For worse, for better.

September 6, 2011

Today was awful. The stuff in the early morning wasn’t so bad… we met in our smaller divisions (so for me, the “English” teachers of the KG department… I use quotes because there are three of us out of 9 or 10 that don’t speak Arabic.) One of the teachers was pretty combative with Caroline (our curriculum coordinator) about the new curriculum, and about basically anything she could think of. I found out later from Caroline that that particular teacher is the former coordinator, whom Caroline has replaced. (Lucky Caroline, right?) Then we had a meeting with Ms. Amy, which was basically a short seminar about ADEC (Abu Dhabi Education Council) and their standards for accreditation. Not bad. After that, the day went all to hell. We came back, and our classroom assignments were posted. First of all, let me just tell you this very important piece of the story: until now, the kindergarteners have spent half the morning in one classroom with an English teacher, and the other half in the class next door with an Arabic teacher. So each teacher has their own classroom, and essentially two sets of 25 kindergarteners. Great! But noooooo…. This year, they have the teachers switching rooms at the half instead of the kids. Basically, it means I have to decorate half of one classroom in English materials, and half of the next classroom in English, while my Arabic-speaking counterpart decorates the other halves. I DON’T HAVE TWO OF EVERYTHING FOR DECORATING. I have one poster for shapes, one for letters, one for numbers, one for colors, etc. I don’t know what to do! So we’re basically going to BEG Ms. Amy tomorrow to let us do it the old way. In addition to that, my Arabic co-teacher hardly speaks any English, and I don’t speak any Arabic. She speaks well enough to figure out how we’re splitting up our bulletin boards. That’s it. When I tried to tell her that my A/C was broken, she thought I was saying that I didn’t know how to turn the lights on. Ay ay ay. Then when I told admin about my A/C, they said someone would come to fix it at 1:30. Well, it was way too hot in there for me to do anything, so I went up to my flat, had a little cry and a short nap, ate lunch and went back down at 2:30; still no A/C. I stayed this time, because at some point I really DO need to decorate, but it was hot. I gave up for the day around 4, because I needed to go wash up a little. A few of us received calls that we needed to go over to the admin office at the boys’ school for something, and that the bus would pick us up at 4:30. So we went, and walked around trying to find out where we were supposed to go. Finally, we found the right office and asked for the guy that our secretary told us we needed, and were directed (pretty harshly, I might add) over to a receptionist. We told her what we knew, and the only thing she told us was that a bus is picking us up on Saturday morning to go have our lab work/ medical check-ups done. But we already knew this!! OUR secretary told us this!! And the mean guy actually WAS the person that we had been told to talk to, but he apparently didn’t want to talk to us. So we left. What a waste of time. After that Tracy, Pietra and I went over to Mushrif Mall because we needed a few groceries, and we needed to do some browsing to calm our nerves. Tracy talked to the boys’ teacher from Ireland, and convinced him to come down and meet us at the mall, so I met him. He’s a cool dude. Seamus (shay-muss) is his name-us. Hahaha. Yep, well that’s about it for the fantastic day I had. Pshh… man it was rough. Tomorrow HAS to be better.

Side note: trying to cook for one is SUCH a pain.

September 7, 2011

Well I wasn’t sure how today was going to turn out after yesterday, but it actually went pretty well. (In most ways anyway.) Our meeting with Ms. Amy finalized the fact that we will be teaching in two classrooms, and then we had a seminar with the Learning Coordinator (I don’t actually remember her title. She’s a psychologist, not a curriculum developer, but apparently she does both here? Hmm…) She seems kind of uppity, and I don’t think I’m the only one with that opinion. While that was going on, Caroline was meeting with Ms. Nagat (our Vice Principal) and the Arabic Coordinator to decide on how to standardize our classrooms as far as decorating and materials. When we finished our seminar, we were informed that the English teachers would have the big wall of bulletin boards in each class (with 5 boards), while the Arabic teachers would have the small walls (with 3 boards). So in each class I need to have boards with colors, shapes, numbers, phonics, and the weekly theme. Ten boards total, to the Arabic teachers’ six. Whatever, I’m good at displays so it should be no problem… It gives me an excuse to shop, right? One of the older Arabic teachers came into my classroom to chat while I was decorating. She has family in California. And when my Arabic co-teacher came in and started speaking to me in Arabic, she could tell I didn’t understand and said that once school started she was going to start giving me Arabic lessons, which is going to help me a LOT with my co-teacher. It was almost like a revolving door of teachers into my class today, looking at my stuff, asking where I got it, and telling me how much they loved it. (To quote, my classroom is “so bright and happy looking”.) J Then! Another Arabic teacher (who is about 8 months pregnant, and adorable) came into my class and told me that she has a child in KG2 this year, and that she went to Ms. Nagat to specifically request that her daughter be in my class because she likes me and has a good feeling about me.

You have no idea what an encouragement that was, especially after yesterday!

There have been some rough patches starting up and getting used to how differently things are managed here, but I also have SO many reasons to be thankful that I can’t help but forget how much the other things frustrate me.