What is privacy?

I've been trained in the American educational system and know that according to FERPA it's illegal to give a college student's grade to anyone but that student.

In essence, the U.S. government forbids us to even hint at a grade that a student might have gotten -- gone are the days of posting grades by social security number, as was the case when I started college in the early 1990s.

Privacy, when I was in France 10 years ago, was even looser than that. Student grades (or at least class rank) were a matter of common knowledge. Some professors started returning papers by handing out those that received the best grades. The papers that got the lowest grade were distributed last, which, of course, let the tension mount for the students at the bottom of the pile.

ESI subscribes to that older French notion of privacy -- students all know each others' grades. There's really no option to keep one's grade to oneself. I really wasn't surprised, then, when my grade for the DALF French exam was posted at the Institut Français de Rabat (IFR) on a bulletin board, there, for all the world to see (along with my date of birth, I might add). The DALF is the diplôme approfondi de langue française or the TOEFL for French. It's an official diploma that is in line with EU tests of langauge skills.

And I'm trying to redefine my notion of "private" and "not private" all over again here in Rabat in terms of education. I should be glad that the IFR has taken the option of posting the grades in public -- otherwise I wouldn't be able to prove that I'd passed the exam since diplomas won't be printed for another YEAR. Oh-là-là, back to the problem of paperwork.

Twitter in the news

I understand that CNN, etc. have been reporting Twitter "tweets" in lieu of journalists' reports about the crackdown in Iran. The French actually had a reporter in-country who was filming and reporting on the sly. That report aired two nights ago on France 2 as part of their Envoyé Spécial program. No mention at all of Twitter. I thought the French weren't on the Twitter bandwagon (the Moroccans certainly aren't from what I can tell).

Then Michael Jackson died, and twenty minutes of the news the following evening was about his career and the reactions of fans. Then, and only then, did France 2 show shot after shot of tweets about his death. They also showed YouTube video tributes from fans that had been posted in the 20 or so hours after his death.

ICTs are big here, and there's an SMS langague for Arabic (spelled using Latin character and Arabic numerals), but I'm not sure how Twitter's doing in Morocco. I guess that will be one thing to watch and see.

The wide world of paperwork

It was paperwork that got me to Morocco (in the form of a rather long and complex grant application during the summer of 2007) and it's paperwork that will get me home.

In order to receive my "baggage allowance" money from MACECE, I had to submit a final report about my experience. Luckily for me, retooling my symposium paper didn't take much time at all.

I've been working for the past week or so with a former colleague on creating a personal online repository. I was able to post the final Fulbright report and add in some metadata, etc. Having my own (shared) online repository is kind of nice, actually.

The airline ticket's been purchased for a few days now (since last Friday), so all that remains is the make-up exams on Thursday and the final sessions with the professors that will be held next week. Then the paperwork, and the stay in Morocco, will both just be a memory.

Defending a masters thesis at ESI

Today I was the fourth member of a committee for a student masters thesis defense. It was probably the best day I've had at ESI so far.

The student was brilliant, the thesis was very well written, no one had any major complaints, and the whole thing went off beautifully.

The defense had the following structure:

The members of the committee met briefly to discuss overall impressions. We entered the auditorium together, and the President of the committee (Mouna Benslimane) welcomed us all, and actually, she also went out of her way to welcome me in particular (very nice).

The student presented her work using a PowerPoint.

Then I, as the guest committee member, got to point out all of the things I ddin't like about the paper. It's not easy to go first when you've never seen this kind of thing before. The student had done so well and I had such a poor idea of what was expected of students at this level in Morocco that I only really mentioned cosmetic things about the paper itself. It did take me about 15 minutes, though, to go through all of the problems with the bibliography; those, of course, I do not consider cosmetic.

Then the other three members of the committee or "jury" spoke in turn. It was all very formal and very "thank you Mme the Président of the committee" which is kind of fun. I never tire of pomp and circumstance.

There were probably 40 people in attendance, and after the deliberation and the announcement of the decision ("tres bien" for both the presentation and the thesis itself), we all went and had cookies and coffee and mint tea at a lovely reception in the lobby of the school. We'd started at 2:30 and we finished around 5:00.

A fine afternoon and an enjoyable way to begin my last two weeks in Morocco. Thank you all for such a memorable experience. And of course, congratulations Fatima on a job well done!

As Oprah says ....

Ever since I lost my Internet connection in May (a brief but painful time for me), I've been learning to enjoy my satellite dish.

During her visit, Kirstin was fond of flipping through the hundreds of channels available in the chambre d'amis -- her favorites were a show with Arab gentlemen hunting with falcons (to a soundtrack of harmonica music) and a cooking show featuring fully veiled women who would flip up their scarves to taste sauces they were making.

It turns out, I have about seven French television stations, and have been enjoying watching the news in the evening, as well as talk shows at night. Last night, fashion icon Karl Langerfield was on On n'est pas couché, which was enjoyable background noise as I worked at the computer.

It's hard not to notice the satellite dishes everywhere in this country. They really are especially prominent on the roofs of the shanty-towns (called "bibonvilles" in French for the fact that the dwellings are made of old oil bins). Everyone watches TV (not just my neighbors, as shown in this photo from my kitchen), and not just the national station M2. Actually, I just noticed that Jodie Foster thriller about an airplane is on M2 tonight.... hmmm.

In any event, it didn't surprise me when Fatima came for a visit recently and starting quoting Dr. Phil to me. Then Oprah. She watches the show in English and reads the Arab-language subtitles. Mr. Obama may be doing all he can to promote peace and understanding between Americans and Muslims, but it turns out that it's the wisdom of Oprah that's really making an impression.

Have I caved and subscribed to her twitter feed yet? No. Will I? Probably.

Recap of guest speakers in my classes at ESI

Although I mentioned a few of the guest speakers in passing, it only seems right to give credit publicly to ALL of the fabulous librarians who gave of their time and energy to share their talents and their passions with a small group of third year undergrads at ESI in the National, University and Special Libraries class.

First semester, our class met at 8:30 in the morning on Monday. It was impossible to coordinate with speakers in America with the time difference, but we did succeed in bring two very interesting speakers to ESI.
Nozha Ben Saadoun from the BNRM spoke in November about her work in Cataloging. She prepared a great talk, brought examples, and came in on her day off to speak to us.
Eric Childress of OCLC visited us in December. He also presented on his day off (during his vacation!) and even agreed to speak again later that week to a different group of interested students.
We also toured the BNRM as a group, which was very enlightening.

During the second semester, class met at 4:00 on Monday, making it possible to invite Americans to participate via Skype or telephone.
Sarah Wenzel, librarian at the University of Chicago, prepared a great presentation describing her library and her work. And she presented the whole in FRENCH. Her keen sense of humor and charm were not lost on the students, nor was her status in WESS, despite her modesty about her leadership roles.
Ray Schwartz, systems librarian at William Patterson University's library, took the time during his vacation to come and talk to us for an entire class period about data mining and evaluation in university libraries. The new director even came to his talk; we were very honored to have Ray, indeed, and he really got us thinking.
Larry Olszewski, director of the library at OCLC, also prepared a wonderful presentation in FRENCH, introducing the topic of special libraries. Of all the people, literally, in the world to talk to my students about special libraries, can there be someone more qualified than Larry? As qualified, perhaps, but not MORE qualified, and naturally his presentation was flawless.
Caroline Szylowicz of the Proust Archive at UIUC spoke about the special collection that she heads. Caroline is French, so speaking in French was simple, and her passion for her subject came across very clearly. However, the Skype connection was unavailable from UIUC the day of the presentation, so Caroline had to bike home (quite heroically!) with her laptop at the last minute to be able to speak with us at the appointed time.
And, as a surprise "end of semester" speaker, we talked with Diane D’Almeida from BU who was able to give us an overview of libraries in different countries, and to help us wrap our brains around the place of ESI graduates in the wide world of libraries and international librarianship.

Yet again, I have reason to be proud of colleagues in libraries. Librarians are above all professionals who truly believe in what they do and who systematically give back to the profession without asking "what's in it for me?" These folks all gave of their time, energy and talent to speak to 16 students in Morocco whom they'd never met... I may be biased, but I don’t know that folks in other professions who would be so giving of their time and talents in this way.

Elections in Morocco

This past Friday, local elections were held throughout Morocco. There was a significant amount of hoopla leading up to the elections, with gatherings in the sports hall across the way from my apartment, and indeed, all over town.

Each of the political parties (and there are a LOT) has its own symbol, and the symbols actually seem to have meaning. Of the parties with exceptionally good symbols, I like to consider the disembodied eye, the rearing horse, and the smattering that appear in the photo I've included.

Parties explain in their lit how to vote for their candidates: "put an X over the ____ " with the symbol for the party. Many of the tracts have, what looks to me like "NO" signs over the symbol for the party, but it's just the X that explains how it's done.

Shipping and handling

Just mailed my first package from the post office to the States -- a small box of books weighing in at 7.5 kilos. In theory, I've got several more to go.

::: Poste Maroc :::

I sent today's box "economy" and paid 554.50 MAD for it, which seemed quite expensive. I've just done the conversion and now know why that seemed so pricey: $75!!

So, if that's roughly a 15 lb. box, at $75 for shipping, that's $5 per lb. I guess it could be worse (like the two-page letter that DHL wanted $125 to send, or the three cards I mailed yesterday that cost $10 in shipping!), but it's still giving me pause to think about unloading anything that's not books or electronics or a gift before I leave, to save myself the money in shipping/transport.

Royal Air Maroc has an interesting baggage policy where "sending" 23 kilos with them in the form of an extra bag is 1500 MAD or $200. In hindsight, I should have held back on the post office shipment, and stuck everything I've got to get back in an additional bag in the hold of the plane.

Next Fulbright .... I'll know.

The collaborative nature of time

Time is a human construct. We all seem to agree that when the sun is at the highest point in the sky, that is "12" and not "37" or "42" or "boo". There are 60 minutes in an hour and not 79, and 24 hours in a day. None of this is pre-ordained; it is simply agreed upon.

Daylight savings time is another temporal element that is agreed upon. In Morocco, we entered Daylight Savings on Monday, June 1. On the appointed day, my computer's time didn't change. When I look, Microsoft gently tells me that Casablanca is GMT, and that it does not move to a summer hour. Microsoft is wrong, and I've had to tell my computer that I'm in Lisbon in order to have the correct time display.

Today, in the last exam that I'll proctor in Morocco, students wanted to agree that we had started 15 minutes late so that they could continue answering the question for another 15 minutes. I couldn't actually agree to that based on my understanding of the 60-minutes-to-an-hour thing, and since I was the proctor, my take on time held.

Interestingly, there are NO CLOCKS in ANY ESI classroom. None. This explains, in part, why the students want their phones out during the exams -- to read the time. Despite the Director's recent prohibitive memo, phones were still out and white out was still madly being passed around today.

Time may be a collaborative constuct that is considered in different ways in different cultures (see prior blog posts about this), but for the first time in my life, I'm realizing that exams can be too.

While things like visits to the library, study, exams, and scholarship in general are fundamentally SOLO events in Western culture (although I admit this may be changing), the Moroccan culture is not Western. If the culture here is clan-oriented and group-based, why can't the approach to exams be as well?

And why wouldn't it be entirely logical to have a discussion about time with one's neighbor during an exam? Right after borrowing her white-out and handing it off to one's other neighbor?

Checking things off the list

I've had a mental list of things to do while in Morocco. Some have been work-related, many have been relative to living in a place so very different from other places I've called home.

Getting on a bus was the last thing I *really* wanted to do. Abdelaziz came and met me in Rabat and we took a bus to his new apartment yesterday evening, on the spur of the moment. To my surprise, there were two employees on the bus: the driver and the ticket lady. The ticket lady took our money, the driver drove the bus. It was very efficient, actually. I'm not sure what happens, though, when the busses get so crowded that it's standing room only.

Abdelaziz and his wife greeted me like royalty. They opened their home to me, offering me first a round of sweet Moroccan mint tea, then coffee and goodies. I also got to look at their photo album from their recent wedding -- the photos look like other Moroccan wedding album photos I've seen: very solemn and formal. They remind me of the photos of my grandparents' marriage in 1941. The "serious" wedding photos is a tradition that's all but lost in the New World, I think.

Finally, I was invited into the home of a friend (perhaps the last thing on my list). The new apartment is their pride and joy. Abdelaziz and Mounia only moved in last week, and they've already made a lot of progress toward turning the place in Salé into a home, and I wish them lots of luck with it.

Moroccan music festivals

Morocco's THE place for music these days... during the last part of May, the Mawazine festival took place in Rabat. For roughly 10 days, stages all over town featured performances by local and internationally known groups: programme. For example, the Morrocan female rap group that one of the Fulbrighters is studying played on May 19th. The concerts were free, although it was also possible to purchase tickets if one wanted to be really close to the stage.

Stevie Wonder performed at the closing Mawazine event on May 23, and my free spot on the lawn was better than some $50 tickets that can be had in American stadiums for similar events. The lights, stage, musicians, and sound were all excellent -- and I enjoyed watching the monitors to get a good view of Stevie and his daughter singing together. Unfortunately, at another concert that night, 11 concert-goers were killed in a stampede.

Fès is currently sponsoring its annual 10-day Sacred Music Festival. The concerts aren't free, but are a huge draw for the city. I know at least two Americans up there as I write this.

I had the good fortune to hear about Stevie Wonder from Fulbrighter Jaci and to hear about the festival in Fès from Fulbrighter Kate. It's nice to be part of a network that's so well-connected and cultured. I should also mention that both Abdelaziz and Jallal knew all about the Rabat festival and graciously shared information about it over coffee.

Final exams and proctoring

ESI has just started the two-week exam period. Like French schools and universities, they have a very intensive exam period at the middle point in the academic year, and they have an even more demanding schedule at the end of the year. Students have one exam per day for most of the allotted two weeks.

I proctored my first exam yesterday (94 students in the first year), and noticed several differences between what I saw at ESI and what I'd seen in France.

First, students were allowed to have cell phones on their tables during the exams. They were also allowed to share materials (pens, white-out, rulers, etc.). There was a lot of movement during the exam, especially in the back half of the lecture hall.

Things that did NOT happen that I recall from proctoring French exams were the following: proctors didn't seem to move around the room and hover (other than me) -- proctors stayed in the front of the room. None of the students asked to use the rest room (whereas in France, we had a line going).

Lastly, unlike the French university classes in languages and literature that I experienced (both as a student and as a proctor/teaching assistant), there were no oral exams to balance out the writtens.

From my outsider's perspective, the exam structure and application is another case of borrowing from one or two systems, and making the end-product uniquely Moroccan.

In French it's bad luck to wish someone "good luck" -- so I'm wishing all of the ESI students "bon courage" and "bonne continuation" as they prepare for and take this round of exams.