The Life of Gerald

Wow - what a crazy few weeks it has been! We thought we were so very clever to make our tickets late to avoid as much of Ramadan as possible, but regretted this decision as soon as we arrived. Thankfully our jet lag was mild and Gerald and I were both able to report to work the morning after we pulled into town.

Gerald has been back at it with his graduate coordinator duties overshadowing the time he would like to use preparing for classes. He has done a great job of organizing and streamlining a very disheveled and growing graduate program much to the deep appreciation of the graduate students. Nonetheless, a whole troop of them insisted (or conspired to insist) they did not get his email this summer of thesis proposal deadlines and so he spent the first few days of classes wielding off students begging to have the due date moved.

Then there was the class-start date. Because they never know when religious holidays will be since this depends on moon sightings, classes were to start Thursday. When they found out Eid - the biggest holiday of the year - would be on Wednesday and the students would need the Thursday for travel - they moved the start date to Friday with a make-up day on Saturday. Of course, no one wanted to be there and it started the year off badly.

Gerald’s classes were also changed because of two professors leaving rather suddenly in the summer, but thankfully he has taught the new class before.

Happily for us through all this, one of Gerald’s favorite methods of procrastination is to cook. He has become quite the chef - always trying something new and always having delicious results. He has even become a ‘backseat’ cook when I am cooking, peeking over my shoulder while making recommendations and comments until I tell him to either cook it himself or find something else to do!

The first day of classes a young lady came into Gerald’s office. She had somehow managed to enter and register for the graduate program past the deadline and all in one day. She asked Gerald to be let into a class he had already closed and had told four other students they could not enter. When he told her this, she very politely said she thought she would be let in anyway if she talked to the president. Later Gerald talked to his dean about the situation who informed him the young lady is the sister to Princess Laila Salma (the king’s wife). Well, that explained a lot!

Back in the Saddle

I have loved getting back into teaching. I have a tiny class - only eight students who sat there on the first day so very perfectly that I had to ask them to please make some noise! I’m used to three times that amount!

Even though I signed up for half-time, the work has been full-time these first few weeks. We are starting the American system from scratch and although there are textbooks, they are all old and do not match the current standards. The system started too late to order books and I think the new director is against textbooks anyway, so we are getting all our resources off the internet. This takes huge amounts of time and paper. The school has approved and paid for a few websites so we have to find and print out all our materials and books from them. But the sites don’t have everything, so I spend a lot of time searching for grammar worksheets, ESL activities, etc. etc. I feel like I’m reinventing the wheel every day. It doesn’t help that the printer is often out of paper and ink, the copier almost never works, and other frustrated teachers have been known to print out entire 300-page textbooks tying up the printer for large amounts of time.

I deeply miss the well-equipped teacher supply-room back in Topeka. There are few supplies so I used our beach towels to cover my bulletin board and painted & cut out letters on butcher paper for the boards. Everything has to be colored with no color printer and no teacher supply stores from which to get things like alphabets or posters. I now realize how spoiled I was in Kansas!

The computers all have the French keyboard with Arabic letters on the keys as well which means I have to change the language setting every time and not look at my fingers otherwise I will get hopelessly confused! The language defaults back to French every time I go to a different website which adds to the fun. When I asked the school everything-guy for an English keyboard in my room to teach typing - he got out his keys, popped off a bunch of the letters with them, rearranged the letters, reset the default language and told me that was as good as it would get. All the symbols and other keys are still different, but at least it’s a start!

Scheduling has been a nightmare trying to work with my half-day restrictions, fitting in three languages, and working with the high school teachers who are on a different schedule. I think I redid my schedule at least ten times. Once, when reworking my schedule yet again I asked, “Isn’t it a problem for the students to do English, then French, then Arabic, and back to English all before lunch?” I received blank stares. Apparently it’s not a problem.

Then there are the levels. My eight kids are on five different reading levels ranging from second grade to sixth grade. Trying to figure out how to make this work as well as to keep my two native-English speakers challenged has been - well, a challenge!

In spite of all this, I love what I am doing. It feels so good to be back in the classroom and I am hoping that I am to the point where I actually know what I will do two days from now and not just one! I also hope that when things calm down, I will be able to see my girls more than when I stayed home since I teach one of them and the other is next door!

I know most of the students except the new girl, who is the daughter of the governor of the province of Ifrane. She is very bright and her English level is great. The students knew me as either “Miss Julie” or “Mommy” and have been told by the director I must be “Mrs. Reimer” to all. They have really struggled with this and amazingly, Katrina has done about the best at it! But I’m “Mommy” until 8:15 and right after 3:30! It hasn’t been strange at all to teach her probably because I’ve done so many activities with her as part of the group that we are all used to it.

Yesterday at the school picnic it was amazing to see the school finally as one instead of the French system vs. the American system (the elementary was French and high school was American and believe me, the two were at war). The parents of my students came up and hugged me and were so wonderful and supportive. They asked me to be a little meaner so their kids would at least be scared enough to do their work! They got a little too used to the teacher their kids have had the last two years! I assured them I could get the students to work without screaming at them!

The first day I started the kids on journaling and told them this was just to practice writing and they would not be graded. They are so happy to have this opportunity that I have not been able to get them to stop. I asked them to hand in their journals Friday and they said, “No! We want to write all weekend! We want you to have A LOT to read!”

Speaking of - that was a lot for you to read! Time to stop!

Still Here!

So sorry for the bad communication! Here I am watching our cat invite his best buddy in for a cat food break , feeling the cool breeze blow through the house, and trying to get ready for Monday.

We had a wonderful summer in the States and are now back in Morocco. Gerald's classes have started up and I will begin half-time teaching Monday! Yes, I'm going back to the classroom! I'll be teaching 5th & 6th grade Language Arts and Science.

Since we arrived in Morocco the 23rd of August and both started work the 24th, we are behind to say the least! I am hoping this week to be able to catch a breath and write a real entry here. In the mean time, know we do have time to think of and pray for you all!

PS - Cookie (the other cat) finally got brave enough to come in for a snack. In a few minutes the two of them will trot out again. I used to fight this behavior - but on the first floor, sometimes it's just easier to give in! Sometimes Cookie comes in for a sleepover (unbeknownst to us) which I don't appreciate one bit!