Category: Teaching

Teaching: Reflections on Culture Shocks

I had a wonderful time teaching for 21 years on the Arabian Peninsula; I wish I could have stayed longer. My students were smart, funny, creative and kind. Yet, coming from a different culture, I had some assumptions which I needed to unlearn. I realize the following might sound negative so I want to be clear: there are difficult students no matter where you teach. My students in the Emirates and Oman were 99% lovely and 1% challenging.

teachers control all areas of a school

This was the first assumption I had to unlearn. On the Arabian Peninsula, teachers are in control of only their students only in the classroom only during class time; any other attempts to correct behavior can be seen as an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Asking a student who is leaning against a “no smoking” sign in a hallway to stop smoking was met with a furious denunciation most of the time. Asking students to stop screaming in the hallway was likewise often met with contempt, in addition to louder screaming, hysterical giggles and rude words.

The first few times this happened, I thought I was dealing with unusually difficult students but I soon realized this was the norm. It didn’t matter if I asked politely, merely gestured or evoked my status; very few students would willingly put out the cigarette or stop yelling. I did not have the right to police hallways.

if students make mistakes, they will be polite

On the Arabian Peninsula, the older you are, the more self-control you are expected to have. This can set up a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card for students in that if they are rude, they believe that the elder teacher must keep their temper. A common tactic was for a student do something wrong, act rudely, elicit anger from teacher, then claim victim status, thus shifting the conversation from the student’s mistake to the teacher’s anger.

Nothing was more infuriating for a student than a composed teacher, such as my saying sadly and slowly, “I am so sorry, this paper is more than a week late so I can’t give you a grade. I will review it for mistakes so you are ready for the midterm, but your grade is zero.” My staying calm meant they could not get traction to change the focus from their not doing the work to my being “angry.” My expressing sorrow and speaking quietly meant the discussion centered on them, not me.

students with a low level of English will be the hardest to teach

This seemed to me quite straightforward, the less I could communicate with a student, the less I would be able to teach them. But the opposite was true. Students with low language skills would either make an effort by focusing in class, getting help from friends, coming to see me in my office or signing up for tutoring. A few tried to cheat, but if I caught them, they would either give up and drop the class or settle down to work honestly.

The worst difficulties were always with the students who had a high level of English. There was often a terribly dynamic in which they felt that, since they had always received straight As, high grades were their right. Other teachers had feted their ability to speak fluently, so they felt they had mastered all the necessary skills.

The most grueling conversations I had were with students who expected a perfect grade for perfect English combined with problematic elements such as giving a presentation while twisting their body, clutching their clothing and reading long paragraphs off PowerPoint slides or someone who wrote an essay without any grammar mistakes which was a hodge-podge of ideas in no discernable order.

Trying to explain that there was a difference between writing correct sentences and having well-organized essays was futile. Trying to explain that even good writers revised and reorganized their work was futile. It was also futile to explain that shorter sentences and essays divided into paragraphs are expected in English essays. Some students had gone through high school and some university-level classes with non-native speakers of English who allowed 60-word sentences and two-page essays which were all one paragraph. My saying that this was not usual in academic English was viewed as an attempt to steal their well-deserved marks.

It was frustrating for both me and the student to have these kinds of conversations. My point was, “you have the basics down, now let’s get you to the next level of writing with stronger openings, more fluid transitions between topics, better quotes, more interesting endings, etc.” Their point was, “I am getting 100/ 100 in my other classes, I know everything I need to know.”

teachers’ interactions with students are based on professional considerations

The most common metaphor for teachers is that they should be like a “mom,” i.e. endlessly forgiving and accepting. And like any situation with one mom and several children, students were always on the lookout for any signs of partiality.

Over the years, I tried to refine my teaching to eliminate any chance of being accused of favoritism. Instead of asking “who wants to read” or picking a random student, I would always start with the student who was sitting to the far right in the semi-circle. I used rubrics with highlighters to grade papers. For example, if a student lost points because of grammar issues, I would highlight the word “grammar” on the rubric in yellow and then highlight the paper’s grammar mistakes in yellow so they could easily see the correlation between their paper and their grade.

When they handed in an exam, I would immediately flip over the cover page with their name and I graded exams by going through everyone’s first page, then everyone’s second page (without looking back to see how a student did on page 1), etc.

All this effort mitigated some of the complaints but there was no way to make all the grades unbiased in their opinion. For example, I based the portion of the grade for “class participation” on three types of grades: 1) homework and recitations, 2) if they participated in group work and 3) reading checks, when I would walk around the room at the start of class to see if they had written notes/ definitions for the text we would read that day.

I picked which days I would check for reading at random and would write them in my planner ahead of time so I would not base my decision given who was present or whether I could see writing in their texts as I walked into class. But students would still complain, “She KNEW I didn’t do the reading, that’s why she checked today.”

One semester, as I walked out of the last class, one student was telling the others (in English, i.e., wanting to make sure I understood) “She ONLY checked readings on the days I didn’t prepare for class.” I know this was a self-preservation tactic (related to the next point) but the ones who practiced it created an unhealthy atmosphere of distrust towards teachers.

you make your choices and you live with the consequences

I went through my education with the idea that my grades were under my control. However, some students held the view that their grades were concocted from mysterious forces beyond their ken. Bad grades were not a result of them deciding not to do homework, come to class, ask questions or study; bad grades were the result of bad teaching and “circumstances.”

Being caught cheating on an exam or copying from the internet produced anger at me for not telling them that they were not allowed to copy paragraphs verbatim from other sources. When I printed out and highlighted the sections of the syllabus and assignment which explained that copying was not allowed, they said that they had not read that and hence didn’t know, so I did not have the right to lower their grade.

Some students had what I call the “two-world theory”; if they were late to class, they have a good reason but there was no acceptable excuse if another person (such as a food delivery person) was late. This odd dichotomy played out often. Students who missed 25% of my class complained viciously if a teacher missed their office hours. Students who turned in papers late complained about unorganized teachers. Students who broke rules such as using their phones in class, talking incessantly and copying homework from their friends complained if someone in administration did not do their job properly.

I never quite saw the contours of this problem – was it that the students were so endlessly coddled at home that they truly believed nothing could ever be their fault, or they felt so endlessly put upon that they were going to fight for whatever advantage they could get, or they felt everything was unfair and everyone was behaving badly so it didn’t matter if they did as well?

Of course, not all students acted like this, but the ones who did held on to the two-world theory so tightly that pointing out their hypocrisy (“yesterday you complained to me about how that person did not organize their time well and today you were 15 mintues late to class”) effected no change in attitude.

communal cultures means students will work well in groups

This is another issue that I don’t see all the contours of. I assumed that given the students were from tribe-based cultures and often spoke of the Omani dedication to peaceful coexistence, that group work would be a breeze. I quickly learned that a tribal upbringing meant that students would never rat out the students who did no work. It got to the point that a student wrote me an anonymous note asking me to stop doing group work as she had to do all the assignments; the other students in her group did nothing but she couldn’t say that publicly.

So I reworked groups as just discussion-based and told them that I would pick one student from the group at random to explain what the group had decided. This solved the issue of some students not participating.

But another problem remained: some students refused to speak to other students. I would set students in groups, then sit at my desk and pretend I was busy with paperwork. After a few minutes, I would look up and try to asses what was going on. Often if they were in groups of three, two students would talk and ignore the third one. So I learned to put students in pairs or groups of five. And I would always decide on the groups (deliberately splitting up any pairs of friends) as, the few times I let them choose, they would either pick their one friend, sit by the person they thought was the smartest person in the class or sit silently alone, making no effort to create an alliance, which is related to my next point.

try the new

When I was an undergraduate at University of Wisconsin-Madison, I signed up for a class on Northern European history on a whim because I didn’t know anything about that topic. On the first day we were given a list of possible topics for a presentation which would involve us teaching an entire class on the subject we picked. I choose the Finnish Civil War as I knew nothing about it.

When I went to the library to find some books on my topic, I discovered that my professor had written the definitive three volume history of the Finnish Civil War. I researched and cobbled a draft together, then went to his office to ask some questions and ended up sobbing as I was overwhelmed by having to explain this war to all my classmates in front of a Finnish professor. The poor man calmed me down and I managed to pull through.

I continued on this path of picking classes that were way beyond my knowledge base with similar consequences. When I studied at a German university, I took a class on Russian drama because I had never read one. German universities give collective exams after 3 years of study, but since I was transferring back to Wisconsin, I had to go to the professor’s office and have an oral exam at the end of the semester. One of his questions was “What is distinctive about Chekhov’s dramas?” I answered the best I could but I could not get the right answer which was the pauses between when actors speak. I had no idea about this feature as I had only read the plays; I had never seen one performed.

When I was accepted into my Masters of Education program for foreign language and social studies, the university required that I take two American History classes. I picked one on the 1600s and 1700s and one on the civil war. The Early American class had Masters and PhD in American History students and was based on class discussions. In the Civil War class, my classmates were two American History PhD students and we three traded off presenting books we had read. I was in way over my head all semester. I also moved overseas three times without knowing anyone in the country and traveled solo through Europe and several Asian countries.

I am laying this all out to explain why I was surprised that students generally refused to take any new class, even when they had lobbied for the class to be added to the plan of study. The first time a course was offered, so few students would sign up that it was closed or run with only a handful of students. Sometimes a new class was offered for 2 or 3 semesters before it was finally had enough participants. And the first semester of teaching a new class was misery as students dealt with their anxiety by skipping class.

Even a new type of assignment (such as writing a shape poem or a dialog with a character) was met with steep resistance. There would be endless questions and if I said “just go ahead and try, just write something, there’s no grade for this, dive in” inevitably several students would simply stare at the paper until I came and reexplained what to do to them personally. It was never a language issue; they understood what I was asking them to do, they were simply paralyzed at the thought of trying a new style of writing.

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Ending and Beginning

Teaching Metaphors: Conducting a Jazz Symphony

Teaching: Reflective Teaching and Motivation

Teaching Paired Literary Texts

Reflections/ Research on Teaching Cultural Studies and Literature

Two poems for courage: “Against Hesitation” by Charles Rafferty and “Thalassa” by Louis MacNeice

“Against Hesitation,” by Charles Rafferty

If you stare at it long enough

the mountain becomes unclimbable.

Tally it up. How much time have you spent

waiting for the soup to cool?

Icicles hang from January gutters

only as long as they can. Fingers pause

above piano keys for the chord

that will not form. Slam them down

I say. Make music of what you can.

Some people stop at the wrong corner

and waste a dozen years hoping

for directions. I can’t be them.

Tell every girl I’ve ever known

I’m coming to break her door down,

that my teeth will clench

the simple flower I only knew

not to give … Ah, how long did I stand

beneath the eaves believing the storm

would stop? It never did.

And there is lightning in me still

“Thalassa,” Louis MacNeice

Run out the boat, my broken comrades;

Let the old seaweed crack, the surge

Burgeon oblivious of the last

Embarkation of feckless men,

Let every adverse force converge–

Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades;

Let each horizon tilt and lurch–

You know the worst: your wills are fickle,

Your values blurred, your hearts impure

And your past life a ruined church–

But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,

Whose record shall be noble yet;

Butting through scarps of moving marble

The narwhal dares us to be free;

By a high star our course is set,

Our end is Life. Put out to sea.

My Job

Reflections on Ethnographic Research in Dhofar Oman

A good poem for hard times – “Atlas” by U. A. Fanthorpe

Antigone and Ismene – Making Difficult Choices

Two poems about nature and rest: “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry and “Sleeping in The Forest,” Mary Oliver

Two poems about nature and rest: “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry and “Sleeping in The Forest,” Mary Oliver

“Sleeping in The Forest,” Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

“The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free

Reflections/ Research on Teaching Cultural Studies and Literature

Selected Bibliography: Primary and Secondary Texts for Literature Teachers on the Arabian Peninsula

Suggestions for Literature Teachers in the Middle East

Two poems for spring: “Dear March – Come in” by Emily Dickinson and “March” by Goethe

“March,” Goethe

 

Look, it’s snowed for hours,

The time is not yet right,

For all the little flowers,

For all the little flowers,

To fill our hearts with light.

The sunlight is deceiving,

Mild but false it shone,

Even the swallow’s cheating,

Even the swallow’s cheating,

Why? He comes alone!

Alone, could I be happy

Even though spring is near?

But if you were with me,

But if you were with me,

Suddenly summer’s there.

“Dear March – Come in,” Emily Dickinson

Dear March – Come in –

How glad I am –

I hoped for you before –

Put down your Hat –

You must have walked –

How out of Breath you are –

Dear March, how are you, and the Rest –

Did you leave Nature well –

Oh March, Come right upstairs with me –

I have so much to tell –

I got your Letter, and the Birds –

The Maples never knew that you were coming –

I declare – how Red their Faces grew –

But March, forgive me –

And all those Hills you left for me to Hue –

There was no Purple suitable –

You took it all with you –

Who knocks? That April –

Lock the Door –

A good poem for hard times – “Atlas” by U. A. Fanthorpe

Foodways and Literature – Animal Poems

Foodways and Literature – Food Stories and Poems

Literature and Ethnography

A good poem for hard times – “Atlas” by U. A. Fanthorpe

“Atlas,” by U. A. Fanthorpe, from Safe as Houses

 

[Atlas is the Greek God who holds up the sky]

 

There is a kind of love called maintenance

Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

 

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget

The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

 

Which answers letters; which knows the way

The money goes; which deals with dentists

 

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

 

The permanently rickety elaborate

Structures of living, which is Atlas.

 

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

Which knows what time and weather are doing

To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

Laughs at my dry rotten jokes; remembers

My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

My suspect edifice upright in air,

As Atlas did the sky.

 

“The Function of Poetry” by Billy Collins

Reflections/ Research on Teaching Cultural Studies and Literature

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

 

U.A. Fanthorpe

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ua-fanthorpe

U A Fanthorpe

Antigone and Ismene – Making Difficult Choices

This is a wonderful article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/15/hong-kong-security-law-chow-hang-tung-jailed/

I have taught Antigone many times. The first was almost by chance. I needed a Greek play and didn’t want to do Oedipus, so I picked up Antigone and was amazed by how powerful the play was. I had forgotten its strength and, importantly for a literature professor, how it balances out everyone’s POV. There is something to be said about each person’s argument. Teaching it was a joy. All the students had an opinion about what should happen and were happy to engage with the characters and plot. I ended up writing some essays and doing some presentations about using Greek plays on the Arabian Peninsula but what was most interesting about Antigone was that students did not judge Ismene harshly.

Gan’s article sets up a dichotomy with Antigone as the brave/ correct one and Ismene as the sister who must be forgiven. My students did not not make that division – each sister was doing what she felt was right. Most agreed that Antigone was correct to bury her brother against the laws of the state, but that did not necessarily mean that Ismene was behaving badly. I found that quality of acceptance very heartening.

Articles:

“Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching in Oman,” in Unpackaging Theory and Practice in Educational Sciences. Abdülkadir Kabadayı, ed. Lyon: Livre de Lyon. 2023: 129-141.  https://www.livredelyon.com/educational-sciences/unpackaging-theory-practice-in-educational-sciences_595.

“Teaching Paired Middle Eastern and Western Literary Texts,” in Advancing English Language Education. Wafa Zoghbor and Thomaï Alexiou, eds. Dubai: Zayed University Press, 2020: 221-223.

“Teaching Literature on the Arabian Peninsula,” Anthropology News website, October 7 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/10/07/teaching-literature-on-the-arabian-peninsula/

“Writing Prompts to Facilitate Creativity and Interesting Texts,” Proceedings of the 15th Oman International ELT Conferences. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2016: 46-52.

“Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges and Reactions,” in Focusing on EFL Reading: Theory and Practice. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2014: 165-188.

“Who Are You Calling ‘Coddled’?: ‘Cloistered Virtue’ and Choosing Literary Texts in a Middle Eastern University,” Pedagogy 13.3, 2013: 415-427.

“Do You know a Creon?: Making Literature Relevant in an Omani University,” in Literature Teaching in EFL/ESL: New Perspectives. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2012: 302-314.

Selected Fiction (Novels and Short Stories) – Arabian Peninsula

A history-focused Whatsapp group I belong to recently had a discussion which elicited numerous suggestions about fictional works set on the Arabian Peninsula. I am including the works mentioned below along with some texts I have taught in my literature classes and/ or used for my research.

Anthologies

Akers, Deborah and Abubaker Bagader, eds. and trans. 2008. Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf. London: Lynne Rienner.

Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. 1988. The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. London: Kegan Paul International.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2016. Modern Literature of the Gulf. Bern: Peter Lang GmbH.

Pedagogy

Heble, Ayesha. 2007. “Teaching Literature On-line to Arab students: Using Technology to Overcome Cultural Restrictions.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 6.2: 219-226.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2006. “The Mosaic of Quotations and the Labyrinth of Interpretations: The Problems of Intertextuality in the Modern Literature of the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 187-200.

Ramsey, Gail. 2006. “The Past in the Present: Aspects of Intertextuality in Modern Literature in the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 161-86.

—. 2004. “Confining the Guest Labourers to the Realm of the Subaltern in Modern Literature from the Gulf. Orientalia Succana, 53: 133-42.

Webb, Allen. 2012. Teaching the Literature of Today’s Middle East. London: Routledg

Short stories/ novels

‘Abd al-Majd / Abde Meguid, Ibrahim. The Other Place.

Algosaibi, Ghazi. An Apartment Called Freedom.

Alshammari, Shahd. Notes on the Flesh.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York, Grove Press.

Oman

Al-Farsi, Abdulaziz. 2013. Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs: A Modern Omani Novel. Trans. Nancy Roberts. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press.

Al-Harthi, Jokha. Celestial Bodies

Hamed, Huda. I Saw Her in my Dreams.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2002. Modern Poetry and Prose of Oman. Krakow: The Enigma Press.

UAE

Al‑Murr, M. 1998. “The Wink of the Mona Lisa” and Other Stories from the Gulf. J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: United Arab Emirates: Motivate Publishing.

—. 2008. Dubai Tales. P. Clark and J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Al-Suwaidi, Thani. The Diesel.

Johnson-Davies, Denys, ed. 2009. In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Krishnadas. 2007. Dubai Puzha.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2012. Modern Literature of the United Arab Emirates. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press.

Unnikrishnan, Deepak. Temporary People.

Kuwait

Abulhawa, Susan. 2020. Against the Loveless World.

Al-Nakib, Mai. 2022. An Unlasting Home.

Alsanousi, Saud. The Bamboo Stalk.

Saudi

Aima, Rahel. Moon Rose – short story https://www.eflux.com/architecture/cascades/400332/moon-rose/

Al-Khamis, Omaima Abdullah. Al-Bahriyat.

al-Sanea, Rajaa. Girls of Riyadh.

Alireza, Marianne. 2002. At the Drop of a Veil.

Alwan, Mohammed. 1988. “Love and Rain” in The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. London: Kegan Paul International. 302-306.

Benyamin. Goat Days.

Ferraris, Zoe. Finding Noof. 2008. New York: Little Brown, 2012. (also Kingdom of Strangers and City of Veils)

Munif, Abdul Rahman. Cities of Salt.

Yemen

‘Abd al-Wali, Mohammad. They Die Strangers.

Ba-Amer, Salih. 1988. “Dancing by the Light of the Moon,” in The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. S. K. Jayyusi, ed. London: Kegan Paul International. 318-22.

Bajaber, Khadija Abdalla. 2021. House of Rust.

Dammaj, Zayd Mutee’. The Hostage.

Hunter, Barry Stewart Hunter. 2017. Aden.

Fairy/ Folk Tales

Al Taie, Hatim and Joan Pickersgill. 2008. Omani Folk Tales. Muscat, Oman: Al Roya Press and Publishing House.

Al Thahab, Khadija bint Alawi. 2012. Stories of My Grandmother. [Dhofari] Trans. W. Scott Chahanovich. Washington, D.C:  Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center.

ElMahi, Ali Tigani and Ahmed Mohamed al Khatheri. 2015. “A Folk Story from Dhofar: A Pathway to Indigenous Knowledge.” Journal of Arts and Social Sciences 6.2: 5-12. DOI:10.24200/jass.vol6iss2

Hamad, Abdulsalam. Omani Folk Tales. 2006. Seeb: Al-Dhamri Bookshop.

Johnstone, T.M. 1974. “Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra.” Arabian Studies 1: 7-24.

Johnstone, T.M. 1978. “A St. George of Dhofar.” Arabian Studies 4: 59-65.

Johnstone, T. M. 1983.“Folk-Tales and Folk-lore of Dhofar.” Journal of Oman Studies 6.1: 123-127.

Mershen, Birgit. 2004. “Ibn Muqaarab and Naynuh: A Folk-tale from Tiwi.” Journal of Oman Studies 13: 91-97.

Paine, Patty, Jesse Ulmer and Michael Hersrud, eds. 2013. The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf.  Highclere, Berkshire: Berkshire Academic Press.

Todino-Gonguet, Grace. 2008. Halimah and the Snake, and other Omani Folk Tales. London: Stacey International.

Also of interest

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation [https://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/ ]

Banipal Magazine [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/ ] which has special issues on specific countries, for example: Yemen [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/back_issues/73/issue-36/ ]

Literature and Ethnography

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

Reflections/ Research on Teaching Cultural Studies and Literature

Foodways and Literature – Food Stories and Poems

Foodways and Literature – Animal Poems

Reflections on Ethnographic Work – Trying to Make Sense of Words and Actions

I recently asked one class what “lullaby” meant and one answer I heard was “candy.” I like those moments when I can make sense of where the distortion is as the ‘b’/ ‘p’ distinction is sometime difficult for native speakers of Arabic. I walked to the board and wrote “lullaby” and “lollypop.”

I explained the difference between the two words, then we started another loop of misunderstandings.  I said, “lullaby sounds like your term: lowlay.” My students looked at me in confusion, so I said, “lowlay” again. They were still confused so I tried to change my pronunciation,  “lowlie,” but the word had no meaning for them.

At the start of a different class, I asked, “Does the term ‘lowlay’ mean anything to you?” A few students called out, “it’s a lullaby.”  Aha! I had thought lowlay was a general Arabic term, but it turns out it has only a regional usage.

It’s sometimes exhausting, sometimes fun to be constantly in the middle of making meaning. Of course I expect this when I am teaching and walking my students through color metaphors (such as the connotations of saying “I’m blue,” “she looked green” and “he’s yellow”) and the various shifting frameworks that come up, such as how it’s polite in some cultures to hand cash directly to a person and in other cultures that is rude.

But I believe that as soon as you leave your door-yard, you are confused. I was recently at a grocery store check-out counter sorting things into different bags as some items needed to go to my house, some stayed in the car for camping and some had to go to my office. When I was done, I looked at the clerk and she asked me in Arabic, “Why are you doing this?” and pressed her lips together. “Are you sick?”

Pressing lips together in the States is a common physical reaction to concentrating but it did not hold that meaning for her; she thought it was a reaction to being in pain. I said, “I do this when I am trying to think carefully.” She nodded. I am glad she asked because there are so many chances to misunderstand something or guess the wrong meaning, it’s always better to check.

This makes those moments when I know what to do so much sweeter. Last week I went to an ATM on salary day, the 21st of the month when almost every company in Oman pays the monthly salary and ATMs are very busy. As expected a few men were waiting, not in a line but spaced out to the left and right of the ATM.

I got out of my car and instead of going to stand as close to the ATM as possible (which would signal that I was trying to claim the female and/or expat privilege of cutting into the line), I leaned against the side of the hood. I glanced quickly at the other men, then gazed off into the middle distance. When new men came, I glanced at them quickly and when all the men who were there before me had taken cash, I walked up to the machine.

Because that’s how you do it. There is no clear queue; you need to look at everyone who was scattered around the ATM when you arrived and instantly memorize them (it’s not polite to stare!). Then you wait and watch so that when all the people who were there before you have finished, you move towards the machine. (Make a QUICK first move so the guys who are waiting won’t try to jump ahead of you, then walk slowly.)

When I got back into my car, one of the research guys walked past. He glanced at me and kept walking. So I rolled down the window and read articles on my phone; when he was done, he came to my car and we chatted for 10 minutes.

He first walked by without acknowledging me because to stop would throw off the rhythm; the men who came after him would not know that he was waiting for the ATM. Better to take his position, get his cash, then talk to me. If I had driven off, he would assume that I was in a hurry or that I felt ‘shy’ to speak to him in front of so many men. By waiting and putting the window down, I was signaling that I was happy to talk. If he had walked away without speaking, it would mean he was in a hurry or that there was an older person in the car (i.e. he should not keep that person waiting).

It took a lot of questions in similar circumstances to figure out the permutations of dealing with ATMS and running into research guys by chance. Now I am glad I’ve got the basics down. Sometimes it’s “every new day is a chance to wildly misunderstand what is going on” and sometimes it’s  “every new day is a chance to learn.”

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: What is Missing and What Changes

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Claiming Knowledge and Shifting Perceptions

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Getting it Wrong

Steve Cass

Steve Cass passed away one year ago today and the first message on my phone this morning was from a former student of his in remembrance. He had that much of an effect on people – the weeks after his death many former students and colleagues came to reminisce with me. His devotion to teaching and his integrity made him respected by all who who knew him. And his sense of humor and kindness made him loved by all who knew him.

He always supportive of me, even though we argued a lot. He always wanted the ‘perfect’ while I was always saying ‘that’s not practical’. He wanted what was best while I focused on what is doable. Yet we managed to stay close.

I am so very blessed to have had 17 years of friendship, to have had so many chats and so many laughs. I know that he is at peace doing yoga on a beautiful beach in heaven, but I miss him terribly.

Steve Cass, teacher and friend

Remembering Steve Cass

Teaching Metaphors: Conducting a Jazz Symphony

I was talking to a friend about teaching in Oman and trying to find the right metaphor. The usual comparisons: teachers as parent, as coach, as conductor couldn’t convey my exact meaning. Then I realized that teacher as conductor didn’t work because it was too constrictive – the players have to follow the music and what the person in front is signaling. That doesn’t give the necessary leeway for a positive classroom atmosphere.

But conducting a jazz symphony works. It gives the idea of someone basically in change but ready to let others take the lead and change direction if necessary; if the oboes feel the need to do a solo riff, then off they go. The conductor walks in with a musical score and general sense of how things should proceed, but also needs to be ready for the swerve.

There are days I walk into a classroom and everyone is ‘off’ – tired, cranky, silent. Sometimes there is a reason (an important football match the night before), sometimes it just happens and I need to readjust like a quarterback calling an audible. Suddenly I will decide that we are starting with group work or I might try to tease them into getting organized; sometimes I have to roll with it and try to do all the heavy lifting or give students a choice of different activities.

Or sometimes I walk in and there’s a manic energy, as if everyone had a few espressos for breakfast. Then I need to try to harness that liveliness into productive discussions.

A regular conductor knows exactly how they want the music to sound, but with a jazz symphony, you never know what is going to happen. Even after twenty-five years of teaching, I can still be knocked off balance. Once a student’s phone rang and they said, “I have to take this call.” I remember standing there utterly blank for a moment, wondering what to do. The student seemed serious, but letting a student leave class to talk on the phone was, for me, a dangerous precedent to set.

I was stuck. According to my rules, I should have said, “if you leave class, I will mark you absent.” But the student was asking permission in a straight-forward way, I felt (although I had no way to prove this) that there was an emergency and there had not been any negative behavior in that class.

After a few seconds of silence, I nodded and said, “OK.” I did not feel comfortable yet I thought I was making the right choice for that moment. I braced myself for fallout however, the student came back in after a few moments and no other students asked to leave for the rest of the semester.

Sometimes the best way to lead people is to let them do what they want.