11 THINGS MOROCCAN STUDENTS DO DIFFERENTLY IN THE CLASSROOM

Knock, Knock. Moroccan students will knock on an open door as a way of announcing that they are entering the classroom and will even sometimes wait for you to acknowledge and motion for them to come in before they enter the room. At first, I was really confused, but I've come to really like it and it really helps me keep track of who is and isn't in the classroom.

They. Notice. Everything. I have stickers on my laptop case and they regularly ask me about them. One day I added a small sticker, probably about the size of a postage stamp and thought it blended in pretty well. To my surprise, I had 3 different students in 3 different classes that noticed the sticker addition.

Teacher, Teacher. I VERY quickly learned that my students addressed me as "Teacher". I don't know what I was expecting to be called, but that wasn't it. But, instead of only addressing me as "Teacher", they also used it to get my attention. It got really annoying, really quickly because they never just said "teacher" once, it was like 5 times...rapid fire...for each question they wanted to answer or for every question they had...multiply that by 7 classes...times the 15 students in each class. It really annoyed me. So, I made it one of my class rules to they could address me as "Teacher", but they should not shout it to get my attention and that a simple raise of the hand would yield the same result. I'm months in at this point and it's still very much a work in progress! 

Erasers/Blancos. Standard pencils don't come with the small erasers on the top like they do in the U.S. Instead, each student has (well...is supposed to have) a block eraser with them in class. Some students prefer to use pens and they use liquid whiteout to cover up their mistakes. I later found that in their regular schools they will be marked down for scratching out an answer instead of erasing or whiting it out. In the same vein, student seem to always forget their own eraser or whiteout so, there are inevitably erasers and whiteout pens flying across the classroom at any given time, especially during an exam. Also, be forewarned that they call erasers, "rubber" and "gum" and whiteout pens "blanco". 

Parentheses. I've found that my students use parentheses the same way I would cross things out. For example, in a true or false section they would write "T" for true, but then later they wanted to change their answer. Instead of crossing it out or scribbling over it, they simply put parentheses on either side of the "(T)" and then write "F" on the line as their new answer. (*Note the adaptation to not being prepared with an eraser or whiteout pen)

Pop Culture. They love anything Fast and Furious, popular Rap songs, or memes...so get creative and use that to your advantage if you can. Also, they know ALL the popular dance moves and are always ready for an in-class dance off!

Food. Some of my students opt to stay in the classroom during their 10-minute break and they usually bring snacks to munch on during that time. They always offer me some and by some I mean over half of whatever they have. If its a cake, they hold it up to my mouth and wait for me to take a bite....awkward at first, but if they're cool with it, I'm cool with it. Also, it's a cool way to find good Moroccan snacks. I've found awesome cakes, gummies, and Frito-like tortilla chips that I otherwise would have probably never tried.

Cheating. I was really surprised, but in retrospect really shouldn't have been, that cheating is so mainstream here. In a collectivist culture, cheating is seen as genuinely helping a peer and if they help you, you owe them an answer or two down the line. My students get creative, too; texting answers, whispering the letter answer sequences, sign language, and the old writing answers on the desk trick. One teacher even caught her students pretending to accidentally drop their tests at the same time so that they could exchange test and thereby exchange answers....well, they got caught and tried to say that they didn't notice that they picked up the wrong tests. I can't make this stuff up!

Backpacks. My students always seems to keep their backpacks in their lap. From the moment they sit down in class, they place it on their laps or place the shoulder strap across the desktop so that it hangs as to not touch the floor. I haven't figured this one out yet, but it's always a struggle to get them to put their backpacks on the floor during exams.

Notes. My students almost never take notes in class and even if they wanted to, they always seem to ask for permission to do so. Of course my answer is "Of course you should be taking notes!" But that's just the teacher in me.

Handwriting. I was so worried going into teaching that my students wouldn’t be able to read my classic D’Nealian cursive handwriting, but I've found quite the opposite. Almost all my students write in cursive themselves. Granted, they form some letters very differently which make them hard to read when they are rushing, but for the most part it's legible and I've made due. For example, and "x" is formed as a backwards "c" and a regular "c" that are supposed to intersect, but they usually miss the mark. Also, "d" and "b" are usually written as an "o" and then they add a vertical dash mark on either side to make the "d" or "b", but it doesn't connect to the "o" which sometimes gets confusing. Finally, a "w" is written as two intersecting "v"s that overlap in the middle and tend to just look weird. Sorry, that was a lot, but when you read as many writing assignments as I do, you tend to pick up on these things! 

Hope this helps!

Stay Searching,

Elizabeth~