The mayhem of school life has climaxed into madness during National Day (actually month) celebrations. For a month now we've had our school routine (what little there is) turned on its head.
Firstly we were told out-of-the-blue one day that the school day hours would change as we lead up to National Day. Instead of assembly beginning each day at 8am it would now be 7.45am and lessons would begin later than usual. As a result of this time would be made up by shorter break times. Hmmm. You just could not fathom working conditions being changed like this in NZ. But without a union and certainly no power to have any input in such decisions, we go along with it all. Subsequently we've had some interesting assemblies.
On a usual day at school the assembly would begin and we'd have a girl reciting the Quran flanked by others saluting the flag as it is raised. We stand in a courtyard under sails outside, with girls facing towards the front 'stage' in lines according to their classes. We stand along the side and other teachers stand with the lines of girls. We have no idea what is said during these assemblies, but we've learned to laugh in the right places, clap at the right times, and after some hit-and-miss times in which we've been told off, we now know when not to talk! This is all followed by the national anthem (typical teenage girls do not put their heart and soul into it even here!). This is followed sometimes by a speech from a teacher, senior manager or one of the girls. We sometimes have gifts given to girls, or occasionally we'll be called up to be given a gift too.
During National Day celebrations though, we've had some interesting and somewhat mad occurrences. We've had girls dancing, little rocket blasts of streamers being let off, extremely l-o-n-g speeches to listen to, activities involving teamwork and competition between teachers and students, and most recently pigeons being spray-painted with national day colours and encouraged to fly! I wasn't there for that one, and I'm actually glad that I wasn't! We've had parades from the girls in their army uniforms (they have special army classes here), we've had a wedding ceremony of sorts with girls all dressed up in beautiful traditional dresses and adorned with significant amounts of make-up. The cheering reached epic proportions at that.
And all of this has required practice. When does this take place? You guessed it - during lessons. We're at a stage in the semester now when we are required to meet ADEC requirements for assessment. The teaching is assessment-driven here. It is a confusing and somewhat irritating system. ADEC are trying to implement a new-model curriculum which is supposed to involve more holistic teaching pedagogy (it has been based on the Australian and NZ curricula). However, at the same time we're required to get the girls to jump through hoops with assessment. There has been little time to-date for teaching and a lot of time spent on a workbook (called ECART) which makes up a huge chunk of their final grades. Alongside this we've had two major test assessments...as I said, little time for 'real' teaching.
Most recently I was informed that we'd have a parent-teacher meeting the next day. Not much time to prepare. We had no idea who would turn up and no idea whether they would speak English or not. We had no idea how the meeting worked and what we would require to be prepared. So we turned up in the courtyard, found a desk and chair and sat down and waited. They came. They were generally very polite and appreciative. Most did not turn up (just like in NZ) and we were lucky that there were translators floating around. It was tough going. We sat as the sun beat down and without a booking system to speak of you can imagine the 'organised' chaos. I had a parent talking with me when another appeared and sat down next to her and tried to strike up a conversation about her daughter. Unbelievable. I got through it relatively unscathed. Phew.
So now we're in the middle of trying to get the girls completing their research presentations, and we've had nothing short of mayhem. We've had lessons taken from us by Arab teachers desperately trying to get their subject assessments completed. They don't take no for an answer and we've got no power to refuse. We've tried to say 'no' and on occasions got lucky. But to avoid a stand-up-fight in front of girls we usually cave in. We've had disruptions in the middle of classes with teachers pulling girls out to go and practice for National Day celebrations. We've had bizarre decrees in the middle of the day that periods 5 and 6 will be taken for celebration activities in the assembly area. We've had the school day shortened to 2pm but we still have to cover all 9 lessons for the day - hence another change in the day and bizarre bells ringing at bizarre times (and sometimes none at all!). I've had to push my classroom door closed on girls who try to get into my room while I'm teaching. We've got hoards of girls walking around the school - who knows why? I've even had to put my chair at the classroom door to bar teachers from interrupting my lessons! We've got local teachers bursting into lessons and demanding to take them over so they can complete their own test or to talk to the girls about their own subject. They even do this while the girls are doing their assessment speeches! I've had girls begging to leave the classroom so that they can hand in assignment work to other teachers who will give them zero if they don't turn up...
The mayhem just abounds. It is hard enough teaching 33 girls in a small classroom with no facilities without all of the outside chaos threatening to make it worse. There is no culture of peer respect and listening when an adult is trying to say something...at least a Western adult. With assessments coming in we've now got girls who have done little to nothing in tears and wondering why they have such low marks. Likely of course those marks will change anyway without our being able to have any say in the matter...
And just wait until the parents get wind of the poor grades from their Emirati princesses...
You get my drift. Just another day within the madness and mayhem of living in the UAE. It all seems like the chaos will get on-top...and then I receive a text from my bank telling me that my pay has gone into my bank account.
Well, bring on the madness then, it is worth it!
Firstly we were told out-of-the-blue one day that the school day hours would change as we lead up to National Day. Instead of assembly beginning each day at 8am it would now be 7.45am and lessons would begin later than usual. As a result of this time would be made up by shorter break times. Hmmm. You just could not fathom working conditions being changed like this in NZ. But without a union and certainly no power to have any input in such decisions, we go along with it all. Subsequently we've had some interesting assemblies.
On a usual day at school the assembly would begin and we'd have a girl reciting the Quran flanked by others saluting the flag as it is raised. We stand in a courtyard under sails outside, with girls facing towards the front 'stage' in lines according to their classes. We stand along the side and other teachers stand with the lines of girls. We have no idea what is said during these assemblies, but we've learned to laugh in the right places, clap at the right times, and after some hit-and-miss times in which we've been told off, we now know when not to talk! This is all followed by the national anthem (typical teenage girls do not put their heart and soul into it even here!). This is followed sometimes by a speech from a teacher, senior manager or one of the girls. We sometimes have gifts given to girls, or occasionally we'll be called up to be given a gift too.
During National Day celebrations though, we've had some interesting and somewhat mad occurrences. We've had girls dancing, little rocket blasts of streamers being let off, extremely l-o-n-g speeches to listen to, activities involving teamwork and competition between teachers and students, and most recently pigeons being spray-painted with national day colours and encouraged to fly! I wasn't there for that one, and I'm actually glad that I wasn't! We've had parades from the girls in their army uniforms (they have special army classes here), we've had a wedding ceremony of sorts with girls all dressed up in beautiful traditional dresses and adorned with significant amounts of make-up. The cheering reached epic proportions at that.
And all of this has required practice. When does this take place? You guessed it - during lessons. We're at a stage in the semester now when we are required to meet ADEC requirements for assessment. The teaching is assessment-driven here. It is a confusing and somewhat irritating system. ADEC are trying to implement a new-model curriculum which is supposed to involve more holistic teaching pedagogy (it has been based on the Australian and NZ curricula). However, at the same time we're required to get the girls to jump through hoops with assessment. There has been little time to-date for teaching and a lot of time spent on a workbook (called ECART) which makes up a huge chunk of their final grades. Alongside this we've had two major test assessments...as I said, little time for 'real' teaching.
Most recently I was informed that we'd have a parent-teacher meeting the next day. Not much time to prepare. We had no idea who would turn up and no idea whether they would speak English or not. We had no idea how the meeting worked and what we would require to be prepared. So we turned up in the courtyard, found a desk and chair and sat down and waited. They came. They were generally very polite and appreciative. Most did not turn up (just like in NZ) and we were lucky that there were translators floating around. It was tough going. We sat as the sun beat down and without a booking system to speak of you can imagine the 'organised' chaos. I had a parent talking with me when another appeared and sat down next to her and tried to strike up a conversation about her daughter. Unbelievable. I got through it relatively unscathed. Phew.
So now we're in the middle of trying to get the girls completing their research presentations, and we've had nothing short of mayhem. We've had lessons taken from us by Arab teachers desperately trying to get their subject assessments completed. They don't take no for an answer and we've got no power to refuse. We've tried to say 'no' and on occasions got lucky. But to avoid a stand-up-fight in front of girls we usually cave in. We've had disruptions in the middle of classes with teachers pulling girls out to go and practice for National Day celebrations. We've had bizarre decrees in the middle of the day that periods 5 and 6 will be taken for celebration activities in the assembly area. We've had the school day shortened to 2pm but we still have to cover all 9 lessons for the day - hence another change in the day and bizarre bells ringing at bizarre times (and sometimes none at all!). I've had to push my classroom door closed on girls who try to get into my room while I'm teaching. We've got hoards of girls walking around the school - who knows why? I've even had to put my chair at the classroom door to bar teachers from interrupting my lessons! We've got local teachers bursting into lessons and demanding to take them over so they can complete their own test or to talk to the girls about their own subject. They even do this while the girls are doing their assessment speeches! I've had girls begging to leave the classroom so that they can hand in assignment work to other teachers who will give them zero if they don't turn up...
The mayhem just abounds. It is hard enough teaching 33 girls in a small classroom with no facilities without all of the outside chaos threatening to make it worse. There is no culture of peer respect and listening when an adult is trying to say something...at least a Western adult. With assessments coming in we've now got girls who have done little to nothing in tears and wondering why they have such low marks. Likely of course those marks will change anyway without our being able to have any say in the matter...
And just wait until the parents get wind of the poor grades from their Emirati princesses...
You get my drift. Just another day within the madness and mayhem of living in the UAE. It all seems like the chaos will get on-top...and then I receive a text from my bank telling me that my pay has gone into my bank account.
Well, bring on the madness then, it is worth it!
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