i hope this finds all of you healthy, happy and safe. Life in the UAE continues to be interesting beyond belief... The last year and a quarter has been full of ups and downs; ins and outs...
for reasons which are, not entirely, all of my making i still am not allowed to drive in this little dusty bit of terra incognita... i tried to take the road test twice last year and both times failed... the second time was particularly amusing: the tester told me at the end, "You drive very well!"
"So i passed?" i asked.
"No, you failed!" (LOL) the tester exclaimed.
Seems there is a game they play here called "fail the sucker and make him pay for yet another road test". i've heard of individuals who have failed 10-15 even multiple dozens of times... So for a while i gave up playing the game. This school year i'll be trying again next week to take another stab at it... but let me backtrack...
In June 2008 (the end of the last school year) i organized a 3 day study/exam prep session at the school i was working in (those who can read sub-text will have already noted the use of the past tense.) Towards the end of the last day of running the sessions with the 80 students who had made the effort to come to school i blew my cool when, after repeated attempts to get the boys to be quiet and while the two teachers assisting me were not able to get the kids quiet, while i was trying to teach... to make a long story short: i blew my cool i said the one olde English word that shall not be said... (rhymes with fire-truck)
Afterwards i met with colleagues who all agreed with me that i shouldn't have... a couple of weeks later the principal got a visit from a parent who said he didn't want me in the same school as his son... So the principal had to ask the MoE to move me to another school... i, therefore, got a transfer to Umm Al Qwain, an even smaller and poorer emirate than Ajman but only just 12 km down the road. As Kim had also applied to the MAG (Schools of the Future) project and been accepted as a Teacher Mentor her assignment was also changed. She was due to be posted to a school in Ajman but, instead, was posted to a school in UAQ. i think both of us, but especially Kim, ended off better off. Kim's working with a remarkably bubbly African American muslim Team Leader and with a group of teachers who are actually open to learning. Kim applied for a Teacher Mentor job; despite being qualified for a Team Leader job she decided she didn't want all the administrative work and actually wanted to be in the classroom as a TM is required to teach one regular class of English each week. The School where she was supposed to go has been plagued with problems this year.
i was posted to a MAG school in which last year's Team Leader and Teacher Mentor were both fired... The Principal Advisor at the school has told me that, in reality, this is the first year the MAG program has been in effect in the school as so little happened last year. i've got an interesting bunch of mainly over the hill ELTs (english language teachers) who have been teaching for donkey's years and are a living embodiment of the "you can't teach an old dog, new tricks" rule. it was an interesting first semester. now we've started the second term and things are ticking over slowly. Case in point: tomorrow there is a free full day Professional Development conference here in Ajman; none of the teachers i work with this year want to go. 75% of the Ts i worked with last year are going.... go figure. my new school has a friendly but autocratic Principal. He's yet to hold a staff meeting this year (which started in August) doesn't want any dicussion of his decisions in a public forum. He's not held a Parent / Teacher meeting either. Doesn't want the grief.
Afterwards i met with colleagues who all agreed with me that i shouldn't have... a couple of weeks later the principal got a visit from a parent who said he didn't want me in the same school as his son... So the principal had to ask the MoE to move me to another school... i, therefore, got a transfer to Umm Al Qwain, an even smaller and poorer emirate than Ajman but only just 12 km down the road. As Kim had also applied to the MAG (Schools of the Future) project and been accepted as a Teacher Mentor her assignment was also changed. She was due to be posted to a school in Ajman but, instead, was posted to a school in UAQ. i think both of us, but especially Kim, ended off better off. Kim's working with a remarkably bubbly African American muslim Team Leader and with a group of teachers who are actually open to learning. Kim applied for a Teacher Mentor job; despite being qualified for a Team Leader job she decided she didn't want all the administrative work and actually wanted to be in the classroom as a TM is required to teach one regular class of English each week. The School where she was supposed to go has been plagued with problems this year.
i was posted to a MAG school in which last year's Team Leader and Teacher Mentor were both fired... The Principal Advisor at the school has told me that, in reality, this is the first year the MAG program has been in effect in the school as so little happened last year. i've got an interesting bunch of mainly over the hill ELTs (english language teachers) who have been teaching for donkey's years and are a living embodiment of the "you can't teach an old dog, new tricks" rule. it was an interesting first semester. now we've started the second term and things are ticking over slowly. Case in point: tomorrow there is a free full day Professional Development conference here in Ajman; none of the teachers i work with this year want to go. 75% of the Ts i worked with last year are going.... go figure. my new school has a friendly but autocratic Principal. He's yet to hold a staff meeting this year (which started in August) doesn't want any dicussion of his decisions in a public forum. He's not held a Parent / Teacher meeting either. Doesn't want the grief.
i did an analysis recently for my MAG boss on how much school time gets wasted on exams etc. Theoretically we have 185 contact days here. But after you take off all the days and periods lost to exams and testing we're only left with 148.5 days and this doesn't even include the time lost to things like "National Day" which uses up classtime and those days lost when Ss up and decide they're just not going to come to school because they have a culture here of "study tents" which means they supposedly prep for exams at home rather than in school with their teachers.
there is a lot wrong with the school system here. i met a Local Uni English Dept Head e at a conference last year. He mentioned that fully 25% of his budget was spent on what is euphemistically termed "Foundation" English courses. These are courses that new Ss to the Uni take in order to get them up to speed to actually study at the Uni level. Ss take between one and two years to get their skill levels up. Over 70% of the locals studying at Uni here are female. Most males don't see the point; they can get better paying jobs by going into the Military or police rather than get a real job and have to do productive work. At my current school i've several Ss (students) in G7 who are as old as Rauth. (he's in Grade 11).
One of closest friends this year is a Cdn team leader, his Japanese wife and their two twin toddlers. Kevin came here to be a part of the project, he and my Principal Advisor (who is responsible for Kevin's school as well as mine) recently spent the better part of three months getting a newdedicated classroom system in place for their school after surveying staff and holding meetings etc. last week the principal there decided he didn't want to bother so he binned their work... just like that.
One of closest friends this year is a Cdn team leader, his Japanese wife and their two twin toddlers. Kevin came here to be a part of the project, he and my Principal Advisor (who is responsible for Kevin's school as well as mine) recently spent the better part of three months getting a newdedicated classroom system in place for their school after surveying staff and holding meetings etc. last week the principal there decided he didn't want to bother so he binned their work... just like that.
For much of last year i cycled to school from our flat in beautiful downtown Ajman. This year Kim and i catch a lift most mornings with a Kurdish colleague of mine who teachs Islamic Religious Knowledge. we've had some pretty interesting discussions in our rides..
last March i went to NYNY for the annual TESOL conference. it wasn't cheap but it wasn't too expensive either. i managed to take in "Spamalot" on Broadway! funny! and tour the Empire State Building to sandwidh the never ending conference sessions.
Last summer we all went to the RWMF at Damai Beach near Kuching (rainforest world music festival). It's still the best party in South East Asia. we had a great time. Riung flew in from Calgary and for the first time in over a year and a half we were all together. The following week Kim and i flew to Calgary spent some time with Linda and her family there and took in the Calgary Folk Festival and visited with old friends. Later we rented a car and drove to 3 Hills to visit Elaine and her kids. It was fun seeing her again; she never ceases to amaze me (or her oncologist for that matter). After that we drove to Drumheller where we met up with my UniGoo mate Nick and his two kids. We camped out at a commercial campsite in town and shopped til we dropped at the local Sally Ann before heading back to Cowtown.
It's now winter in the UAE, Rining and Rauth are enjoying school and in particular, rugby and music. Ayun, having finished Form VI has just gone to Canada and is now living in Calgary with Riung. She's got a line on a job which should allow her to save some dosh before she begins studying at Vancouver Community College next fall. Riung is finally finishing up high school and working part time for Community Services in Calgary. He is applying for entrance into a couple of Alberta Universities for next fall. we'll see what shakes out of the tree.
The worldwide economic meltdown has not missed the middle east where the all important price of a barrel of oil means that the Sheiks are having to make do with much less now than when they were getting $147 a barrel... times are tough all over i guess. Much of the construction in Dubai has stopped. we've heard 1500 residence visas are being cancelled every day...
Germaine Greer recently visited Dubai. Her ascerbic comments can be read here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
She's pretty right on about most of it but she is wrong when she talks about the dhows on dubai creek only being for tourists. there are many there off/on loading goods from Iran and other places on the waterfront. (we are very close to Iran and the UAE is actually in the midst of a territorial dispute with Iran over who owns a few piece of dirt islands in the Gulf). Dubai is crazy, no one knows who's going to live in all the buildings being built. No one knows who's going to be living in all the new buildings being built here in Ajman. Out our living room windows there are 6 highrises in various stages of construction.
Kim recently returned from a quick Chinese New Year trip back to KCH (kuching). She had to formally resign from her government job as she was not given permission to go on study leave as, in the eyes of the Malaysian MoE she's too old to go back to school and improve herself. Bunch of twits. She's the best classroom practioner i've ever observed, bar none, in my 30 years in education and they just let her go; put hefer back against the wall and said see ya later. Her colleagues were, to put it lightly, dismayed that she was forced to resign. She was torn, gone was the guaranteed govt paycheque. apa boleh buat? (what to do?)
The jobs we have now have their challenges but they also have their benefits; they allow us to move forward professionally speaking. Now Kim and i are in the midst of just getting started on the next big chapter in our lives; we've both been accepted to the EdD programme at Murdock Uni in Perth, West Oz as external students. It will be an intense 3 years if we manage to finish on time. the Semester begins on Monday. So if you don't hear from me for 3 years you'll know why!
Hope you all have a wonderful Saint Valentine's Day filled with lots of love, sticky chocolate and other sweet smelling somethings or others....
Pax et amare,
rob
ps: please note new mailing address; to anyone who mailed us anything at the old address sorry it got lost/returned whatever. The principal refused to pay the bill for the school's PO Box so we're not able to collect anything sent to it...
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PO Box 5862
Ajman
United Arab Emirates
posted by frothquaffer at 4:52 AM
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