In July 2024, CMENAS partnered with the Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) on a two-week trip to Morocco. Eleven K-12 teachers from seven U.S. states traveled from the coastal city of Casablanca to Marrakech with several stops in between to Tangier, Chefchaouen, the Roman ruins of Volubilis, Fez, Merzouga in the Sahara Desert, the Todra Gorge, Ait Ben Haddou along the “Route of a 1,000 Kasbahs”, Aroumd in the High Atlas Mountains, and the coastal port town of Essaouira. The Center’s Title VI grant partially funded two Michigan teachers to participate: Amy Perkins, an AP World History teacher at Lakeshore High School in Stevensville, MI, and Carole Hawke, a Social Studies Teacher and English Learner Program Coordinator at Westwood Community School District. CMENAS outreach coordinator Jennifer Lund also participated in the trip and facilitated a virtual pre-trip session on language policy and schooling in Morocco led by Dr. Said Hannouchi, the University of Michigan's Director of Arabic Studies and a native of Morocco. The eleven teachers also gathered during and after the trip to share ideas based on their travels to infuse their lessons with content on Morocco for subjects including social studies/world history, science, music, and art. Below are the personal reflections of Amy Perkins and Carole Hawke, the two Michigan teachers who participated.

Amy Perkins 

AP World History Teacher at Lakeshore High School in Stevensville, MI

If Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires, Morocco is a Jackson Pollock. Various cultures and civilizations have left their mark on the North African nation, ultimately creating a composition that is rich in vibrant detail. This reality is evident in the blue hues of Chefchaouen, a city nestled in the shadows of the Rif Mountains. The community was once populated with Jews and Muslims expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista. Morocco’s layered history is also visible in the narrow alleyways and souk streets of Fes’s expansive medina. Odors from tanneries compete with the aroma of spices, each one testifying to the city’s deep connection to the Arab world. Roughly 90 km away, the ruins of Volubilis remind guests of the region’s Carthaginian and Roman roots. Colorful mosaics and Corinthian columns punctuate a rural landscape that was once home to a thriving ancient capital. A day’s drive from Volubilis, the desert town of Merzouga showcases the lasting contributions of the Amazigh people, Morocco’s indigenous population. From tagines to Tamazight signage, visitors can see and taste how the region’s native ethnic group continues to shape Morocco’s cultural identity. 

Throughout our adventure I was intrigued by Moroccans’ ongoing efforts to combat water scarcity. Many farmers, faced with dramatic drops in precipitation, have resorted to digging wells that exceed 300 meters in depth. Equipped with solar powered pumps, these wells enable rural residents to nourish their herds and irrigate their crops. This is a new development. Until recently, khettaras, an ancient network of underground irrigation channels, provided a sufficient source of water to the oases, sustaining farmers and pastoralists alike. The innovation was inspired by an earlier Persian system and constructed by Arabs roughly a thousand years ago. It routes water from aquifers to cultivated fields, enabling residents to grow crops despite an arid climate. Moors exported the technology to Western Europe (in the form of “acequias”) when they seized control of Al-Andalus. Subsequently, in the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors transported the technology from the Iberian Peninsula to North America. They built acequias in New Spain, the remnants of which remain in operation in New Mexico today.

After learning about this historic development, I created an instructional unit for my World History students, inviting them to examine the role of khettaras in Morocco’s past and present. The cultural diffusion of khettaras demonstrates how World History is not simply a record of conquest, but also of confluence. Furthermore, it spotlights the ways in which engineers over a thousand years ago adapted to their environment and invented a sustainable approach to resource management.

Carole Hawke

Social Studies Teacher and English Learner Program Coordinator at Westwood Community School District

Being the recipient of a CMENAS grant for travel to Morocco this summer offered the chance to step into parts of the world which I had only read about and seen in movies. For 16 days, I joined a cohort of 11 teachers to explore the physical, historic, economic, and cultural terrain of this North African nation. We wandered through old medinas, drank tea in the tent of a nomadic Amazigh/ Berber family, hiked in the Rif and Atlas mountains, slept in a mountain guesthouse, explored a kasbah/ fortress along a camel caravan route, and basked in the 118 degree heat of the Sahara desert. The trip was hosted by a guide with unmatched enthusiasm for his country, whose personality and commentary enlivened van rides and excursions.

A highlight of the trip was a visit to Fez and its old city, whose 9,000 tiny streets and alleys and 200,000 residents comprise the largest car-free zone in the world. We observed the interplay between architecture and culture– Jewish Moroccans had outward facing windows, whereas windows in the Muslim quarter looked onto an interior courtyard. Residents displayed wealth inside the home, so from the outside there was an egalitarianism absent in the contemporary ostentatious dwellings of the rich. Each distinct neighborhood shared a water source, a public bakery, a hamam (bath), and a mosque. And our guide described how families who purchased new furniture would have to work with neighbors to hoist a large item onto the roof and pass it home-to-home until it had arrived. These details depict a community connected with each other in the small and large moments of life.

A requirement of the cohort is to write lesson plans for other teachers, and I am interested to delve into the story of North African Jews who migrated to the state of Israel. This ties into aspects of my own biography– having lived in Palestine for a few years and my current work with multilingual learners give me interest in both the founding of the state of Israel and the push and pull factors which lead families to pick up and leave one home for another. While many are familiar with the stories of the Palestinian nakba and the rise of the Zionist movement in Europe, the story of Mizrahi (eastern) Jews from Iraq, Yemen, Iran, and North Africa is largely absent from the narrative, although they comprise around a half of the Israeli Jewish population. Having now seen architecture and art attesting to the presence of a large, vibrant, and seemingly well-integrated Jewish community in Morocco, I am all the more curious about the factors which would lead so many of this community to leave their country in favor of the transit camps and poorly-funded development towns of Israel. I hope to explore this topic in lesson plans.