So this blog is for those interested in what the school and the teaching is like. Others may like to skip this one!
It is somewhat shocking that in a very rich country such as Abu Dhabi, the facilities for the government schools are lacking. It is great that new schools are being built, but the old ones that many of our teachers in the licenced teacher programme are currently teaching in, are substandard. The school I'm currently in, is one of these.
The classrooms have shocking acoustics, very old and noisy air-conditioning units and sub-standard desks and whiteboards. We have NO books in this school; no novels, no short story or poetry books; no teacher resource books. There is no OHP (antiquated by NZ standards, but not even in this school!), no whiteboard pens, no shelves...just a 'third-world' environment. Abu Dhabi is one of the richest countries in the world; yet, here's another irony, we work with sticks and stones (metaphorically speaking).
The teachers' workroom is a shocker. It is a narrow room that contains around 10 student desks and chairs. Behind these are piles of bags and boxes that we keep all our student work and photocopying and folders in. There is barely room to swing a cat. We have one of these student desks each to work on. The school photocopier is currently broken. The western teachers' toilets are often flooded and lacking in toilet paper. The other day we had no running water.
So it is a good thing then that we are moving to a new school. My school is a recently merged one. We have three schools in one; around 1000 high school girls from grade 10 to grade 12. That's the equivalent of our year 11, 12 and 13.
The girls are lovely. They are typical teenage girls; preoccupied with their looks, their mirrors, their makeup, American and Korean movie stars and TV shows, and their friendship groups. They have their restrictions of course; they are learning a foreign language 'English', they are restricted in their movements outside of school, they wear their abaya, and their learning is restricted due to the practices and beliefs of their faith. There are a number of things we cannot feature in our teaching or texts chosen; relationships between male and female, dancing, love (outside of family), violence, alcohol, religion, music and anything that has pigs in it! This all wipes out pretty much any western text I may have even considered choosing. So we stick with short texts and poetry from the region - it is a matter of searching on the internet for appropriate material that will neither offend nor get us into trouble!
The girls generally have beautiful hair. They take such amazing pride in their hair and their hair accessories. In doing so they are able to demonstrate their own style, and in some way establish some sense of independence in a restrictive society. They love their hair adornments, and obviously take great pride in how they look. Well, that's most of them. Many have bad teeth - a reflection of the local water supply and the problems the country is now facing at the hands of imported American processed and sugared food. We've had a long, long time to get used to such foods and especially to sugar content in foods. These people have had 40 years only. Many of the girls have braces, and others just have bad teeth. There is a movement now to try to educate families as to the dangers of westernised processed food; and the obesity rate that is climbing even in this part of the world. Children here are completely indulged. Their parents are wealthy (each Emirati is estimated to be worth more than several million) and there's so much here to 'treat' your children to; it is no wonder that primary-aged children in these parts are quite feral, especially after lunchtime.
The girls at my high school like me...or so they tell me. It is hard getting used to "Miss Jacqui" (pronounced Meez Jaaakie) constantly and the standing up for a greeting where they say "gooood mooorning teeeechaaaa". They love to hear about NZ and they love to ask questions about my children. I have 33 in one of my classes and 31 in the other (I teach them twice a day and will add two more lessons in a couple of weeks). On my first day they were fixated on my hair. I would be a rich woman if I was paid every time one of them said, "Miss Jacqui, your hair is beeuuuutiful". They even tried to touch my hair. They love my abaya and take an interest in my outfits each day. Sometimes I walk outside from one class to the other and they comment on how beautiful I look. I've had to buy long, long skirts and long sleeved tops. I cannot wear trousers at all and tops must cover my bottom. The skirts must go to the ground. No bare arms. It is such a hard thing to dress like this when the temperature at the height of the day reaches in the late 30s. Some teachers tell me that during July and August the temperatures rose to 50 degrees Celsius. Of course the men have to wear long sleeved shirts and ties!
There are no male teachers at my school. One of my teaching colleagues brought her 11 year old son to school as she hasn't been able to sort his schooling out yet. The school was in a right tiz. He couldn't leave one of the offices in the admin block and all hell broke loose when he said he needed to go to the toilet! Many schools do not have fire alarms, but they do have 'man bells' to warn when a man is on the premise. The girls will be warned and quickly adorn themselves with their head-scarves and down-cast eyes just in case a man should enter.
The girls here at my school will, in a few years be married off. In today's Abu Dhabi society they have the right to accept or reject a suitor. In the past (so they tell me) the woman had no choice at all. Now the choice is about whether they want him or not. They do not have a choice in whether they want to be married or not though. More than a subtle difference there. They readily accept this though; it is what they know and believe. They, like any young person in any society are concerned about how outside influences to their world are changing them and compromising their long-established traditions and customs. Some are obviously keen and excited about the outside world, while others are fearful of it.
The girls I teach try very hard and all want to learn English to become better students and citizens. They are incredibly patriotic and love the idea of being good students who do well. They have the ability of a NZ year 7 or 8 student. The diversity in the classroom is like anywhere in the world; I have some who can speak no English and write no English, and others who have already commanded sentencing and paragraphing and are able to demonstrate higher level thinking in what is their foreign language. I am impressed by just how much they can do. With 33 in one class and 31 in the other, it is difficult to manage the differentiation required to reach all of them. A good challenge for me!
We begin our day at 7.45am and the last bell goes at 3.30pm. It is a long, hot day. At kindergarten here the day ends at 12.30pm and at primary school it ends around 1.30pm. I do get some non-contacts in a day (we have nine 45 minute lessons and two small breaks). I get home much later than the other teachers at around 4pm. Some of the others though, have to travel for an hour to get to their schools out in the desert, and others still are fighting with the most appalling of behaviours in the primary schools. So I count myself extremely lucky.
I can't wait now until we head off to our new school. They say it will be this coming week; but this is Abu Dhabi, and that could actually mean somewhere between Thursday and next year. Let's hope it is the former! In the meantime I will continue to have fun working with girls who generally want to learn, but who, like all the teenage girls I've ever come across, have something more important to consider than learning - their cellphones and chatting to their friends!
It is somewhat shocking that in a very rich country such as Abu Dhabi, the facilities for the government schools are lacking. It is great that new schools are being built, but the old ones that many of our teachers in the licenced teacher programme are currently teaching in, are substandard. The school I'm currently in, is one of these.
The classrooms have shocking acoustics, very old and noisy air-conditioning units and sub-standard desks and whiteboards. We have NO books in this school; no novels, no short story or poetry books; no teacher resource books. There is no OHP (antiquated by NZ standards, but not even in this school!), no whiteboard pens, no shelves...just a 'third-world' environment. Abu Dhabi is one of the richest countries in the world; yet, here's another irony, we work with sticks and stones (metaphorically speaking).
The teachers' workroom is a shocker. It is a narrow room that contains around 10 student desks and chairs. Behind these are piles of bags and boxes that we keep all our student work and photocopying and folders in. There is barely room to swing a cat. We have one of these student desks each to work on. The school photocopier is currently broken. The western teachers' toilets are often flooded and lacking in toilet paper. The other day we had no running water.
So it is a good thing then that we are moving to a new school. My school is a recently merged one. We have three schools in one; around 1000 high school girls from grade 10 to grade 12. That's the equivalent of our year 11, 12 and 13.
The girls are lovely. They are typical teenage girls; preoccupied with their looks, their mirrors, their makeup, American and Korean movie stars and TV shows, and their friendship groups. They have their restrictions of course; they are learning a foreign language 'English', they are restricted in their movements outside of school, they wear their abaya, and their learning is restricted due to the practices and beliefs of their faith. There are a number of things we cannot feature in our teaching or texts chosen; relationships between male and female, dancing, love (outside of family), violence, alcohol, religion, music and anything that has pigs in it! This all wipes out pretty much any western text I may have even considered choosing. So we stick with short texts and poetry from the region - it is a matter of searching on the internet for appropriate material that will neither offend nor get us into trouble!
The girls generally have beautiful hair. They take such amazing pride in their hair and their hair accessories. In doing so they are able to demonstrate their own style, and in some way establish some sense of independence in a restrictive society. They love their hair adornments, and obviously take great pride in how they look. Well, that's most of them. Many have bad teeth - a reflection of the local water supply and the problems the country is now facing at the hands of imported American processed and sugared food. We've had a long, long time to get used to such foods and especially to sugar content in foods. These people have had 40 years only. Many of the girls have braces, and others just have bad teeth. There is a movement now to try to educate families as to the dangers of westernised processed food; and the obesity rate that is climbing even in this part of the world. Children here are completely indulged. Their parents are wealthy (each Emirati is estimated to be worth more than several million) and there's so much here to 'treat' your children to; it is no wonder that primary-aged children in these parts are quite feral, especially after lunchtime.
The girls at my high school like me...or so they tell me. It is hard getting used to "Miss Jacqui" (pronounced Meez Jaaakie) constantly and the standing up for a greeting where they say "gooood mooorning teeeechaaaa". They love to hear about NZ and they love to ask questions about my children. I have 33 in one of my classes and 31 in the other (I teach them twice a day and will add two more lessons in a couple of weeks). On my first day they were fixated on my hair. I would be a rich woman if I was paid every time one of them said, "Miss Jacqui, your hair is beeuuuutiful". They even tried to touch my hair. They love my abaya and take an interest in my outfits each day. Sometimes I walk outside from one class to the other and they comment on how beautiful I look. I've had to buy long, long skirts and long sleeved tops. I cannot wear trousers at all and tops must cover my bottom. The skirts must go to the ground. No bare arms. It is such a hard thing to dress like this when the temperature at the height of the day reaches in the late 30s. Some teachers tell me that during July and August the temperatures rose to 50 degrees Celsius. Of course the men have to wear long sleeved shirts and ties!
There are no male teachers at my school. One of my teaching colleagues brought her 11 year old son to school as she hasn't been able to sort his schooling out yet. The school was in a right tiz. He couldn't leave one of the offices in the admin block and all hell broke loose when he said he needed to go to the toilet! Many schools do not have fire alarms, but they do have 'man bells' to warn when a man is on the premise. The girls will be warned and quickly adorn themselves with their head-scarves and down-cast eyes just in case a man should enter.
The girls here at my school will, in a few years be married off. In today's Abu Dhabi society they have the right to accept or reject a suitor. In the past (so they tell me) the woman had no choice at all. Now the choice is about whether they want him or not. They do not have a choice in whether they want to be married or not though. More than a subtle difference there. They readily accept this though; it is what they know and believe. They, like any young person in any society are concerned about how outside influences to their world are changing them and compromising their long-established traditions and customs. Some are obviously keen and excited about the outside world, while others are fearful of it.
The girls I teach try very hard and all want to learn English to become better students and citizens. They are incredibly patriotic and love the idea of being good students who do well. They have the ability of a NZ year 7 or 8 student. The diversity in the classroom is like anywhere in the world; I have some who can speak no English and write no English, and others who have already commanded sentencing and paragraphing and are able to demonstrate higher level thinking in what is their foreign language. I am impressed by just how much they can do. With 33 in one class and 31 in the other, it is difficult to manage the differentiation required to reach all of them. A good challenge for me!
We begin our day at 7.45am and the last bell goes at 3.30pm. It is a long, hot day. At kindergarten here the day ends at 12.30pm and at primary school it ends around 1.30pm. I do get some non-contacts in a day (we have nine 45 minute lessons and two small breaks). I get home much later than the other teachers at around 4pm. Some of the others though, have to travel for an hour to get to their schools out in the desert, and others still are fighting with the most appalling of behaviours in the primary schools. So I count myself extremely lucky.
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| School library |
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| The new school cafeteria |
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| An almost ready classroom |
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| Where you park! |
I can't wait now until we head off to our new school. They say it will be this coming week; but this is Abu Dhabi, and that could actually mean somewhere between Thursday and next year. Let's hope it is the former! In the meantime I will continue to have fun working with girls who generally want to learn, but who, like all the teenage girls I've ever come across, have something more important to consider than learning - their cellphones and chatting to their friends!
Hi Sweetie
ReplyDeleteCan we get a photo of you in your abaya and teacher get up???!!! Love the photos - is this 'Jason's' new camera?
Yep I will get a friend to take a photo then of some of the outfits and the abaya. And yes, it is 'Jason's' new camera. Enjoying the photos it takes!
ReplyDelete