Living Our Values

I had the great good fortune to attend the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office's 2014 Intergenerational Spring Seminar, organized around the recent passage of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It was an incredible experience you can read about in the article I wrote for the All Souls Beacon.

On the final morning, there was an opportunity to participate in a poetry slam, which is a fixture of many Unitarian Universalist (UU) youth conferences and events. I was not initially intending to participate, preferring to leave it to the youth. I have written perhaps 3 decent poems in my life, only 2 of them are in English, and I'm not much for performing my work. However, over the course of the seminar, I kept thinking about a poem I had written as a college student and once performed at an open mike at my UU fellowship in Maryland. Eventually, I signed myself up to perform it.

I wrote Wor(l)dpower as an English major's anthem back in 2003, a hymn to the proud history and broad etymology of the language. I saw English as encapsulating literally a whole world of diversity. Over the years, I've come to learn more about the legacy of European colonialism and the complicated nature of American neo-imperialism. As we learned more about UNDRIP and the problems of the Doctrine of Discovery, I began to understand my old poem with new ears. On that last night of the seminar, I was up till 2 a.m., pecking away at my little smartphone screen, refashioning it into the poem I would read that last morning:

WOR(L)DPOWER

I have the language of old white men,
Of ivy-ed dons and lords and kings
Ambitious, adventurous queens,
The psyche – and psychoses! – of an ancient patriarchy
In an unfinished, evolving Mother Tongue;

I speak the rhythms of Angle children
And sing a song of Saxon churls;
Mine the speech of Middle Earth
Twixt Grendel and a variable God;
The spoils of Vikings are mine
And the toils of Britons;

My father is a Norman,
Francois Vikingson,
My mother a Celt
With Germanic mother tongue;
Raised in Oxbridge
On perfect inflection
By Geoffrey
Johnson and
Julian
Milton;

Ours a language of adversity and adversary,
Of dominion and destruction, industry and capital,
The imprisoning web and the interdependent.

Behind my lips: Tragedies. Comedies.
the human experience,
Poetry and romance,
Illusion,
Persuasion,
Coercion,
Denial,
Destruction…
And a long, illustrious history
Of hope and concern,
Of optimism, wisdom;

My pen is poised to change the world,
For where there is progress,
Invention,
Intellect,
Creative determination,
Hopes & fears, losses and loves;
dreams…
There I am,
—There!—
I may speak;

Flawed and unbalanced,
Syncretic, adaptive,
Organic summation of my people’s history,
In thought and deed and family tree,
Prepared to learn and grow
Like dreamers and druids,
Professors and poets,
Warriors, politicians, wand’rers and essayists
Who are the roots and the trunk,
the branches and boughs
Supporting the flowers of culture, of hope, of memory and promise
Into the eternally returning
springtime
of humanity;

Mine is the language of unformed babes,
Still in the dust, in the womb, in the waters

Seven generations and seven more
Whose language dwells in houses
we cannot imagine
can only leave space for—
flexible, respectful—
In the language we’re living into today.

Cornel West: Whither America?

Unitarian Church of All Souls
Manhattan, NY, USA


We pulled out every chair in the building, and it was still standing-room only!

From Cornel West at All Souls

UU Values in Action

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Do the values and principles of Unitarian Universalism inform how I live my life?

I've been thinking about this since May Day, when I marched with All Souls UU's Director of Religious Education, Taryn, and she asked me that very question. I think she asked in part because she was preparing the youth service in which the 9th graders in the Coming of Age class read to the congregation the credos they'd been working on since September, and because I generally say that I was "raised UU," because compared to most adult UUs I was. 

In fact, my family didn't actually discover UUsim till I was in middle school, though we're among those who would say we were always UU and just never knew there was a term or a community for that.  We became active, affiliated members of a UU congregation because we were already living the liberal religious and social values that the Unitarian Universalist Association affirms and promotes. Initially, that's what I told Taryn.

As our conversation continued, however, something amazing popped out of my mouth.  "You know," I said, "I think I probably study Arabic and the Islamic world because of the Neighboring Faiths curriculum we did in my middle school religious education."  That was the first year that my family attended UU services, and it made an indelible mark, so much so that I have come back twice and taught parts of that curriculum. So that got me thinking about other ways UUism has influenced the way I live my life.

In fact, I would say that "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth" in any and all religious communities is a cornerstone of the way I lead my life. Since even before I considered myself a UU, I sought to learn and teach as much as possible about all world religions, with respect for the truth and value in all of them. I think that's what mothers in my Peace Corps village were seeing when they said to their daughters, "Do you see how Maryah dresses / behaves? She's a better Muslim than you are!"

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

These are the foundational values for which I was a Rotary Youth Exchange Scholar and active ROTEX member, for which I was a Girl Scout camp counselor, for which I joined the Peace Corps, for which I taught refugees in Amman and Cairo, for which I became a NYC Teaching Fellow, because of which I couldn't keep my mouth shut and stay a NYCT Fellow, and for which I now teach immigrant women.

Those values and "the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process" are the reason I visited Tahrir Square every morning of the Egyptian Revolution and frequently thereafter, and then blogged and published my observations of what I observed. It's why I continue to avidly and empathetically follow the fight for democracy across the Arab world in the last two years.

"Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" is the one I wish I lived more consciously.  While I certainly live almost every day aware of the interdependence of human existence, I am less conscientious about my interdependence with the natural environment. I do more than some people, perhaps. I was raised to take what some call a "navy shower," turning off the water while I shampoo or soap up. I've given up Ziplocs and Saran Wrap in favor of reusable Tupperware, and try to remember to take my reusable shopping bags to the grocery store. I try to dress for the weather and rely less on heat and A/C. But I'm also addicted to my electronics with their high electricity needs, and to my hormone-injected beef and cheaper, more convenient non-organic produce.

Still and all, I've discovered over the last month or so that I really do live by the values and principles of my faith. The next question is this: Where can I take those values and principles from here? 

"You're so patient!"

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Today I was teaching some Yemeni and Sudanese women useful language for making an doctor's appointment. We had a dialogue that I had read with one of the students, and we were going through it sentence by sentence to practice pronunciation.

Some of my students didn't have the soft /th/ sound in their native dialects, so I showed them how moving their tongues from behind their teeth to between their teeth changed the /s/ sound to the /th/ sound. Then I had them practice blending words, like the way we don't say "Do you want to make an appointment?" but instead we shove it all together into "D'ya-wanna make 'n-appoin'ment?" I had them repeat it over and over, first together as a group, then one at a time, again and again.

"You have such patience!" said one student in Arabic.

After I'd taught her how to say the same sentence in English (and showed them how it was not quite the same as a "patient" at the doctor's), I said, "That's because I've learned several languages, so I'm sympathetic."

"You know exactly what it's like!" she agreed.

This is what I love about teaching. We laughed so much that two hours just flew by, and these women not only learned what to say and how to say it, but I could see them gain confidence from the beginning of the lesson to the end. One woman, who was only going to stay a little while until the citizenship class started, was still there at the end of the class, glowing with accomplishment.

A few months ago, when I was hating my job and wishing I could just give up working altogether and become a stay-at-home Mom, a friend said, "We just have to find you a job that doesn't feel like work." I found it. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay any money....

May Day NYC

Manhattan, NY, USA

From May Day NYC

When I first came to New York City, I told myself I wouldn't get involved with activism in my first year. I was teaching full time, going to graduate school at night, and the teaching alone was all the activism I needed in my life.

Then I left teaching and graduate school. For the first weeks of my unemployment, I moped and was miserable and sat at my computer all day long looking and applying for jobs ... any kind of job that seemed remotely related to my talents and would pay the bills. Over time, I became more and more involved with All Souls UU Church's young adults, for fun, networking and plain old human contact. Last week, I realized that even that was not enough.  I needed to get out more, to volunteer for something, to do more fun things with people. With lingering Socialist sympathies from all my years in Europe, and a life-long interest in civics, I asked around the church to see who was doing something for Occupy Wall Street's General Strike on May Day.

That's how I found myself on Union Square this afternoon with Occupy Faith. Their intention today was to bring a message of peaceful nonviolence and be witnesses to whatever might transpire. Several among them have previously been arrested and detained for their participation in a variety of Occupy-related demonstrations, while standing as examples of nonviolent civil disobedience. (I don't believe any of us were today, but apparently one never knows....)

In our march down Broadway to Zuccotti Park and Wall Street, we saw a lot of signs for a lot of different campaigns and issues. We sang songs and chanted. When we passed people watching from balconys and windows, we chanted, "Don't watch! Join us!" In the shopping district, we chanted, "Don't shop! Join us!" When construction workers and other union sorts paused their work to come out on the sidewalk and salute us, we cheered them on. It was a lot of fun. Here are some of my favorite images, with more in the WebAlbum:

From May Day NYC

I Know These Kids!

Burlington, VT

I’m sitting in my friend’s classroom in Vermont. Her German students have just gone home for the day, and she’s in a faculty meeting. While I wait for her, I’m contemplating the differences between her school and mine. This student population in rural Vermont is so much more familiar to me than the one I teach in Brooklyn. I immediately recognize these kids: the pretty girls, the jocks, the nerds, the freaks, the farm kids, the funny Asian or black kid using exaggerated humor to distract from his obvious minority status.

Today I was a guest in the AP Government class, and both the teacher and the kids had copious questions about the Middle East and the Arab Spring. They knew about current events, they’d been following Occupy Wall Street, they had a sense of world geography. Many of them have travelled abroad. They think critically as easily as they breathe. Several stayed after class to ask more questions, thank me for coming, and shake my hand on their way to lunch.

Of course, I don’t expect this of my students in Brooklyn, for many reasons. I know that the demands of poverty and gangs bleed away the time they might otherwise use to follow current events. I know that the homes here in Vermont mostly have two parents with college degrees, steady jobs, and the time and knowledge to help their kids with homework and get them excited about learning. And, of course, teaching an AP class and teaching Special Education are worlds apart. The reasons I had for going into the latter rather than the former still stand; I don’t want to teach “smart” kids full time. Their tendency for laziness is ten times more frustrating to me than helping students with disabilities overcome their obstacles.

At the same time, though, it’s a reminder that not all schools are like where I'm teaching now. There are schools without metal detectors, where students are trusted to go the library without a pass to work on a project, where students do class activities because they’re having fun and not because it’s graded, where seats don’t need to be assigned because the kids respect each other in the classroom. There are no security guards, and the kids aren’t afraid of their administrators. This is a school without bells, where kids wait for the teacher to dismiss them. An 80-minute period here flies by like nothing, when a 50 minute period where I teach can be torture to fill from bell to bell with work that students will take seriously.

The city of New York pays for my certification and Masters degree for a reason: because it's damned hard to teach where they're asking us to teach! It's also a population in desperate need of really good teachers. But someday, when I've put in my years here, I look forward to teaching in a small rural high school with kids I recognize from my own high school experience.

Kids Say....

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Today, my student K says, "Miss Converse, can I come to your wedding?"
"Who says I'm getting married?" I reply.
"Well, of course you're getting married! We know you have a boyfriend!" she says, with that sassy slide of the head my students do so well.
"What would make you think that?" I asked, smiling inside because it's patently not true.
"Well, you always dress so nicely!" she says.
"That's called professional," I reply.
"No, that's not professional," she insists. "You dress that way cuz you're going on dates after school!"

So thank you, K. Now I know what's wrong with my personal life. I don't have a boyfriend because I dress too well. Perhaps if I dressed more like a slob, men would think I was actually single...?

Why Art Is Important to Education

An Example You Have To See To Believe!

Brooklyn, NY, USA

I was doing research today about some of the New York City schools I've been told have significant Arab-American and Arab immigrant populations, where I think I have particularly relevant skills to offer. One of them is William McKinley High School. I found this video on their Website, and it is simply amazing! These kids understand history, English language arts, art theory, and the way that they intersect on a level I'm just not seeing in my summer school teaching experience. That's without even mentioning the images of amazing whimsy, like the image of Phaeton in a chariot pulling the sun across the sky in which the sun is the red bell of the fire alarm system.

This is precisely why we need to fight for room in school budgets for arts education.

Another Theorist on Collaborative Teaching

Don Tapscott was speaking on NPR about re-designing the way universities deliver education, but I think this applies all the way down to pre-K. I noticed that he said again and again that our teaching methodologies are "the very best that the Industrial Revolution can offer," and are completely out-dated. Of course, this is exactly what Sir Ken Robinson has been saying for years, and I agree completely.

It's the same theory behind Karl Fisch's "Shift Happens" meme that went viral four years ago. The Fall 2009 update is equally enlightening in the age of social networking. (Amazing how 4 years just became an "age" in that sentence....) We need to start envisioning 21st Century education. I'm not sure what that means yet, but I'm on a quest to find out!

Comic Differentiation

NPR reported today on something that's been on my mind for a few days, an often overlooked tool for teaching and encouraging literacy.

One of the challenges in special education is this ubiquitous, vague term we call "differentiation." (It's funny think back to myself in Peace Corps teaching two whole Saturday seminars for the Jerash Directorate of Education on the term, and today feeling like I haven't a clue what it means.) Essentially this means varying your instruction to play to the strengths to as many students in the classroom as possible. This could be playing to the strengths of visual, aural, kinesthetic and interpersonal learners. It could mean providing support to weak readers, children who struggle to concentrate and self-regulate, students with processing disorders, as well as high-achieving students.

In our public schools, especially in high need schools like the ones where we as Teaching Fellows will be teaching, one of the biggest problems is with reading. Students in NYC schools tend to be at least 3 grade levels behind in reading. A surprisingly high number of high school students are still reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. Add to that the significant population of English Language Learners, and you have a serious problem across the curriculum.

But more daunting than students' inability to read is their disinterest and resentment of reading. This is where I think the graphic novel could be a high quality tool, and I know that my friend Nicole Bailey and other researchers are really pushing the literary and literacy value of the graphic novel. They're not just superhero stories.

There's Maus by Art Spiegelman about his father's journey to and survival of Auschwitz, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. There's Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution. The Book of Genesis Illustrated by legendary comic book artist R. Crumb generated lots of headlines in the past year for its absolutely faithful but surprisingly unique adaptation of the first book of the Bible. In short, comic books aren't just for kids and nerds anymore, and I'd like to incorporate them into my classroom in the fall as part of that all-powerful, pervasive imperative to differentiate instruction.

"Reading Problems Are a Public Health Problem"

New York, NY, USA

We're getting to the more detailed part of our look at disability in the schools, and I found this video while working on my homework. It's an amazing look not only at what it's like to be a child with a disability, but also what it's like to be the parent or sibling of someone with a disability.

In the second half of the program, we're introduced to the tragic story a young man in Boston from whom this post gets its title. It was startling to me to hear that some states estimate the prison space to build based on third grade reading levels! It's a controversial measure, but you can imagine how it might have come into being. Imagine being 2 or 4 or 6 grade levels behind in reading, and failing all your exams, just because you're not getting the right support for an emotional or learning disability! It would be enough to anger even the most even-tempered of us!

Techniques of Teaching

Bronx, New York, USA

I've been hearing about Doug Lemov's book for more than two years, and it's been on my "to buy when I'm back in America" list since I first heard it mentioned. I almost bought it yesterday, but decided I should wait till I got my first paycheck in September ... or at least the last of my summer stipend!

It's lucky I didn't buy it yesterday, because today all 450 New York City Teaching Fellows received a copy of Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov!

Obviously, I haven't read it yet, but this is what I know about it: Doug Lemov was, by his own admission, not a great teacher. So he set out to study, in a quantitative, scientific manner, what makes a great teacher. After thousands of hours of observing teachers who just seemed to know what it took to get all students to succeed and close the dreaded achievement gap, he distilled 49 techniques. Use these techniques and know your subject matter, he says, and your students can't help but learn! Since then, his Uncommon Schools network has trained hundreds of teachers to use these techniques, and they have achieved unbelievable successes. I want to be one of those great teachers, and now I have this great tool (or 49 of them) for getting there!

Also at today's Welcoming Event we saw performances by special needs students of a variety of former Fellows, and listened to inspiring stories from city administrators and successful Fellows. One of the latter read, with tears in his eyes, one of my favorite poems by Taylor Mali, Undivided Attention: What All Teachers Want and Few of Us Ever Get:

Computers in Education

If a computer can do it better than a teacher, get rid of the teacher!

- Arthur C Clarke
to Sugata Mitra

(I don't mean to say that I agree with Mr. Clarke ... but it's an interesting idea!)

Despite the mountain of work I have left to do before I start the New York Teaching Fellowship on the 15th, I keep getting lost on TED again. It's so easy to just keep clicking on video after video. I started showing my artist mother my perennial favorite on education, Sir Ken Robinson's "Schools Kill Creativity", because I knew she'd agree totally with it.

Then I discovered an awesome guy, Salman Khan, whose Khan Academy is transforming the way kids learn math - and now other subjects - across the world, and particularly in the Oakland city schools where he's been running a fascinating experiment in teaching and tracking student understanding.

So I was telling my friend Sean about this when I surfed his couch last week, because it seemed like the perfect job for him when he said he wanted to use his computer skills to help technology do something transformative in the classroom. Sean jumped right up to grab his laptop. "You have to see this guy!" he said, and headed for TED.com to show me another visionary in technology transforming learning, Sugatra Mitra.

I know there's more of this out there. As the famous "Shift Happens" videos have been expressing for years, we are training our students for careers that haven't even been invented yet, and the old models of education aren't going to work. Moreover, we can't even begin to appreciate what education will look like in 10 years, but these and other innovative education and IT thinkers are working towards something really transformative. Getting lost on TED this week has only fed my enthusiasm about my "new" career in education...

...so I'm calling it "research" instead of "procrastination"!

Center for Arabic Study In Cairo (CASIC)

Cairo, Egypt

Today was our first day back to classes, in our new program: Center for Arabic Study In Cairo (CASIC). We're not back on the old Tahrir campus, as there are still demonstrations of varying sizes on Tahrir Square every day. Instead, we are having our classes in the AUC dorms in the ritzy, super-secure neighborhood of Zamalek.

Thanks To AUC...
Zeinab Taha is our hero! We thanked her often and effusively yesterday at our orientation, but I don't think we can thank her enough. When the University of Texas canceled CASA for the rest of the academic year, we felt stranded and abandoned, academically and financially. Thanks to the Zeinab, and AUC's new president and CASA alumna Lisa Anderson, we now have an academic home again, and much-needed financial support.

We're also very happy that our teachers will have the work that was promised to them. So are they, it seems, since several professors report having asked AUC to let them teach us without compensation during the revolution! With CASA canceled and all but 20 of AUC's 350 Arabic students having fled the country, if they didn't have CASIC, they'd have nothing!

We're Back To Business...
It was great to be in class again. I haven't forgotten quite as much Arabic as I thought I had over our 10 very long weeks of break. In fact, it's pretty amazing how much I've learned since June, and I'm excited to see how much I'll learn by the coming June!

It was also great to hear our professors talk a little about the revolution and their experience of it. We'd been asking ourselves all through the revolution if they were on Tahrir Square, and they certainly were.

Wael was out almost every day, playing bodyguard to his friend the Chief Supreme Court Justice, as one of the volunteers protecting the Egyptian Museum, and even being shot at by pro-Mubarak thugs. His friend the amazing interpreter was also there, leading the Muslim Brotherhood's defense of Tahrir Square from those pro-Mubarak thugs on horses and camels. And of course we saw his friend from the leadership of the Lawyers Syndicate on TV to announce that the lawyers were taking the side of the people against Mubarak.

Sayyed was also very excited about the revolution. For a decade, he explained, he's been arguing that the only way Egypt would change is from within the NDP. Some prominent party voice would have to publicly declare their disgust with the NDP and break away to form a new party. He'd never imagined that the people would effect change from beyond the party, and he's delighted to be wrong. I'm excited to take this class with him on Islamic political movements, especially in light of the current curiosity about the Muslim Brotherhood's next move here in Egypt.

But Not Quite As Usual!
Things are not yet back to normal in Cairo, whatever normal is going to be. There are still dozens of tanks blocking the streets around the Radio and TV Building, the heart and soul of the Egyptian propaganda machine. The only public transportation between my apartment in Tahrir and our classes in Zamalek should go down those streets. Consequently, there is no public transportation to class, and I refuse and can't afford to pay 30 pounds ($6) a day in taxi fare to get to class on my stipend. That's a whole week worth of koshary lunches!

This means that I practically ran to class this morning, for lack of public transportation, which took me an hour and left me with half a dozen blisters and all my clothes soaked in sweat. I don't mean to whine. I'm grateful that we have classes to go to! But I chose my apartment for its proximity to class and public transportation, and it's so frustrating to be stranded there now!

HR 1 and the Future of International Education

The memo below on budget cuts in the US Congress was circulated on Cairo Scholars today. The proposed budget cuts detailed below have profound effects on study abroad, cultural exchange, peace work and critical language teaching in the Egypt, the Middle East and beyond. These reductions effect both American students, professors and scholars seeking opportunities abroad, and also foreign students, professors and scholars wishing to enrich American institutions with their wealth of experience. It also represents a drastic reduction in resources and opportunities for American students starting at the kindergarten level to interact with the greater world.

In this era of globalization, interconnectivity and interdependence, we should be increasing our understanding of the rest of the world. I've seen photos of Egyptians holding placards in solidarity with striking government workers in Wisconsin, and government workers in Wisconsin holding placards in solidarity with Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Bahrain. This is how the world works now, and failing to prepare our youth for that reality will, in the long run, worsen our economic, political and cultural power far more than the deficit it reduces.

Dear MESA members,

Many of you will have been immersed in the news of the extraordinary events taking place in the Middle East over the last month or so. This update is to bring to your attention some important developments happening in the U. S. Congress that could affect programs in foreign language and area studies. A number of programs funded by the U.S government have been targeted for either major budget cuts or complete elimination.

Thinking that area studies specialists may be concerned about this possibility, I pass on information about a few programs particularly relevant to the broad disciplinary interests of MESA members.

Background
The U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1 (H.R.1) last week. What is H.R.1? It is the 2011 full-year continuing appropriations Act. It would extend the current 2011 fiscal year funding which expires March 4, 2011.The Senate returns from recess next Monday (February 28) to begin work on its version of a budget for the remainder of FY11. Many things can happen in the negotiations between the House and the Senate.

In H.R. 1:

• State Department international exchange programs would receive a 21 per cent cut, or a reduction to $501.3 million from the current funding level of $635 million. Two examples of programs funded under this program (http://exchanges.state.gov/scho-pro.html) are the Fulbright Program for Scholars serving scholars and the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program serving undergraduate and graduate students.
• All funding from the United States Institute of Peace ($42.6 million) would be eliminated. www.usip.org USIP funds have supported hundreds of scholars and practitioners through its Senior Fellows program and hundreds of students through its Peace Scholars program. Its Grant Program has provided over 2,000 awards since 1986, a majority of which have supported the work of individual scholars around the world.
• Funding for the K-12 Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) would be eliminated ($26.9 million). This is the Education Department's only dedicated grant program for K-12 foreign language education.
• Funding for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education--FIPSE (including the International Consortia Programs) would be cut entirely ($58 million).
• $350 million from the National Science Foundation would be cut. This could affect research funds for such disciplines and fields as Anthropology, Election Studies, Geography, Linguistics and Political Science.
• For the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), H.R. 1 provides a FY 2011 budget of $145 million. This figure represents a $22 million (13%) cut from the agency's FY 2010 enacted budget. Examples of NEH grants are the NEH Research Fellowships, NEH Summer Institutes and Seminars for College and University Teachers, Collaborative Research Awards, Scholarly Editions and Translations Awards, etc.: http://www.neh.gov/news/recentawards.html
• Funding for the Grants and Administration portion of the National Endowment for the Arts would be reduced by $20.5 million. NEA has funded Literature Fellowships for Translation Projects.

Finally, although H.R 1 did not propose any changes to the funding levels for The Higher Education Act, Title VI and Fulbright-Hays 102(b)(6), changes may come up in next week's Senate deliberations or in negotiations with the House. Funded at $125.881 million in FY 2010, these programs represent less than 0.2 percent of the U.S. Department of Education’s discretionary budget. A cost-effective investment, this federal-university partnership stimulates substantial additional funding by universities and foundations.

Sincerely,
Amy W. Newhall
Executive Director

Boo CASA! Yay AUC!

Cairo, Egypt

The Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) has canceled their spring semester, despite the resumption of near-normality in the streets of Cairo. They are also withdrawing funding for our stipends.

However, we've just received confirmation from the Arabic Language Institute at American University in Cairo. They will be providing our spring semester anyway, hopefully beginning as soon as Monday the 28th. They will also be providing our stipends.

For background, after recommending to CASA students that they return to Cairo, the University of Texas canceled the remainder of the CASA program for this year, including the stipends on which we were expecting to live until summer. (One of us is supporting two households on her stipend, while most of the rest of us at the very least have no other source of income until September, having counted on this fellowship to last until 1 June.) It took the University of Texas and their woefully misinformed security "specialists" two weeks to make this decision, and we have had no further communication from them since that decision 10 days ago, despite repeated emails from CASA Fellows for more details of how various elements of the program will be resolved.

Academically, CASA is one of the best Arabic language programs in the world, and has been for 40 years. However, I will not be able to recommend it to colleagues in future without serious caveats. The actions of the University of Texas regarding the CASA program have been chaotic, unorganized, and unprofessional. Had CASA students been in any real danger - and fortunately there was only one life-threatening but safely resolved incident during the revolution - there is no indication that UT would have even known about it in time to do anything. Only now, when the danger is passed, are they concerned about the "liability" of our staying on in Cairo, when we've already signed paperwork absolving them of all liability.

Despite operating for 40 years in Cairo, it became clear in this crisis that no one in CASA knew who was authorized to make critical decisions about student safety, evacuation, financial concerns like the distribution of stipends to pay our rent and food, or about the continuation of the program itself. It took 18 days, until the day Mubarak stepped down and the revolution ended, for CASA and UT to make the decision to suspend the program. It took them a further 10 days to respond to a single emailed question from CASA Fellows. If we had questions, we were instructed to contact the program director via Skype (she was not responding to emails, either) and when contacted she could only say that she was not authorized to make any decisions or recommendations.

I have worked with Rotary Youth Exchange, studied abroad with Goucher College, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer. In all those circumstances, not only were lines of communication and responsibility made clear to program staff, but also to program participants. Emergency plans were in place, lines of communication established, and participants were trained to take advantage of them. Not so with CASA and the University of Texas. Though this crisis was unexpected at this time, it was not unimaginable that an increasingly impoverished, overpopulated country ruled by a brutal dictator might some day, quite suddenly, fall apart. We are only lucky that Egypt did not do so as spectacularly and tragically as Libya. CASA and UT's lack of preparedness is inexcusable.

On the other hand, I am happy to report that the Arabic Language Institute (ALI) at AUC, which hosts CASA in Cairo, has stepped in to fill the gap. They have arranged for our classes to resume, our stipends to be paid, our health insurance coverage to continue, and the CASA/Cairo office to reopen. While they may not have communicated with us as often as we might have wished, lines of communication were always open, and emails have always been responded to promptly and as completely as was possible under the circumstances.

Of course, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement for ALI. Most of their students have left Egypt for good, and most of their teachers were looking at having no jobs this semester. With all CASA students - without exception! - expressing a strong desire to complete our studies despite (or perhaps because of) uncertainty about Egypt's political future, it makes sense for ALI to provide our classes. And we are glad to give the work to the amazing teachers who have helped us understand Egypt's revolution on a deep level most foreigners in Egypt don't.

PhD Got You Down? Try CASA!

Cairo, Egypt

Quote of the Day

I feel for you...this PhD seems like such a joke compared to the CASA workload...here I actually get to sleep!

- Ilaria Giglioli

I was complaining on Facebook today about the impossible volume of homework we get every night here in CASA, and my friend Ilaria from the CASA summer semester offered her sympathies. And it did make me feel much better: like I'm not such a wuss to be overwhelmed, and like feeling like a CASA failure needn't preclude the possibility of doing a doctoral program in the future.

'Failure?' you're thinking. 'Surely you exaggerate!' In the most technical sense, it's true. I can only think of two or three days when I finished all the homework assigned for the day ... and in all those instances, I had only managed to finish because I forgot several of the assigned tasks!

On the other hand, when I work 6 to 10 hours per day on homework and still don't finish it all, that's hardly a failure! It's merely a decision I've made that getting to sleep at midnight is more important than finishing all my assignments. What good does my homework do me if I'm too tired to discuss it in class the next day? Or too run-down and stressed to enjoy a drink with friends on a Thursday night?

I guess I'm still trying to find my balance between getting the work done and maintaining my sanity!

On the other hand, I'm coming to understand more and more just what an amazing opportunity this is. Whether it's other expats I meet here in Cairo, or friends of friends I'm being put in touch with over Facebook, it seems that anyone interested in the Middle East knows about CASA, and is in awe of its Fellows. It's odd to find someone who studies Arabic or lives here and doesn't know about CASA ... and even odder to say to people, "It's supposed to be one of the best Arabic language programs anywhere." I feel like I'm bragging, particularly since I don't feel like I'm a very good representative of the program, but it's the truth! And I try to remind myself of that instead of berating myself for the homework I don't have time to finish!

CASA in the News

Cairo, Egypt

We were interviewed for this article mid- summer, but now it's finally appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Talking About Teaching

Cairo, Egypt

This week's topic was education, which made me really happy, since that's the topic I'm best able to talk about in Arabic! And from bottom to top, the problems in the education system in Egypt are exactly the same as Jordan's: enormous class sizes, under-valued teachers, unhealthy focus on all-important exam results, and every parent's insistence that his children will be doctors and engineers, leading to wide-spread cheating in school and beyond. These are the problems everyone can agree on.

Then there are the more controversial problems, controversy aggravated by the role of American politics and money in these issues. There is genuine concern by many - both Arabs and Westerners - about the role education plays in religious extremism. The American solution, backed by American money, is to increase secularization and critical thinking in Arab national curricula, but these are touch topics in a constitutionally Islamic nation like Egypt or Jordan. Islam calls for government to be guided by religious principles, and to direct its citizens on the right path and protect them from sin. That's why, for example, alcohol is illegal in Saudi and proselytizing religions other than Islam is illegal in many Muslim countries. And as for critical thinking, well, that's okay in secular subjects - the sciences and social sciences - but it makes many conservative religious scholars nervous. It smacks of criticism, paternalism, and even neo-imperialism that belittles Egyptian character, values and history.

Meanwhile, of course, Egyptian kids are sitting 60 or 90 kids to a classroom (this is in grade schools!) with underqualified, grossly underpaid teachers who probably wanted to be doctors or engineers, but were forced into teaching because their exam scores weren't quite high enough. And it's just so hard to see a way out!

Technology Isn't Always the Answer

Garbage Dreams: The Zebbaleen of Cairo

Cairo, Egypt

My roommate took me to an incredible documentary last night, Garbage Dreams. Not only was it in Egyptian colloquial Arabic so I could pretend it was homework, but it was a poignant, intriguing story.

Until recently, Cairo didn't have a municipal garbage collection service. They had the Zabbaleen. Mostly minority Coptic Christians and all of them very poor, the Zabbaleen saw an economic opportunity, and for generations they've been collecting, sorting, treating and recycling Cairenes' waste. By recycling 80% of what they collect, they are able to earn enough money to live.

Well, they were. And then globalization. Cairo hired foreign companies to collect trash in Africa's biggest city. Now the Zabbaleen face the threat of losing the only way of life they know. Just as bad, those foreign companies only recycle 20% of the waste they collect. An economic and ecological disaster.

The best part of the film is probably when Adham and Nabil go to Wales to see how recycling is done in the "developed" world. While their hostess, who clearly doesn't speak Arabic, shows them with great pride the state-of-the-art facility in Wales, the boys are at times awed by the technology, but mostly aghast at how much recyclable material gets past the machines and ends up in the landfill anyway. Pie in the face of Western liberal green innovation!

If you have a chance to see this film, it's not nearly as grim and grimy as you might expect!