So, Jenny and I are in a car with a total of four people, so we meet them in the lobby and head off to school in our red Kia given to us. When I get to school, I usually sit in the staff room and use the wifi and procrastinate before heading to my room upstairs (picture of staff room, school, and classroom down at the bottom). I look at the whiteboard and see the updates. Oh, someone's sick so you have to cover one of their periods during your free period. Great. Oh, there's a Professional Development session after school, and another meeting, and another meeting, and blah blah blah. Awesome. Oh, look, the sugar jar has small black round granule balls in again. Sweet.
I head to my classroom around 7 and see what there is to see. Will the air conditioner turn on today? Hmm.. debatable. Will my computer be fast or slow? Probably slow. Will the smartboard be cockeyed and tell me check air flow? Who knows, but I lean towards yes. The ceiling fan is always working; thank goodness for my ceiling fan, the one dependable thing in this school. I put up the schedule on the board, mess around, and do whatever teachers do for a bit. Maybe I'll try to print something. But, the school claims it has tried to move away from worksheets for some unknown reason. Sorry, guys, but your textbooks are complete crap, and we do need paper for other things besides worksheets. They give us a 100 copies limit PER MONTH, and a 50 printer limit PER MONTH. I would use that much if I just sat at home all day. So, basically once your paper limit is up, everyone starts using the Primary Director's code (which you're probably not supposed to do), and then you can print/copy whatever you're like. But, don't think it's that easy. The printer, since it lives in the UAE, picks and chooses when it would like to print the items you send. It might print some, but keep others to itself, or it might print nothing or everything. You never know, it keeps you on your toes.
Moving on, we'll usually have a morning staff meeting about odds and ends, and then the bell rings at 7:45. We meet outside on the "green" area in lines with our classes. In early September, it was ROUGH. Sweat, pure sweat was always present. But now it's actually rather pleasant out. Our principal speaks to us and then we sing the UAE national anthem (which is in Arabic, so I have to read the lyrics). Then we head up to our classroom. (Get interesting yet?)
Here's where the "wanting-to-rip-your-hair-out" part begins. At this point, the kids are getting settled, and I remind them to get out a book or doing something constructive at their desks instead of forming what I like to call "party tables." People come and wave homework in my face, and I have to keep reminding them that I don't want it now. If I have them first period, I start the day. I have a calendar friend who comes up and circles the date and says the date in a sentence. Then, I read them the schedule and we start off on our interesting journey.
So, I don't know if it's just kids, or the fact that they are reared up to be lazy, or that they're actually jellies (not smart kids), or whatever, but I have never given so many directions to a group of people in my life. While I am giving directions, WHILE I AM GIVING THEM, there will be a sillyhead raising his hand (it's usually the boys-shocker there), and right after I am finished speaking, I'll call on him, and he'll ask me, "What are we doing?" First quarter of hair officially ripped out. I use these phrases quite often: "Clean out your ears", "Turn your listening ears on" "Use your head, don't be silly" "Use your heads to READ the directions", and my favorite one, "For heaven's sake! (fill in after whatever is appropriate for the incident). I have one kid who does that every day. I get so angry with him, I want to scream. I had to leave the room yesterday for a moment to take a breather, I was so angry. So, here is the population of my class. I've got some really smart kids, who are well-behaved and do what they need to do. I've got some average kids who are a little hyper, but they do well. One of the smart kids is the "What are we doing?" boy. Ugh. Then we've got the low pals. Boy are they low. One girl has powdery skin, which is supposed to be a sign of inbreeding. Thanks, parents. You've done a great service to your child and to me. Smart move. She sometimes can't tell me what number comes after other numbers. This is third grade, honey. Let's roll here. She's one of those people that you ask a question to and they move their lips quietly to show that their thinking, but I don't think they really are. While reading, she struggled to sound out the word "no". I wanted to hit my head against the wall.
My other low friend has proved to be somewhat entertaining. I don't know what to do at this point with him. I put up sentences with blanks in them on the board, and the students were to fill them in with the spelling words that week. The words for that week were things like when, where, why, who, etc. The sentence was, "______ are we going?" This boy raised his hand, and I like to call on him to give him confidence, so I did. He answers, "Mom?" I almost died. Really? Really? I gave him a weird look, and said, "Now, does that make sense?" He eventually got the right answer, thank the Lord. But still this is what I'm dealing with. There are kids who can do multiplication and write paragraphs, and others who are struggling to tell me what and what makes 10. And, I'm by myself in a classroom of 26 kids. It's interesting. It could be a compelling psych experiment to see how long I last before I hurl my body through the windows. During the day, I deal with things, like "Ms., I can't find my book." It's in your desk. "I looked there." Look again; it's there. They look, and it's there. "Ms., someone was running in the hall." Worry about yourself. "Ms., it's my cousin's birthday tomorrow." I couldn't care less. There's this weird corner in my room where someone keeps putting things. I found a sandwich there once, an old banana, and ketchup packets all at different times. I also found a bag with a really creepy stuffed doll in it. Weird. I have a student who I think is autistic, who literally EATS his pencil. It has slowly diminished in size as the weeks go by.
But there are good times, too. Like when we played charades today because I couldn't be bothered to be angry at them anymore. Like a time when a lesson really goes well and they get really into it. Like the fact that I'm reading them the first book in The Chronicles of Narnia (yesssss), or like when I told the students that I'm not a super woman because I can't correct their tests in one second, and one student said, "Ms. Keri, you may not be a super woman, but you are a super teacher." So, I've had a few good laughs and have been thoroughly entertained. Sometimes, you just have to stop and laugh despite the ridiculousness of this school. I had parent teacher conferences last week, and one parent told me that she feeds her child in the morning because he's too tired to eat. She thought maybe she should stop doing that, so that he can become more independent. YA THINK? He's 7. Sorry, lady, but if my child was too tired to eat in the morning, he's not eating. So, parents are mega helpful in the independence area. (NOT).
But, after school and on the weekend is when the best part begins. You can go live your life and do amazing things you'd never be able to do at home! This past weekend, I enjoyed a day on the boat wakeboarding. In November, no less! A few weeks ago, I was out jetskiing one afternoon. It's a cool place. Underneath are some pictures I thought you'd appreciate. Oh, and final note: Dubai is the real cool place to be. It's like the popular kid in the high school of the Emirates. And Sharjah's the loser. There's this one joke someone showed me. You know, the lion King? Simba and his dad were on the cliff looking over the African savanna. Simba says, "Wow. What's that dark shadowy place over there, Dad?" The Dad replies, "That's Sharjah, son, you must never go there." That may be true, but I'd say that's a pretty darn good view (down below-that's the view from our running path along the beach in Sharjah).
So, despite my unfortunate hair loss because of these crazy heads, I'm still satisified and having a great time. Hope you enjoyed! More to come.
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