School Begins!!

The first day of school was a shock!

The week before school started for the kids, we had orientation in Al Ain. During the orientation, the new teachers were supposed to meet the HOF (English Head of Faculty) for their school and then the HOF would take them to school to meet the staff. When our turn comes, I meet two other new teachers I will be working with, but find out there is no HOF. So while everyone goes to see their school, we got sent home.

The nest day we all had another orientation in a new school's auditorium. Just as the orientation is beginning, our names are called. We walk over to the side of the stage and meet the cluster manager for our school. We left the orientation and he took us to the school.

When we arrive we learn a couple of things. The HOF from last year went home and hasn't been replaces, and the English cycle one (elementary teachers) also went home. There are two KG (Kindergarten) English teachers and two Cycle 3 (High school) English teachers. The school is a small rural school, from KG to Grade 12.

One of the KG EMT's (English medium teacher) takes us to meet the principal, who proceeds to ask us what grade we will be teaching. (Previously we had been told the principal would assign us to a grade). The three of us left and discussed which grades we wanted, and then returned to her office to let her know. I asked for grade 3, but because there are only three of us and 5 grades, I was given grade 3 and a share of grade 2. Saminia, from the UK, was given grade 1 and shares grade 2 with me, I do grade 2 and 3, and Larisa, from New York, was given grade 4 and 5. The principal then asked us for a schedule. We were very confused, because we though she would give us a schedule. We left and wrote something down, just an outline of how many hours we'd teach English, math and science a week. The pricipal approved and then told us to go see our rooms.

Our rooms were a shock as well. Very bare and the little bit of resources were spread out in a bunch of different rooms. We worked on getting our resources together and learned that we won't have our own rooms and will be sharing them with the Arabic teachers. Then around noon, all the teachers decided it was time to leave. Did I mention that it was Thursday (their Friday) and the kids were coming on Sunday (their Monday)? Yikes.

So school started on Sunday and I had no lesson plans, no classroom ready, no schedule, no class list.... yep. Very different from the USA. I basically spent the day inside the grade 3 room playing games, singing songs and coloring. At one point the Arabic teacher showed up so I could have a small break. She apologized for not being there earlier, as she went home to “feed her baby.” It was a long day! Yet, as the days went by... we started to get schedules and semi-class-lists.

It has been a month now and things are starting to feel “normal.” I will run you through a typical day in my next post!

Unrelated to school: We celebrated Shawn's b-day here. We went to a place called Wadi Adventure, and extreme water sports park, where he went surfing. Then we went to the mall where he did some indoor snow-less skiing. We finished up with diner at a nice restaurant. They bring you a stone grill and your meat and you cook it on the stone at your table. It was nice!

Wadi Surf Pool

Birthday dinner