No Internet!

I don't know if I talked about it before, about fifteen of us teachers have had a "bumpy" road as far as getting settled into our new flats. After that elecrticl fire in our building about a week ago, the school set us up in a really nice hotel as we waited for repairs to be comlplete and the power to come back in our Mahboula apartments (The Dunes). Last night we finally moved back to The Dunes, but it could be weeks before we get internet!! Right now I'm writing this from the school library.

Speaking of school, tomorrow we've got an hour meet-and-greet with parents and students! Unfortunately, the parents or the teachers still don't know which kids are in which class. ASK is a private school, and all students have to pass admissions testing. And for whatever reason some parents like to wait till the last minute to bring there kids in to do that. So...that number of having 17 students in my class like I said before will definitely rise until all the student testing is complete.

(It's weird...this keyboard I'm using has english and Arabic characters on it!)

Today we took our final scheduled shopping trip to one of the big malls around here. Unfortunaltely is was scheduled for the morning...which means if you didn't eat anything before you left, you wouldn't eat for awhile. We had some bus/flatbed issues so we were all stuck in the mall for an extra hour and a half - 25 teachers with full carts loitering in the mall, hungry and thristy. A few of us were sitting on the floor against the wall and one of the "mall guards" told us we had to stand up! We all looked around confused, assuming that maybe it was a Ramadan thing or something. Alright it's getting late...I need to call a cab home and practice by bargaining skills. :)

Getting Ready for Sept. 1st

Here's a couple panoramic shots of my new classroom!  Click on in it to see it full size.  It's a little small, and obviously bare at this point, but my awesome mentor was able to leave a ton of teacher supplies for me to pick and choose from.  Tomorrow I want to get some welcoming furniture for a little pseudo-reading nook.    

Today we got a chance to look at the elementary standards and performance indicators, along with UbD unit plans, and a curriculum map.  Also got a chance to sit and chat informally with the rest of the 2nd grade team - 3 newcomers and 2 ASK veterans.  I can tell we're gonna be pretty freakin' good! (that terminology works, right?) I'm the only brand new teacher, and they've been so helpful with my barrage of questions, questions concerning planning, the children, classroom set-up, 7 year-olds fasting...y'know, the usual.  

So, get this: we all share two assistants that do ALL of our copying for us, and we each get an instructional assistant to help us for about half of everyday!  The kids have specialists everyday: PE, Music, Art, Science, Arabic, and/or Religion.  That's an hour and a half to two hours of planning time everyday!  And for Ramadan the days are start later and end earlier.  After Ramadan is the first Eid and we have a week off.  Tough, I know.  (I keep feeling like I'm getting too spoiled at too young an age)

If you didn't know, the kids I'll be teaching are from affluent families (mostly Kuwaiti,American, and Canadian.  I've been told that many don't get close affection from theirparents (and probably more so from there maids), so they see school as a place to...be noticed and really encouraged and cared for.  Right now specialists are still doing admissions testing so I don't know how many kids I'll have in my class - right now I'm at 17.  There's usually a cap around 22 or so.  

Hopefully, by my next blog my classroom will be close to finished.  

 

Some Initial Impression on Kuwait

Walking outside feels literally like stepping into a sauna.  The humidity, the heat, the sun, hits hard!  From what I’ve seen briefly in passing via bus trips back and forth from the apartments (The Dunes) to school and to shopping centers, Kuwait is rather bare.  I don’t know why, but there’s a lot of trash piled up outside on the sides of buildings and such – trash and chunks of cement. 

            I heard that Kuwait is “1^st world country run my 3^rd world people.”  I don’t really know how true that is, but I do know that Kuwait is a wealthy country.  And I do know that Kuwaitis have a reputation of being somewhat lazy and doing half-assed jobs on certain projects. (There was an electrical fire in our apartment because some wires were connected incorrectly.  And for some reason there are rusted nails sticking out of the wall in my bathroom.  I could go on but I want to save my energy.) 

            There’s also a definite class system hear.  Manual labor is reserved for the bottom rung: Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians…(Another teacher said that others see me in public and probably think, “who does he doing work for?”)  So I try to take every advantage of speaking up in public so they know I’m from America.            

            It’s only been a few days, but as time goes on I’m hoping to try and get more immersed with the culture.  Since Kuwait imports so many of their products, has so many Western stores and restaurants (Starbucks, Ruby Tuesdays, Johnny Rockets, Ikea, etc.)  and since it’s quite easy to spend a majority of one’s time with other Western teachers and faculty, one can easily avoid a significant integration into the Kuwaiti culture.  But…I guess that could be good or bad.    

The First 24 Hours

Oh, goodness...where do I begin?  First off, today was the first day of Ramadan.  This means nothing can pass your throat from sunrise to sunset.  We're told to not even walk around with a water bottle in our hand, but to keep it in our pocket, purse, or murse (man purse).  Chewing gum is also considered disrespectful to the religion and culture.  Non-muslims can eat in the privacy of their own homes.  It's amazing how muslims can go so long without water in this 110 degree heat! (But I did here a lot of Kuwaitis leave the country during Ramadan.)  

We got to see the school today, too!  ASK is K-12 with about 150 full-time staff and a principal and assistant for the elem., middle, and high schools.  Me and another new 2nd grade teacher will be sharing a mentor teacher to help us throughout the year with the curriculum, planning, anything to make sure we do the best job we can do.  Most of the school's units were created using Understanding by Design  (I'll get more into the teaching day and details in a later blog).  

I'm exhausted right now!  A full day of unpacking, school tours and introductions (for a moment I thought I was going to pass out from heat exhaustion while we were touring the outdoor facilities - what was I thinking when I got the hot coffee!?), and a 3-hour shopping trip to a grocery store/shopping mall (I bought 20 Kuwaiti Dinar worth of food and apartment stuff.) Add that to the jet lag and the minimal rushed eating in seclusion during the day.  

Going to the grocery store was an experience.  I love that there is a mix of so many different people: some muslims completely covered except for their eyes, some dressed in Western attire, expats from other countries, workers from other Arab nations.  Just talking with the new (about 40) and old staff here and hearing about other places they've taught the trips they've been on and countries they've lived in so, so exciting!  The elem librarian said she was voted "most likely to never leave Texas", and this will be her 4th year living in Kuwait!  One of the new 3rd grade teachers, this is his 8th country he'll be teaching in the middle east!  

Okay, now I'm really tired...tomorrow we've got curriculum introduction/seminar, and we were supposed to take a shopping trip to IKEA and CarreFour, but that might have changed...