Day 17

Today I had the opportunity to meet with the director of Al Akhawayn School.  Al Akhawayn is a K-12 school located in the town of Ifrane. The school is both a public Moroccan school and is also a tuition based private school. The director, Dr. Stephen Trevathan is from America.  He was born in NYC to Puerto Rican parents.  However he was raised in the UK, and as result he had the most unique accent I've heard in a while. He taught elementary school and was a principal of an urban school in London for nearly 20 years.  He holds a Ph.D in philosophy and theology.  He came to Morocco to teach at AUI and took the job as the director of the school one year ago.  Al Akhawayn is an unique school.  Many of the university professors send their children to this school and as a result it has an large international population.  The school offers western style instruction and curriculum. This school has access to technology, each room is outfitted with a Smart board.  The classes are instructed in Arabic, English and French. The director told us that the school is currently working to gain NEASC accreditation.  Class sizes are small with about 5 or 6 pupils per class. There are nearly 100 students who attend this school.  After a few moments of sharing the information about my school, the director was very excited to make a connection with my school system, which is one of the goals our project. I unfortunately don't know what the partnership will look like until I hear from my administration and the dust settles on a new school year.

Impressions: This school is far different than the other Moroccan schools we have visited and heard about. It was great to visit a school that looked "American" though this is not the majority.  After having had several discussions with other local educators we learned that by comparison the traditional class sizes in public schools can be as many 40 students per class. At traditional Moroccan schools educators are required to follow the national curriculum created by educational ministry with little deviation. At Al Akhawayn school they follow a hybrid of this model and the director proudly displays a picture of King Hassan the sixth in his office (all public places display it).  Additional impressions: New hires can not chose to work at a specific school, the government assigns them to any school across the county. Transferring to a new teaching assignment is often very difficult and teachers who are assigned in difficult placements often get stuck there.  This notion seems a bit tough by my standards.

Massalama!

The Traveling Educator