Bear

Last Thursday, a neighbor called me saying that her son had told her that a teacher had spanked him. She was irate saying she never spanks her kids because she herself is a product of the ‘abusive Moroccan system’ which beats, hits, and screams at kids their whole education. I went over to see her just as she was walking towards the school saying she was going to beat the teacher up. I pulled her back to the apartment and made her promise that she would only talk to the director and not beat up the teacher. She agreed and we headed back toward the school.

Waiting for the director in a large, public room, said teacher walked in. My neighbor went completely crazy mad - Screaming and springing to her feet, she slapped the teacher across the face. I pulled her back on the couch and restrained her on the couch for several minutes until someone finally removed the teacher (thank goodness for mandt training). Then she proceeded to scream at the director for probably half an hour. The director stayed amazingly calm, and later I realized something funny actually happened during that time. As they were having this HEATED discussion, they were polite enough to switch every now and then into English for my benefit! Finally I got my neighbor out of the building where I promptly semi-yelled at her - “What do you think you are doing??? This is how wars start!” “I don’t care!” she yelled back, “If she treats my child like a savage, I’ll treat her like a savage!” We went back to our house where another neighbor and I talked to her for over an hour trying to calm her down.

The next day, the teachers went on strike against ‘parental aggression.’ I was amazed at how calm the Moroccan parents were about it all. They are obviously used to strikes! We Americans, meanwhile, were freaking out! The kids are expelled from school and the mother is not allowed on site.

Yesterday school was back in session and I had a very good talk with Kendra’s teacher. This community is already so split apart by all the conflicts we’ve had this year, it will take a lot of work to get through this.

So much for a boring day!