More on Mafraq

So, Al-albayt continues to blur fantasy and fiction for me. Overall, I think the best I can do is say that I’m sure I will grow to love it, or at least greatly appreciate the experiences it offers me. Monday was an interesting day, I finally met the last American I had heard about who works at the university, the infamous Dr. Ross. Dr. Ross is teaching at Al-albayt through a teacher exchange program funded by USAID and organized through Georgetown. He is an older man who has been teaching English abroad for several years in more than several different countries and regions. Our meeting was an interesting one- it came about like so: I was sitting in the office I share with Spanish teacher Aisha, (and by share I mean I stay out of the office until 2 when she leaves and then sometimes I go sit at the one desk in the room pretending students might be able to find me or an “office hour”) and I got a call from Dr. Amr. (this is the head of the language center, remember, who doesn’t speak English) he asks me, in Arabic, if I am free Mondays and Wednesdays at 2. Technically, I am, I have just taught for 6 straight hours. Can I teach a class then? Well, what class? Is there a curriculum? Um… ok Dr. Amr will come to my office in five minutes. At this point Jomanna stopped in to check in on me and invite me to her house for dinner on Wednesday. While she was there, Dr. Amr comes and uses her as a translator to ask me if I will teach English pronunciation class, only about 80 students. Dr. Ross had taught the class before, so I asked Dr. Amr through Jomanna if I could meet Dr. Ross and ask him about it. Dr. Amr leaves suddenly and comes back with Dr. Ross. “Oh so you re the one they want to pawn this class off on. They asked me, but I’m sick of their bull *** so I told them no!” huh. So I asked about the class, about his experience teaching here, and what I should do. He told me much of what I already knew, but it was interesting to hear it so bluntly stated. Basically, English is often pass fail and required, so most of the students aren’t there to actually learn anything. The tests are poor and there aren’t really prerequisites so students are rarely placed in an appropriate level and classes are huge. Cheating is rampant, as are cell phones in class. The text books are illegally copied English books from the 80’s that are in no way interesting to teach or learn from. He said the only reason they have most of these classes is because they are still randomly in the registrar and meet certain ancient requirements so students sign up for them. The reason they don’t have a professor is because no one wants to teach them so they try to pass them o to anyone they can. Dr. Ross suggests that I politely decline this offer. I tell Jomanna to please tell Dr. Amr that I don’t think my schedule will allow me to teach this class. Dr. Amr makes a phone call. We are soon joined in my office by Dr. Omar, the head of the English department. Dr. Omar comes in and heatedly begins talking to Dr. Ross. Shouting ensues “No I will not teach your class because it’s shit! It’s shit!” “It is not shit! Students have signed up or it they want to be in the class but it needs a teacher!” “No one wants to teach it because everyone knows it is shit! The students couldn’t care less about it. I will not be the dog of the English department” “This is not a matter of department! This is a university, you work for the university! These are good students they are not shit!” “ I have worked and worked and worked for you and I’m done rolling over for you…” You get the idea of this very animated dialogue. Meanwhile, while these men are literally shouting across my/Aisha’s desk, Jomanna grins at me and “regretfully” tells me she has to go. So I am alone now and after Dr. Ross slams his fist on the table for the final time, Dr. Amr steps in. “Ok ok hallass (enough) Dr. Ross, you only teach in language center. Jennifer, you only language center” Dr. Omar and Dr. Ross each take a deep breath, and we are all invited to Dr. Amr’s office. We change locations, and Dr. Ross and I sit and chat a little while Dr’s Amr and Omar call every other English teacher that works for the university trying to find someone who will teach this class. Finally, they find someone, and Dr. Omar praises God. He hugs Dr. Amr. Pats Dr. Ross on the back and wants to make sure there are no hard feelings and leaves. Still in bewilderment at my witness to all of this, I politely tell Dr. Amr that the faculty bus is leaving shortly and I need to leave to go back to Amman. So I officially teach three sections of English 101 and one of English 99. Thanks to Dr. Amr, I now have an actual classroom, as opposed to a weird computer lab, and a blackboard and everything. I still don’t know how to deal with 50 students each class or an hour and fifteen minutes, but as Scot, a Peace Corps Volunteer told me, it’s the little things that will count. You wont be able to change their system, but you can put small differences in it. So, step one, teach in actual classroom, not from glass booth with head set.