school days

Administration has turned up the pressure, and suddenly all my time and energy goes into lesson plans and curriculum. I started Arabic lessons last week, but right now all I can do is say “how are you?” “how’s your health?” “I am well, thanks be to God” and count to five. The fact is, I pretty much live in an ex-pat bubble, and even if I wanted immersion my job wouldn’t really allow it. But the fact that I have broken the ice at least makes Arabic a little less intimidating as a language. I’m told that it’s a very structured and organized language, so once I get some momentum, maybe I’ll make good progress. The writing system isn’t that bad. I pretty much knew the alphabet before I arrived. It is interesting to see again how a language really contains all the nuances and values of a culture. Modern standard Arabic, it seems, can hardly be spoken without constant references to Islamic belief. It doesn’t mean that everyone is devout. Just like when people say “how are you?” it doesn’t mean that they care. It’s just what you say.

I seem to be settling in to a bit of a routine. I catch a shuttle to school in the morning. I wear a necktie, which is not required, but I figure “earn a point here, lose one there.” Since my core attitude is not 100% party line, I’ll wear a necktie to help balance the scales. I try to keep up an appearance of being highly organized, though the truth is I haven’t studied all the IEP’s, haven’t worked out all the differentiated instruction I’m supposed to be doing, etc. and quite frankly I much prefer just taking a holistic view of it all, as much as I can get away with. I feel very good about working with the kids. Sixth grade is a wonderful level to teach. I really enjoy being with them. My students are reading at a 3rd and 4th grade reading level, but emotionally and socially they are just like the regular sixth graders I worked with in Pennsylvania. One thing that I find is that they do love to talk, and in an ESL situation that is a good thing. I just have to tell them to slow down and pay attention to their pronunciation. It’s easy for them to rattle on in a kind of heavily accented speech that’s practically an Arabic-English pidgin, and all the other kids will understand them but I won’t have a clue. So you get some boy telling a story that ends with some kind of a funny thing and everyone in the class bursts out laughing, and I didn’t get a word or it. The students are going to like me because I’m not a heavy disciplinarian. I’m just not. Sometimes you just can’t be what you’re not. I think I keep adequate control of my classroom, but I gain it through persuasion and loyalty, not discipline. My assistant is a young Indian woman and I think she feels challenged by the looseness of my classroom management style, but in the end I believe she will learn a lot from working with me. She has her own teacher credential and if she manages to move somewhere that doesn’t practice racial discrimination, she will someday have her own teaching job.

After school I typically take the shuttle back home and start wasting time for the rest of the day, but sometimes I go get groceries or go to the gym. I tried a yoga class last week, but it was too advanced for me. I like yoga, but if you can’t even get into the general range of the pose, it’s just a frustrating struggle, too jerky and reachy to benefit from the stretching and breathing that yoga is supposed to be. Like so many things, a good teacher makes all the difference. I wish I had kept up with tai chi. If I had, I could be teaching it now. The gym has its pros and cons. It’s never closed, so you can go for a midnight swim if you feel like it, and the water has cooled from hot to warm, so it’s not so unpleasant to be in.

Today is Thursday, and that’s like a Friday back home - no work tomorrow.
Movie night is postponed till tomorrow because we’re going to do some evening errands tonight. Things get put on hold because of Ramadan hours. One of the things I will probably do is make a travel reservation for Egypt. Everybody leaves Kuwait during the winter break. A few people go home, but most take advantage of the fact that Kuwait is a great base from which to travel. In fact, people often say that the best thing about being in Kuwait is the travel opportunities to other places. The young couple I’ve gotten to know here who live on the 4th floor told me they were going to Egypt and I could tag alone if I like. Now it looks as though we may have different ideas of what we want to do there, but I have the option to follow them around if traveling alone is too much of a drag. Everyone says to do the Nile cruise, but my friends are iffy about it. Anyone interested in joining me?

I’m at school now, and the Arabic language teacher who’s tutoring me just stopped in to give me a little practice. Hello, how is your health? I am well, thanks be to God, 1 2 3 4 5.