exercise quotes
Well, it’s time to take some time off. Jihane and I thought a little bit about finally taking that road trip around and across America but we chickened out at last minutes. I mean, we didn’t chicken out back we kind of postponed until we can plan for it better. I think we decided on making a trip to the North East. So this is how it should look like. We will leave tomorrow morning, early morning to Washington, DC to see out niece, Lina. While in DC, we will pay the Moroccan consulate a visit to take care of some business. On Saturday, we will head to Philadelphia and stay there for few day, probably until Tuesday. After that, we will drive north to New York and stay there for a day and half. Finally, we will go to Boston and meet Safaa and hang out there for a couple days and probably head back to Philadelphia, then DC, then Blacksburg. We hope we make back by Monday or Tuesday, December 29th or 30th. We have a couple of places we would like to visit or re-visit mainly the Statue of Liberty, The Empire Building, Harvard Campus, and MIT. I hope everything goes well. I will try and make sure I have this trip digitally-documented to share with family and friends. Stay tuned...
In his book The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dorner argues that asking non-traditional questions is key to gaining new insights into even the most ordinary problem we face. I have always agreed with Dietrich’s argument but failed in applying his approach to those common questions and problems that are part of my daily professional life. However, I have always recognized when the right, non-traditional question is asked; and during Professor Wesch’s talk, the perfect composite question was asked. The question he proposed to ask students is: “Do you hate school?” followed by “Do you hate learning?” Asking this question in the beginning of the talk was the attention-getter that made me open my notebook and start jotting down some notes. It was a really an eye-opener for me since the question of how to get students interested in what you teach has been growing on me. In fact, I spent a lot of the summer time thinking about whether today’s college learning environment fits the expectations and the need of the new freshmen we admit every year. I say this because I taught in the Engineering Education department here at Virginia Tech, which has pioneered in revamping its instructional curriculum to cater for the engineer of the 21st century. Yet, my experience was such that in spite of this great effort, it was still not enough to really cater fully to the needs of this new breed of freshmen we get every year. New technology, new values and norms, and new social behavior and structures are challenging all traditional instructional methodologies as well as the most innovative pedagogies. It seems to me that there is a race and that the pedagogy community is loosing every time. We are moving slower than the changes happening around us. It feels that we have a reactive approach to these challenges rather than being proactive in anticipating what students need, how they learn, and how they are intellectually stimulated.My adviser this week made a funny comment of about some teachers still use podiums in the classroom behind which they stand and lecture instead of using PowerPoint presentations. When he made the comment, I remembered Professor Wesch’s description of PowerPoint as being “traditional”. Then, I wondered if it is the technologies we use for instruction what defines a good pedagogy from a bad one. Initially, I thought yes. My gut reaction after Professor Wesch’s talk was that we have to use the same tools the students use now so that we can connect to them better and so that we can get them interested in the subjects we teach. But after thinking about it some more, I started realizing that it’s not just the technology that he was talking about. It’s the perspective that we take as teachers in dealing with this new and evolving type of students; students who now can achieve and learn much more using their little gadgets, connecting to the four corners of the world, without having to be tested or pull all-nighters. How do teachers compete with this? The perspective isn’t to compete. The approach is to ride the wave and do our teaching while standing on a surfing board (if it needs be). In my opinion, the approach is to move away from the traditional way of thinking about pedagogies by trying to define them in concrete terms and apply them using the “12 step” magic process. Teachers have to be agile by having little documented processes and more of value delivered to their customers (students). They have to be willing to work together with their students on defining what the students need, how the students learn, and how the students apply what they learn. They have to be able to do that with every new type a customer. So the word I am looking for here is a “collaborative approach to teaching”. Teachers and students working in a collaborative manner to define the approach or the pedagogy for them to achieve their goals: teacher’s goal to train students, and student’s goal to learn new skills. So my answer to the question of significance is this: Let the students define what is significant to them by collaborating and guiding them to it. My bet is that more often than not they will exceed the teaching objectives a teacher defines for the students. P.S., if you would like to know a little bit about Michael Wesch, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9oYou might think this is going to be another blog entry about the elections. Nope. The question is not about the American elections anymore. Enough of that already. This is about Lblad and Wlad ou Bnat Bladi.Moroccans are certainly among the most integrated and successful Arab communities in the U.S. I am not sure about Europe and other places, but I can attest to that for the American Moroccan community. But, do you sometimes get the feeling that it is sometimes hard for Moroccans to work with one another? This is particularly the case when it comes to things that are not necessary “Moroccan”? For instance, I find it difficult to engage with several Moroccan friends on topics like community service, serving one’s country, bad effects of cheating in school, etc. These topics aren’t what dominate the Moroccan public discourse. Those of us who grew up in Lblad certainly didn’t grew up learning these concepts. We came to this country and were fortunate to be exposed to these concepts, and many of us now believe and live by them. However, when it is time for us to start thinking about how we can utilize this new knowledge (new us) for the betterment of our country, it just doesn’t feel right; it doesn’t quite fit. To test this, try and formulate your thoughts (speeches if you can) about change, community service, and civic engagement in Darijah. The main problem most of us will have is finding words for these concepts in Darijah, When you really look at it from a cultural perspective, you can easily trace this epidemic to the absence of these concepts from the public discourse for many years now. We know that languages and dialects evolve with time and are effected by the issues and the culture of people who speak these languages. As far as I know, Lblad never really had a grass roots movement to educate Moroccans about how they can be positive agents of change for their Blad, and I was somewhat engaged when I was in high school and college there. What we learned instead was how it was Lblad (or the system) itself that is the cause of our problems. And if that’s the case, why the h*** should we help, give back, or even care? Unfortunately, this way of thinking is an epidemic in Morocco. Moroccans from all walks of like are infected: Li Labass 3lihoum ou Li Mqawda 3lihoum. So that’s where we are now.Enough of bad news. It is not all bad. No at all, of course. First, Bladna is much better than many other places in the world. Not many Moroccans know this. As a matter of fact, there is one and only one place I would leave Lblad for, and that is the U.S. You know why? It is the only place in the whole world where people can come and become part of the society. Not everyone makes this transition but it is possible for everyone. This doesn’t happen anywhere else: Ask Moroccans in all Europe and even in other Arab countries. So, here is a plac