Maha Abuelmagd (Post 1)

The idea behind this research question was generated while I was engaged in a heated conversation about education in Egypt with my father. My father is a university professor, but has worked with NGO's in Egypt for the past 20 years in varied developmental projects. He has traveled across the country to needy rural  areas, and has first hand experience in the needs of rural residents. We were talking about rural areas  that lack schools. This is due to the fact that the government only builds schools in densely populated areas leaving rural residents no option but to  send their children to far away schools. Parents, who may have not received an education themselves, choose to pull their children especially girls out of schools, either to protect them from traveling to school or to save on expenses. Rural schools can provide an alternative for communities who fear for their children, as well as the government that wants to spread education in its territories.

The model of the American rural school began to intrigue me. I wanted to research the structure of the school to be able replicate in order to provide residents of rural areas in Egypt with a schooling option. Given the contextual differences between the two countries, I decided to focus on how teachers of rural schools manage to teach multiple grades and have students with multiple ages in one classroom. I want to look deeper into their strategies on how to cater to the diverse student body in their classrooms. In addition, I want to know about the challenges they face and encounter teaching in a non-traditional setting. This focus area can relate to teachers in both urban and rural schools and hopefully can be transferable to Egypt.