Morocco: School Days

Brad and I went to school with Peter and Jessa all day on the first Monday we were there. They teach at the Casablanca American School. The students are expat kids as well as locals, but the majority of students happen to be locals. The kids were adorable and endearing.

First thing in the morning, Mr. Harrison's fourth grade class greeted us on the playground. Every one of the 23 kids shook our hands and introduced themselves—which was pretty darned cute. (This picture is actually from recess later in the morning; it may surprise my own kids to hear me say this, but I didn't want to start taking pictures of the students as soon as we were introduced!)

The morning started off with a "community meeting" where the kids had time to recognize instances of each other's (mostly) positive behavior from the past week. Peter calls it "oles, apologies, and concerns." For olés they recognized good things that other students did, for apologies they make apologies to each other, and for concerns they get to bring up concerns for something another student did. It was a great way for them to share their feelings in a positive way.

They also played a game called Quack. As a matter of fact, Brad and I joined in too. (But we didn't last long!) This was the final round, which if I remember correctly is called a Quack Off.

Brad and I each got to read a book to the class. We also got put on the Hot Seat, which was when the kids could ask us any (appropriate) questions they liked. The question they were most fixated on was who was our favorite son, John or Peter. (Yes, they already knew that Peter had a brother named John.) We had fun with that one!

I read a book to the class called Weird Parents. But I dearly wish we could have read this one.

I brought a photo of Mr. Harrison with his fourth grade teacher. Needless to say, the kids were very interested in seeing what their teacher looked like when he was their age. I passed the picture around and they all took a good long look at it. There were lots of comments about his hair.

This is Mr. Harrison in action. We also got to see Jessa's room, but I didn't get any photos of her from this day. She teaches kids one-on-one and some of her students are in Peter's class, so we did get to see her a lot.

Lest you think Peter and John are the only Harrisons who are known to these kids, when we were on the playground one of his students from last year walked up to me and with a super excited fifth grade expression in her voice she said, "ARE YOU MARY HARRISON'S MOM?" Mary visited last year and I guess she made an impression!

This is one of Peter's students, and he's a wiz with the abacus. Peter said he learned how to use it at home and he even has a workbook, so he brings it to school to do in his spare time for when he finishes his math work early. It's really impressive.

Peter planned it so that the last event of the day was a party! His kids did a big writing project over the past few weeks, so to celebrate their accomplishment parents were invited and there was quite a spread.

 The class and Mr. Harrison.

The kids holding up their writing projects. They each wrote a story and I think that between me and Brad, each student read us his/her story.

Last but not least, Mr. Harrison and his proud parents. Tomorrow, I'll post about some of the sights we got to see in Morocco.