the waiting game

so school has officially been postponed until October 18th. This swine flu paranoia is really getting out of control. The teachers still have to go to school every day though. It's torture. We sit there all day with nothing to do. We pretend to work for an hour and then all gather in one room for coffee. Then pretend to work some more. Tomorrow they've organized aerobics for us to do in the morning with the PE teacher. That could be fairly entertaining.

Here's some before and after pictures of my class. (The before pictures were taken one week before school started.)

the fort

The boys in my neighborhood have been working on this fort for weeks now, and I have been eagerly watching their progress. This thing is awesome. It started out with just the wooden frame, but now it's got everything. I want to hang out there. Seriously. They found a book of fabric samples which they took apart and nailed to the walls for covering/decoration. They put carpeting on the ground with cushions and wooden chairs for their sitting enjoyment, thin screens on the ceiling to block the sun, a bulletin board on the outside to post their important announcements, a wooden platform for shoes so the carpet doesn't get dirty, and of course, the necessary framed picture of the king prominently displayed on the wall. The best part is that the whole thing is covered with Christmas lights, so it's lit up every night. Every evening I walk by to see what progress has been made or what the boys are up to. Usually they are just chilling inside, playing chess or carems or just hanging out. It's funny because it's quite typical for older Arab men to sit outside on the street smoking shisha and playing dominoes. This is like the kids version. :)

the joys of moving

the first three weeks I was staying with the pastor, living out of suitcases

finally moved into the new place, but it took a while to get everything working...

dishes in the bathroom sink

more pictures once I've unpacked some :)

personal bubble

It is a generally know fact that Americans have a rather large personal bubble. We like to keep our distance from people, especially in public places. In a waiting room, we politely leave that empty seat between ourselves and the people waiting next to us. At the gym we use alternating tread mills if we can. In church, we leave a respectful distance on the pew between families. We often don't even realize we do it; it's second nature to us. In fact, we don't often realize we have a large personal space bubble until we travel somewhere outside the US where the rules of personal space are completely different or perhaps non-existant.

This is my story.

It was a Thursday afternoon, the last day of the working week. The first week of school was behind us, thankfully. The street and parking lot were packed with cars and buses and wandering students, all eager to get out of there. The teachers were no exception. I punched out at exactly 1:35, the time we were allowed to leave, and made my way over to the high school where the "teacher's bus" was waiting to take us home. I arrived after the short walk, hot and sweaty as the temperature outside was a boiling 110*. I climbed aboard and quickly realized I was one of the last teachers to arrive. (How the others all manage to get there before I do is a mystery. I'll have to work on that.) I slumped into the only free bench--the front row. No sooner had I sat down than I realized there was a black bag sitting on the bench next to me; someone else was already sitting here. Sure enough, as I turned around I saw the bus doors opening and a middle aged teacher from the high school got on. I recognized her from earlier in the week. She was Lebanese, a math teacher, and she always sounded angry, barking orders into her cell phone in Arabic. I apologized for taking her seat, but she seemed unfazed. She slid in next to me, and we were on our way. The bus ride is not a long one; most of the teachers live within five minutes of the school. Since I live farther away, I am the last to get dropped off. As we rolled along, I suddenly realized I was in a jam. The teacher who sat next to me was the second to the last one off the bus. That meant that the bus would empty out, and there would be the two of us, crammed into the front row. And I was stuck next to the window. I had no way out. I consoled myself by saying, I'm sure she'll move to an empty row when one opens up. That's what I would do if I was on the aisle. But I forgot that I was no longer in America dealing with Americans. The bus emptied out and the Lebanese teacher showed no signs of moving. I rode along in silence, listening to her sharp Arabic, thinking, this is nuts. There I was, the sun mercilessly beating down on me through the window, my blood beginning to boil. What is wrong with this lady, I thought, as our legs knocked against one another over every bump. This entire bus is empty and it's hot and she insists on cramming into the front row with me!?!?!? Just move. I tried for five minutes to send a silent message to her brain telling her to get out of my row. When that didn't work, I tried shifting around in my seat to show that I was uncomfortable. I tried moving my bag, inching my leg away from hers, glancing around at the empty seats around us. But nothing worked; she wasn't bothered in the slightest. She didn't care that it was hot. She didn't care that our legs kept rubbing against each other. She didn't care that the whole bus was empty. So why did I care so much? Why was I torturing myself over this? Because it's just ridiculous, I thought. All she has to do is move!!!! But as the minutes ticked by I slumped against the window in resignation. Just look out the window. It will be over soon. It's really not that bad, I told myself. But nothing worked. The only comforting thought was this: next week, I won't be the last one to get on the bus.

the beginnings

So school did indeed start on the 6th of September. The mandatory temperature checks got over fairly quickly, but I'm sure that was due in large part to parents showing up at 6:30 when school was scheduled to start at 7:40. We still had to wait, baking in the sun until 8:00 hoping the rest of our students would show up. They didn't. Most classes only boasted a 50% attendance rate the first day with only moderate improvement as the week progressed. I topped out at 20 out of 27 students. So things were a little slow going the first week. Everyday we got our temperature checked to make sure we didn't have swine flu, and every day I was given a new class list as there were daily changes to the roster. It's very difficult to get things going when your class is so transient. So we didn't, get things going that is. Most of us just spent the week trying to get to know the students and maybe review things from the previous year to assess where are students are at academically. I gave some "tests" at the end of the week to get a feel for the level of my students as well. They were quite revealing.

First, I gave a spelling test. I randomly chose words that I thought a fifth grader should know, seeing as I've been teaching seventh grade for the past two years and really had no clue where they would be. So I went with what I thought were safe words: whale, science, skirt, pencils, beautiful, glasses. I was trying to go for a variety; some with silent letters, some with different endings, that sort of thing. Over 50% of the students failed. Ok, so we need to work on spelling.

Next was the reading test. I read a story out loud to the students. It was a folk tale from West Africa about how the world got wisdom. Here's what happens: the sky god gives spider the gift of wisdom. Spider wants to keep it all to himself, so he puts it into a pot and tries to hide it in the tallest tree. When he can't, he breaks the pot and everyone gets a little bit of wisdom. After reading the story, I asked the students some basic questions: who is the main character, what gift did he get, what did he do with it, and what happened at the end. Again, I thought it was fairly straightforward and simple. Again, a ridiculous number of students failed.

Finally we came to the math test. I had looked through the math book and saw that the students learned two-digit multiplication last year. So I made up 10 problems for them to copy from the board and work on. After putting the problems on the board, there was a chorus of "Oh, this is easy! We did this last year!" Oh good, I thought. It turns out only three out of 20 knew how to do it. The rest just started multiplying any random number they felt like.

It looks like I have my work cut out for me this year.

On the plus side, I find the students to be quite enjoyable. They don't yet have the attitude of a seventh grader and they really are quite nice. I think it's going to be a good year. :)

first day of school

Well, school was officially postponed until the 6th of September, tomorrow. All of the teachers were very thankful for the extra days to prepare our classrooms and do some lesson planning. The main issue revolving around the topic of starting school is swine flu. For never hearing about it in the US when I was home for the summer, I sure hear about it all the time here. And cases keep popping up. Since most of the student body leaves the country for the summer holiday, people are worried about students coming back with swine flu and infecting the school. So to prevent such a disaster, my school has decided that they will scan each and every person before allowing them to enter the school premises. That means that tomorrow morning, every person that wants to enter Modern Knowledge School must have his or her temperature checked. There are close to 2,000 students at MKS. And they must all be checked in a single file line. And most of them will come with a parent on the first day. Maybe both parents. And a housemaid. They will all need to be checked in a single file line. Oh, and did I mention that we will probably only have two, maybe three, scanners to check these temperatures? So 2,000+ people will need to wait outside the school, in the heat, for their turned to be scanned. I can just imagine the chaos and frustration...

I'll let you know what happens tomorrow. :)