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.

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!

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.