The driver picked me up at 8 this morning and took me to the women's campus for my workshop. It took about 40 minutes to get there from the hotel. The campus was surrounded by a tall stone wall, with a guard outside the entrance. Our host had told me that there was a woman there who would pick me up, but he didn't know her name. The driver made a call on his cell phone when we got there, then received a called, and gestured for me to get out. There was no one there to greet me and I was a little nervous about leaving the car when I had no idea where I was, where I was going, or even the name of the person I was supposed to meet. I asked him if someone was coming to meet me, but he doesn't speak English, and just continued to gesture for me to leave. So I got out of the car and went to the gate. As soon as I got inside, I saw a woman there waiting for me, and I couldn't believe I hadn't figured it out before: she was not covered, so she couldn't come outside, which is why she waited just inside. Inside the gates, everyone was wearing western clothes with no covering.
The campus was like a third world country compared to the men's campus. If I hadn't seen the men's campus first, I don't think I would have thought it was bad at all. It was perfectly functional and there was nothing really wrong with it. But it was dingy and plain, with no architectural beauty whatsoever, no trees or decorations, no views, no beautiful plazas in which to study. The room where I gave my workshop was well equipped with computers, but very small, without enough room for people to actually sit at all the computers. It made me want to cry after seeing the beautiful architecture, spacious offices, lush trees, flowing fountains, open plazas, and expensive equipment at the men's campus. And the men don't even know what it's like here because they can't go inside. It makes me think of "separate but equal". I imagine it's easy to fool yourself into thinking things are equal if you don't really have access to what things are like for others.
Today was the workshop for faculty and grad students, and tomorrow will be the workshop for K-12 teachers. Some women came late and others left early, so I'm not sure exactly how many attended the workshop. It seemed like on average there were about 8-10 women in the room. Most of them were chemistry faculty. There was also one from math, one from science education, and two grad students from physics. The faculty all spoke excellent English but the grad students could barely speak English at all. One of them wanted desperately to talk to me, and she tried so hard, but I just couldn't figure out what she was trying to say. The math professor (who got her PhD in Boulder!) helped translate for her, and I finally figured out that she was doing education research with our host giving the CLASS survey about student beliefs about science to students here, and she wanted to know if we were doing the same thing at my university. I told her that they were at CU, but I was not personally involved in that. I suspect she wanted to say more, to discuss it with me in detail, but the language barrier was just too much.
We had various computer glitches (the computers didn't have the latest version of Flash installed and my clickers suddenly stopped working), but otherwise the workshop went well. None of the participants had ever used PhET simulations before and they were all very excited about them. I had them use clickers (voting machines to select answers to multiple choice questions) to demonstrate how we use these in our classes to encourage student interaction, and asked them all to write a clicker question using a simulation. They liked the clicker questions, but they all wanted to know how they could use them without clickers. I explained how you could have students vote by raising hands or using colored cards, but they wanted to know if there was a way to collect student answers online through a website. I told them you could use google docs to make a survey, and they all wanted to know more about that. It was a complete tangent from what the workshop was supposed to be about, but they all seemed so interested in this that I led them through the whole process of making a google doc survey and entering a clicker question into it.
For the faculty workshop, our host had insisted that we have a part of it be about teaching them to do education research using the sims. In theory, some faculty here are supposed to be doing education research as part of their new education center. In practice, it seemed pretty far-fetched to me, given what I've learned about faculty teaching loads, the fact that all these faculty already have other research fields, and the kinds of basic questions they had been asking me during the breaks about what education research is. So I asked them if any of them were in a position to do any kind of education research. They all said no. So I told them that I had been planning to spend the last half hour having them design research projects, but it seemed like it might be more useful for them to work on designing activities to use the sims in class instead (they had been very excited about the activities and asked lots of questions about these). They all begged for more work on activities, so I had them do this.
During the break, I talked to a pregnant woman who is one month further along than me. It's her first baby. I asked her if she was planning to go back to work after and she said she'll take 2 months off and then go back to work.
There was one woman who was a grad student in math, who was supposed to be just helping out with the workshop, but was really interested in what I was doing and wanted to participate. I told her it was fine with me. I talked to her for a long time during the break. I asked her if they have much interaction with the men's college. She said yes: When there are speakers or lectures there, they use a video-conferencing system to broadcast them here. Some female students have male advisers, and sometimes the men even come over here to give lectures. I asked how that worked, since everyone here is uncovered. She said they have a separate section, where the male lecturers can go. I asked, "So then you are covered when you go over there?" She said, "Oh no! They have a special lecture room with a one-way window, so we can see the lecturer, but he can't see us." I said I would like to see more of the campus, and she said she could show me around if I finished my workshop early, but I needed to leave when my driver showed up. I asked if we could have him come later, and she said she would have someone call and ask him. But then he showed up early, so I had to leave without a tour. She said maybe tomorrow.
I also learned that she has two children, age 3 and 6, but her family lives on the east coast, a couple hours from here, so she has an apartment here and only gets to go home and see her family on weekends. She talked about wanting to study in England. We started talking about abayas, and I asked her why women had to wear black. She said it's just custom, not religious (the same thing our host said), but here if you wear any other color people will look down on you. She said if she went to another country she would wear something else, and in England she would not wear covering at all. It seems to be a common thing for people to say here that the clothing is "just custom" and it's what you do here, but in another country they would wear something else. They say it so casually, as if to say that they are not attached to it at all, that it doesn't really mean that much. And yet, no one defies it.
Another thing about the women: they speak so quietly that I can barely hear them. I have been to other countries, for example Uganda, where people just speak more quietly than Americans (partly because they tend to stand closer to each other than Americans). But in Uganda everyone speaks quietly, and they know how to project if they are speaking to a large group. Saudi men do not speak particularly quietly at all, but the women, even when they are asking questions in a lecture, use a voice so soft that I have to go up to them and put my ear right next to them, and even then, I only catch half the words, even when they are speaking perfect English.
After the workshop, everyone put their abayas back on and headed out. My host, who never did introduce herself, led me through a waiting room to another gate, where my driver was waiting.
On the way home, we got stuck in a traffic jam which, as far as I could tell, was caused entirely by people deciding to ignore the stoplights at a major intersection. The whole intersection was filled with cars, all pointing in different directions, locked in so that no one could get anywhere. They were all honking, but it wasn't doing any good. It was the first time I saw our driver get impatient. Even then, it was a pretty mild display of impatience and irritation. Finally, some random guy got out of his car and starting directing traffic, and things cleared up enough for us to get through.
I am already sick of Saudi Arabia. I am feeling stifled and oppressed, and am dying to get home. At the same time, I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to come here and to see things that few others have seen. This is a very closed country, and not many westerners can come here. Of those who do, most are men, and the only part of Saudi culture they ever see is the male culture. Western men are not actually asked to change their own behavior much when they come here (aside from abstaining from alcohol), and they are also not allowed to see much of the inside of the culture. Because of this, I get the sense that their experience is more superficial. Mike doesn't notice as much as I do, and a Canadian man I met in the elevator was surprised that I was wearing an abaya and hadn't even thought about what a western woman would need to do to visit this country. I may not be allowed to go to cafes or sit in the men's section at a restaurant, but I get to see the private places where only women are allowed to go, places that even Saudi men cannot see. *And* I get to visit the men's campus and discuss important things with important men. I have gotten a rare glimpse, a perspective few others share, and I am very grateful for that. Being here has also made me very grateful for the freedom I have at home.
Maybe I'm just grumpy because I've come down with a terrible cold, which is probably affecting my mind more than I realize.
Sam
The campus was like a third world country compared to the men's campus. If I hadn't seen the men's campus first, I don't think I would have thought it was bad at all. It was perfectly functional and there was nothing really wrong with it. But it was dingy and plain, with no architectural beauty whatsoever, no trees or decorations, no views, no beautiful plazas in which to study. The room where I gave my workshop was well equipped with computers, but very small, without enough room for people to actually sit at all the computers. It made me want to cry after seeing the beautiful architecture, spacious offices, lush trees, flowing fountains, open plazas, and expensive equipment at the men's campus. And the men don't even know what it's like here because they can't go inside. It makes me think of "separate but equal". I imagine it's easy to fool yourself into thinking things are equal if you don't really have access to what things are like for others.
Today was the workshop for faculty and grad students, and tomorrow will be the workshop for K-12 teachers. Some women came late and others left early, so I'm not sure exactly how many attended the workshop. It seemed like on average there were about 8-10 women in the room. Most of them were chemistry faculty. There was also one from math, one from science education, and two grad students from physics. The faculty all spoke excellent English but the grad students could barely speak English at all. One of them wanted desperately to talk to me, and she tried so hard, but I just couldn't figure out what she was trying to say. The math professor (who got her PhD in Boulder!) helped translate for her, and I finally figured out that she was doing education research with our host giving the CLASS survey about student beliefs about science to students here, and she wanted to know if we were doing the same thing at my university. I told her that they were at CU, but I was not personally involved in that. I suspect she wanted to say more, to discuss it with me in detail, but the language barrier was just too much.
We had various computer glitches (the computers didn't have the latest version of Flash installed and my clickers suddenly stopped working), but otherwise the workshop went well. None of the participants had ever used PhET simulations before and they were all very excited about them. I had them use clickers (voting machines to select answers to multiple choice questions) to demonstrate how we use these in our classes to encourage student interaction, and asked them all to write a clicker question using a simulation. They liked the clicker questions, but they all wanted to know how they could use them without clickers. I explained how you could have students vote by raising hands or using colored cards, but they wanted to know if there was a way to collect student answers online through a website. I told them you could use google docs to make a survey, and they all wanted to know more about that. It was a complete tangent from what the workshop was supposed to be about, but they all seemed so interested in this that I led them through the whole process of making a google doc survey and entering a clicker question into it.
For the faculty workshop, our host had insisted that we have a part of it be about teaching them to do education research using the sims. In theory, some faculty here are supposed to be doing education research as part of their new education center. In practice, it seemed pretty far-fetched to me, given what I've learned about faculty teaching loads, the fact that all these faculty already have other research fields, and the kinds of basic questions they had been asking me during the breaks about what education research is. So I asked them if any of them were in a position to do any kind of education research. They all said no. So I told them that I had been planning to spend the last half hour having them design research projects, but it seemed like it might be more useful for them to work on designing activities to use the sims in class instead (they had been very excited about the activities and asked lots of questions about these). They all begged for more work on activities, so I had them do this.
During the break, I talked to a pregnant woman who is one month further along than me. It's her first baby. I asked her if she was planning to go back to work after and she said she'll take 2 months off and then go back to work.
There was one woman who was a grad student in math, who was supposed to be just helping out with the workshop, but was really interested in what I was doing and wanted to participate. I told her it was fine with me. I talked to her for a long time during the break. I asked her if they have much interaction with the men's college. She said yes: When there are speakers or lectures there, they use a video-conferencing system to broadcast them here. Some female students have male advisers, and sometimes the men even come over here to give lectures. I asked how that worked, since everyone here is uncovered. She said they have a separate section, where the male lecturers can go. I asked, "So then you are covered when you go over there?" She said, "Oh no! They have a special lecture room with a one-way window, so we can see the lecturer, but he can't see us." I said I would like to see more of the campus, and she said she could show me around if I finished my workshop early, but I needed to leave when my driver showed up. I asked if we could have him come later, and she said she would have someone call and ask him. But then he showed up early, so I had to leave without a tour. She said maybe tomorrow.
I also learned that she has two children, age 3 and 6, but her family lives on the east coast, a couple hours from here, so she has an apartment here and only gets to go home and see her family on weekends. She talked about wanting to study in England. We started talking about abayas, and I asked her why women had to wear black. She said it's just custom, not religious (the same thing our host said), but here if you wear any other color people will look down on you. She said if she went to another country she would wear something else, and in England she would not wear covering at all. It seems to be a common thing for people to say here that the clothing is "just custom" and it's what you do here, but in another country they would wear something else. They say it so casually, as if to say that they are not attached to it at all, that it doesn't really mean that much. And yet, no one defies it.
Another thing about the women: they speak so quietly that I can barely hear them. I have been to other countries, for example Uganda, where people just speak more quietly than Americans (partly because they tend to stand closer to each other than Americans). But in Uganda everyone speaks quietly, and they know how to project if they are speaking to a large group. Saudi men do not speak particularly quietly at all, but the women, even when they are asking questions in a lecture, use a voice so soft that I have to go up to them and put my ear right next to them, and even then, I only catch half the words, even when they are speaking perfect English.
After the workshop, everyone put their abayas back on and headed out. My host, who never did introduce herself, led me through a waiting room to another gate, where my driver was waiting.
On the way home, we got stuck in a traffic jam which, as far as I could tell, was caused entirely by people deciding to ignore the stoplights at a major intersection. The whole intersection was filled with cars, all pointing in different directions, locked in so that no one could get anywhere. They were all honking, but it wasn't doing any good. It was the first time I saw our driver get impatient. Even then, it was a pretty mild display of impatience and irritation. Finally, some random guy got out of his car and starting directing traffic, and things cleared up enough for us to get through.
I am already sick of Saudi Arabia. I am feeling stifled and oppressed, and am dying to get home. At the same time, I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to come here and to see things that few others have seen. This is a very closed country, and not many westerners can come here. Of those who do, most are men, and the only part of Saudi culture they ever see is the male culture. Western men are not actually asked to change their own behavior much when they come here (aside from abstaining from alcohol), and they are also not allowed to see much of the inside of the culture. Because of this, I get the sense that their experience is more superficial. Mike doesn't notice as much as I do, and a Canadian man I met in the elevator was surprised that I was wearing an abaya and hadn't even thought about what a western woman would need to do to visit this country. I may not be allowed to go to cafes or sit in the men's section at a restaurant, but I get to see the private places where only women are allowed to go, places that even Saudi men cannot see. *And* I get to visit the men's campus and discuss important things with important men. I have gotten a rare glimpse, a perspective few others share, and I am very grateful for that. Being here has also made me very grateful for the freedom I have at home.
Maybe I'm just grumpy because I've come down with a terrible cold, which is probably affecting my mind more than I realize.
Sam
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