Lots of firsts

This week was the week for firsts.
I had my first day of school. My first meeting with the parents. My first chance to learn HTML, XHTML and other web programming stuff. My first time meeting Aziz's niece. OH... and so much more. Its really been a whirlwind of activities.

School started on Thursday. The students are very sweet. I have 23 students. More boys that girls. The girls are very good. The boys are good, but talkative. Its so different teaching Moroccan children. One, they ask each other for help before they ask the teacher. This is good in the sense that they are interacting appropriately and practicing their English, but bad because they often give each other incorrect answers (not on purpose). The one thing that stood out the most for me was that not one person tattled on another person. NOT ONE! My fourth graders in FL loved to tattle. My students here do the opposite, they cover for each other. I'd take that anyday over a bunch of tattlers. My students here, for the most part have been in class together since the age of 2 1/2. The school starts from preschool and goes up to grade 12. There is only one class per grade level (they do change classes in HS though).
The level of education at this level wasn't what I expected. I have to remind myself that for most of the students English is their second language. So their comprehension, writing, and vocabulary are not exceptional. I gave them the end of the FLorida FCAT for math from the end of 3rd grade, and they didn't do all that well. I definitely have my work cut out for me. But, I think it'll be fine, they are so well behaved that teaching them should be easy. Plus, they do 2 hours of HW every night. Yup... 2 hours, in 4th grade.

Friday night was our open house for the parents. It was from 10PM to 12PM. It had to be so late because of Ramadan. Many of the parents are fasting so we had to give them a chance to eat dinner, go to prayer, go home, get dressed and drive to the school. It was a new experience for me to meet so many eager parents. What I've been told is that I have some parent who are working their tails off to pay the high tuition. They are the really supportive parents who want more for their kids. Then I have the filthy rich parents. Some of them care... some of them don't. Some of my students are being raised by a driver and maid. That is a world that I know nothing about. Then.. I have the kids who come from dirty money. Apparently Tangier is full of drug runners and many of their children go to school at my school. Interesting isn't it.

Last night Aziz's niece arrived. Thank god we both can speak broken Spanish. It gives us a way to communicate. We won't be having any deep philosophical discussions in Spanish, but at least we can talk about the necessary stuff. She (like most Moroccans) took English, Spanish, French, and Arabic in school. Unfortunately her English is really bad, but she will probably pick it up quickly with her French and spanish to help her through. I'd also like to speak moroccan, so we'll teach each other.
We spent most of the day today hanging out. She seems very nice. She is young (early 20's), pretty, upbeat, and funny. Amira fell in love with her instantly. Actually the reason I have time to get on the internet is because they are playing right now.

As most of you know I decided to take to classes this semester for my masters. Somehow I chose the 2 hardest classes, both are in web design. In one of the classes I was assigned (along with my 3 groupmates) a website to redesign. We actually have a real client. We have to code the whole website using XHTML and CSS. I'm freaking out already!

Over all things here are good. The people at my school are very nice. I've already made a few friends. Living on campus has proved to be nice, although we are moving off sometime in the next few months. Its very quiet here (much unlike the rest of Tangier) and its great having the playground and pool so close. Also I can sneak home during lunch or prep time to see Amira.

Amira seems very happy here. There are constantly people around to entertain her. When she is bored she goes next door to our neighbors apartment and knocks on their door to "say hi". Seriously, she bangs on their door while yelling "say hi, say hi". Its really cute. Her newest phrase is Oh my goodness, but it comes out more like Oh My Goose ness. She says it all the time. Its really funny.

Alrighty... if you made it this far thanks for reading. I'll post again soon. Love you all :)