Responding to a blog article on Connecting Classrooms Project

http://jamalelabiad.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-connecting-classrooms-project.html

(To understand this response, read the article in the link above.)

Dear Jamal and his blog readers,
My name is Mohammed Hassim and I am an ELT inspector in Zagora and I am also the coordinator of CCP in Sous Massa Daraa Academy and Access in Zagora and in MATE (Moroccan Association of Teachers of English). The response you will read below was originally an email that I wrote to Jamal, the blog writer, early this morning (Wednesday, 1 December, 2010, 2:03 a.m.). Initially, I intended to modify it and post it in his blog because some information in the blog article was kept anonymous. But because an anonymous posting gave the real names of the blogger, where he works and the area he spoke about, and because the blogger himself wrote in one of his own responses to some readers:
"You should have demanded clarifications from the project coordinator and the high school teacher";
"The project cordinators have the full right to post comments correcting the blogger's "claims"."

Because of all that, I feel obliged to post my response exactly as I emailed it to him.

From: Mohammed Hassim
Subject: A response to your blog article about CCP
To: "Jamal Elabiad"
Date: Wednesday, 1 December, 2010, 2:03

Dear si Jamal;
How are you doing? I hope everything is fine with you.

I am writing this email basically to respond to an article you published recently in your blog which was entitled “On Connecting Classrooms Project”. I could have responded to the article in your blog but because the information presented about the people in the article were kept anonymous and it was good you did that (the coming will explain why). Writing an email will allow me use names and speak openly to you. But before I start my response, I’d like to put forward some crucial reservations which must be taken into consideration while you are reading this response.

a. I am responding to your article because I was directly referred to. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother responding to the blog at all. So this response is imposed on me and is not a complete choice of mine.
b. This response should by no means be considered as a dialogue between an inspector and a teacher working in the same area. It is a dialogue between a writer and a person he wrote about. So it should not be considered as someone superior exercising certain power over someone who is inferior to him (I have never thought of the relationship between the two that way). We are here communicating on equal footing.
c. Based on the previous point, I will be referring to myself as an inspector just when I feel I can’t escape it.
d. This response is mainly meant to clarify and correct some points/information in your article and not to start an extensive debate or exchange accusations or to start a personal/professional conflict between you and me.
e. In my response I will put aside all prejudices and ready-made conclusions and I will base my response upon the information you included in your article and the documented facts I have and you don’t know.
f. I have all the right to publish a modified version of this response in your blog but I’d like you to consider it as “Bayan Haqiqa” (as commonly known and practiced in newspapers) where I am correcting some wrong information in your article and clarifying certain points that concern me, the people mentioned and the programs referred to. If I decide to publish this response in your blog, I request that you don’t delete it as long as your article is there so that the readers are given two versions of reality and it’s for them to judge and comment.

So from the start, I insist that you read my response based on the reservations above. My response will be presented in separate points tackling one point at a time.

1. What I noticed from the whole article is that you relied in formulating your ideas and conclusions on only one source of information; a teacher you know. This source of information is a secondary source and not a primary one just because he is not the coordinator and he did not take part in Connecting Classrooms Project (CCP) which is the main topic of your article. You based all your ideas and conclusions on that secondary source without even taking the trouble of consulting primary sources which/whom you easily have access to. I am the coordinator and you know me personally. We talked about CCP many times in front the teachers in Zagora and you were present. In the last pedagogical meeting we held in October 2010; I talked about many projects including CCP and Connecting Classrooms Online (CCO). And I said that the projects are open to all teachers. I distributed a CD-ROM containing all the projects and I told you all to take time to look over them and later we will agree on a schedule based on the projects you are interested in.

2. CCP is a project that officially started last year. As I told you in that meeting and in a previous one last year, the project is in its piloting stage. Only two academies are involved: Sous Massa Daraa (SMD) and Elgharb Chrarda Bnihsen (Kenitra region). There are 12 teachers from 9 delegations (used to be 7 delegations) of SMD and 6 teachers from Kenitra. Each teacher represents a school. The program is planned to cover 100 schools all over Morocco at a later stage. The choice of the teachers and schools is left to the inspectors because they are in the best position to do so. In SMD, there are two coordinators: an inspector from Agadir and myself. And because I am the inspector in Zagora, it’s me who should select the two teachers in my area. Your conclusions here are as follows:
- “But, as far as I know, there are many schools around Morocco where the criteria for selecting teachers to take part in Connecting Classrooms project (CCP) were not respected.” As a project in a piloting stage; there was only one criterion (of course based on the requirements of the project): they were selected by their inspectors and not by the coordinators. They are not from schools around Morocco; they are 18 teachers from 2 academies.
- “The conclusion I came to was that those teachers were selected either because they were recommended for the project or because they are close friends of the project coordinators.” It’s only in 2 delegations that the teachers were selected by 2 inspectors who are also the coordinators of the project. In all delegations, the teachers were selected by their inspectors.
- “The question is how were they selected despite the fact that they are unqualified according the project criteria?” How do you know they are unqualified? Have you ever attended their classes? Have you seen their projects? Have you examined their portfolios and professional documents? Do you know them all?

3. “The middle school teacher confirmed my conclusion adding that he was invited last year to participate in the CCP, but he rejected the offer, for the teacher discovered that he was selected, not because he met the project requirements, but because one of his English high school teachers recommended him to the project coordinator.”
I don’t know why, as an inspector, I should ask another teacher from my area to recommend me another teacher from my area while I am the inspector and I know the English teachers better than any other person in my area. The middle school teacher you talked about took part in Access program because it was me, his inspector, who recommended him and because he is a qualified teacher despite what you said he told you. It was me who recommended him for CCP and this time for two reasons. The first one is because he is a qualified teacher, and the second is because he is from Zagora (by the way, talking about origins, I am not from Zagora). The latter reason is justified by the fact that teachers in Zagora don’t want to stay in Zagora for long. The project lasts for 5 years; so we cannot start with a different teacher each year. The reason he presented to me personally for not taking part in the project was that he had no intention to stay in Zagora for long. The second middle school teacher who took part in CCP was selected to take part in the project for the same two above-mentioned reasons: he is a qualified teacher and he is from Zagora.

4. “By the way, both the high school teacher and the project coordinator are active members of a Moroccan ELT association.”
I don’t know why this “Moroccan ELT association” is mentioned here. What is the harm in belonging to a professional association? Has the teacher or the coordinator ever forced you to join that association? Have they ever forced anyone anywhere to join it? Have they ever judged you upon being a member or not being a member of that association? If you don’t believe in the principles of that association, you are totally free to do so. But you have no right to blame them or anyone else for belonging to an association even if you don’t agree with that. Belonging to that Moroccan association has never been a professional criterion for evaluating teachers professionally. So many teachers have benefitted and taken part in the programs and activities of that “Moroccan ELT Association” and they have never been part of its members.

5. “And I am pretty sure that the teacher would not have joined ACCESS program had he known of the fact that it was his high school teacher who recommended him to the ACCESS coordinator.”
In addition to what I said before about the fact that it was me, the inspector in the area and the coordinator of Access program, who recommended that middle school teacher to Access program, I see no harm in the fact that a teacher recommends his ex-student for a program, though this is not the case here. This is an established tradition all over the world including recommendations for studies or jobs in eminent universities in USA and UK.

6. “In brief, the other teachers of English would have been invited to join the project if they had been students of the high school teacher, or if they had been originally from his place of birth.”
I don’t know why you came to this sweeping conclusion. There are plenty of exchange programs announced now and then on the net. I personally share many of them on facebook and via mailing lists. Teachers can directly apply to those programs without any intermediary. They just provide the required documents and show how they meet the requirements and if they qualify, they will surely be selected. There are programs of 2 weeks, a month, 5 months, 9 and even a whole year provided by many countries (USA, UK, Malaysia, Japan, etc.). I know many teachers from both middle and high school who applied and were accepted without belonging to a specific region or knowing the coordinators or even belonging to any Moroccan ELT association. The evidence is the pictures and information they publish on facebook. You just go there and you might recognize many of them. In the age of the internet, nothing is regional or small group specific. Barriers to information is part of the past.

As a conclusion, I would say that writing publicly is a double-edged tool. It can be useful, beneficial and informative for both writer and readers. At the same time, it can be harmful and destructive to both. I do recommend that you think a lot and be cautious enough before you publish anything. It is easy to take the pen and write; take the keyboard and start to click; it has even become easier to publish online, but it’s difficult to regain friends you lose because of that or to heal the deep wounds you cause them. Personally, I get upset for a certain time, then I forget about it soon. But not all people are like me. Be careful!

I wish you all the success as a writer and as a teacher.

Regards,
Mohammed Hassim