I wrote this little chapter on the last day of work. I hope you enjoy it. As we wrap up our journey in the Middle East, I plan to chapter out most of our memorable experiences. Enjoy!
As I sit here among the sea of vacant chairs and desks, I
reflect back on my year as a teacher in Abu Dhabi. I think about how I once was
and how I am now. Frankly, I don’t remember how it used to be. I really don’t.
The strength and determination I have had to find to get me
to where I am right now is unbelievable. You know when you have those
experiences where you only really remember the end of it because you have no idea how you got to it – you just
know you got there and didn’t realize you were that kind of person?
I feel like Abu Dhabi has been an experience that has
changed me, completely. For better and, maybe, for worse… I don’t know. Maybe
I’m less patient. I am definitely less trusting, more paranoid, and more
stressed. I feel more irritable, but I also feel wiser, more complete, more in
tune with who I am and how I operate.
Here are some notable thoughts on my year as a teacher in
one of the hardest, most notorious for discipline issues (aka there is no disciplinary measures), schools in
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The beginning
My name is Sarah. I am Canadian. I am sensitive, passionate,
gentle, soft, liberal, loyal, trustworthy, health-conscious, singsong, smiley,
optimistic, and positive. I love to smile and infect people with my sunshine
demeanor. In previous jobs, I was asked how I am so bouncy and lively all the
time. Answer: Because why not? Life is cool! It takes a lot to make me
incredibly sad and it takes even more to make me angry. I’m a worrywart and a
little paranoid over stupid things. I have health issues that I attempt to keep
at bay the natural way – healthy eating, staying positive, yoga.
I was encouraged to apply for an ESL teaching position in
Abu Dhabi while I was in graduate school at UBC. Naturally, I flocked to this
option, as I trust everyone, and if someone has experience in the area, why
wouldn’t I trust him or her? I quickly applied to schools in Abu Dhabi and
Dubai and I cried when I got a reply from two schools in Abu Dhabi. One school
asked for a few documents, which were easy enough to get, scan, and send. The
other school asked me to fill out a 25 page application, create a video essay
of why I loved teaching, send loads of documents, and alerted me to the fact
that the job offer had not been set in stone and that this was a process. I was
very interested in both. Clearly, the second one was more stringent and all
that, so I was rooting for it, but in the end, the first school was the only
one that ever emailed back and offered me a job as a Grade Two Classroom
teacher in Abu Dhabi, UAE. I was frigging ecstatic! Me… a teacher! I didn’t
have a teaching degree, but I had a Master’s in Education and I knew the ropes.
My countless volunteer experiences at schools and my passion for tutoring drew
me to try teaching overseas.
Teaching overseas had been my dream for over ten years at
this point. As a tween, I had this picture in my mind of me going off to Japan,
for example, and enlightening young ones and falling in love (with a person and
the place) and living and exploring the world. I thought it would be perfection
– I should not have jumped to conclusions.
Naturally, as a 12 year old, loving Hanson and not realizing
the wonders (and horrors) of the world yet, I didn’t know shit. As a
20-something in graduate school, having experienced ESL tutoring and teaching
in Canada, I knew it was not going to be a walk in the park! Not only is ESL
teaching one of the hardest jobs on this planet, but also getting to know and
feel comfortable in a culture that isn’t familiar is near impossible without
support.
Fast-forward to my anticipated departure: Late August, 2012.
I had been emailing my director and HR person constantly. My worrywart,
pessimist, perfectionist self just wanted to BE there getting my classroom
ready for the students and prepping myself for what I would later find out to
be one of the most shocking reality checks ever in life. I didn’t end up
leaving for Abu Dhabi until September 9th – almost one week AFTER
the first week of school!!! Naturally, I had a few panic attacks and thank
GOODNESS I had my rational and calm husband to be all hilarious and sweet.
Little did I know the disorganization and aloof attitude towards my visa and
flight accommodations (I had to do EVERYTHING myself at the very last minute
even though I was prepared to make all these arrangements in early June; I was
just told ‘no, we will handle it, please don’t worry’… Don’t worry? Suck it.
Assholes).
So Bernard and I finally boarded a plane on September 9th
to arrive in Abu Dhabi I believe at 9pm GMT. We arrived at midnight, but hey,
with five million layovers and plane changes, lateness is bound to happen.
Anyway, the flight was a horror movie. I fainted, convulsed, threw up what
seemed like endlessly, and couldn’t breathe. GOOD TIMES. Needless to say, I
fear getting BACK on a plane for that long in a few weeks, but this time I’ll
be flying towards my loving family and familiarity, not some strange land where
no one knows me and no one trusts me.
Fortunately, I had Skyped with a lovely lady prior to
arriving in Abu Dhabi and I was given her flat number, so I knocked on her door
around midnight and her and her husband were nice enough to take us to the mall
where we picked up some peanut butter and bread for a quick lunch for me the
next day.
So we went to bed, and I actually managed to wake up around
6am the next day to head to work. Everyone was nice and smiley. The VP welcomed
me to Abu Dhabi and the coordinator for my department generously toured me
around. She first took me to a grade one class and told me it was mine. I
smiled and greeted the kids. I very shortly after found out it was a mistake
and they weren’t my class – number one of eight million in a list of mistakes
to happen at my school… No big deal!
I finally met my real class:
Grade 2Y. I smiled and waved and made cute faces at them. I had never taught a
grade two class before. I had taught grade two children, but never a class full
of small Arabic children. They all stared at me suspiciously as if I was Lady
Gaga but they didn’t like Lady Gaga because of preconceived notions, if you
know what I’m saying. It felt hostile. It felt scary… but I was excited! I
wanted to get up and teach RIGHT then and there, but I didn’t. I was told I
would start tomorrow. I didn’t know what to teach, what to say, what to do…
nothing. I wasn’t given a curriculum; I wasn’t even given a book! Hell, I
didn’t have a damn board marker! I just had to go in and GO.
The next day, I eagerly bounced out of bed and walked to
school. I stumbled around like a jackass and found my coordinator. She led me to
my class where the mayhem began. All the kids were hopping around and
screeching and just acting like pure animals. The teacher who was in the class
gave me a weak smile and left. I turned to face the kids and when I turned
back, my lifelines were gone. I was left to do my thing. The kids’ noise level
and animal levels intensified. Welcome to Abu Dhabi… good luck!
Approximately 95% of my day was spent trying to talk over
the kids. I managed to ask them their names and only a couple lied to me. They
laughed as I mispronounced their names and continued to cause a ruckus as I
looked confusedly at my desk, the awkwardness of the triangle-shaped, small ass
classroom, and the general crappy atmosphere.
Break time was death. An assload of screeching animals
(children) running around at lightning speed, doing all but killing each other
– pinching, scratching, shoving, kicking, spitting, biting… so much biting…
twisting, punching, and just terrorizing each other. They all seemed to glare
at me with demonic grins as they sized up the new teacher all prim and proper
in my long skirt and countless layers of appropriate, yet ugly, clothing. So I
wandered around at break duty not knowing what I should be doing. I was told to
go to the basement for duty. What the hell does that mean? Some teachers were
sitting talking on their blackberries, others were talking to each other, some
were pacing and glaring viciously at me. (I later realized this was not a
vicious glare at me – it was a perma-scary face NECESSARY to have ANY control
over the children… seriously). I was frightened. Why wasn’t anyone smiling? Why
wasn’t anyone telling me what to do? I asked a few people but they just glared
at me and walked away.
Home time was also a wake up call into the realities of the
Middle East and hierarchy. Earlier than expected, random people opened my
classroom door, yelling foreign names I did not recognize, and then my students
one by one barreled out of my classroom in a very disorganized and pushy
fashion without so much as a glance up. When maids or nannies came in, the
children would hurl their bags at them and I would say “hey! Show some respect”
and the children would laugh at me like I had no idea. The nanny would also
glare at me like I offended her for trying. It was a strange thing I had never
seen before. Parents would look at me warily; grab their kid saying “yalla!
Yalla!” [hurry up/let’s go] and leave without so much as a wave. I was
traumatized by the day and by all the things I was just supposed to know. I was told before moving to Abu
Dhabi that I would have extensive training on cultural sensitivity and policy
and procedure of the school. Nope. I was just supposed to know.
I was also just supposed to know that there was a meeting after school. As I was catching my
breath from the day, my class phone rang. I jumped and picked it up. “Hello,
Miss Sarah? Yalla! There’s a meeting! Let’s go!” I ran around trying to find
the room and when I found it, I walked in to cold stares and an uncomfortable
freeze in communication. I whispered sorry, wiped my eyes, and found a seat.
This would be the first of many meetings where little was actually said and
less was understood. This was my first meeting, so I was ready with pencil in
hand. I didn’t really understand anything – terminology, procedures, a lot of
“as we did last year…” – I began to think I was the only new teacher. I began
to feel isolated and uncomfortable. I began to think that maybe this was more
than just a bad day.
Needless to say, at the end of my day, I collapsed into
Bernard’s arms, sobbing profusely, talking of disrespect and audacity. The
first week we had to polish off some visa stuff and so not only were my days
filled with disrespectful children and glaring, menacing staff, but at the end
of my days I had to travel around blindly (thank goodness for Bernard!!!!) to
get shit done. We also had to buy food, furnish our apartment, and dodge roaches…
and get over the fear of cockroaches. Luckily, Bernard is a true badass so he
took the liberty of killing most of them, but I eventually had to step up and
bust a cap in loads of cockroach ass.
The first week was hell, the next week was worse. Come October,
I was just sad and angry all the time. My kids were dickheads and most of them
didn’t have the decency to let me even ask them to do something. Luckily, I had
a LOT of good kids in my class (I later learned most teachers had at least 30
kids who all behaved terribly and no one gave a shit. I actually had a class
with few ‘locals’ and lots of kids who, with time, could and would eventually be managed).
Honestly, I don’t remember much of September through
December, and when I try to think of it, my head hurts. An example of a notable
experience of hellish proportions was a light fixture falling from my ceiling
and nearly hitting a student in the head, followed by me having to interrupt my
own lesson to clean it and deal with it. How was it dealt with? “Okay miss,
it’s fine.” Nothing. Nothing happened. I demanded that someone come and make
sure all the light fixtures were secured but of course it didn’t happen. I was
petrified… Later I would discover that things like this need a “zero fucks” and
“oh well” attitude. But this was first semester and I was still the happy,
sweet, patient, worrywart, way too caring Canadian who cared about safety,
bullying, and discipline.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still care about those
things, but my perspective of everything had to change in order for me to survive
Arabia and teaching in my school.
I consistently found myself baffled by everyone’s nonchalant
attitude to my intensely upsetting experiences, like kids threatening to kill
each other, and me! Granted my kids were only seven years old, but as Dr. Phil
says, early behaviour predicts future behaviour… so I was concerned. I was
always concerned. I was way too concerned about everything. I learned to shed
this concern and remain fairly neutral with the ability to be alert if
necessary.
I was told by a kind colleague, who invited me over after
school one day after she saw me crying, that it isn’t that bad. That it gets
better. She told me that she worked at the all boys’ section of our school last
year and her students would literally jump on tables, throw desks, and piss in
the corner of the classroom. I laughed… she didn’t. She said, seriously. This
was my standard of bad: Kids pissing in the corners of the classroom. I had
students pee on the floor in the bathroom… but this wasn’t directly in front of
me as an act of “you can’t stop me and you will never be able to” so I
shouldn’t see it as bad.
Essentially, if a student doesn’t whip it out and piss in
front of you in the middle of a lesson, then you have it good as a teacher in
Abu Dhabi… your job is bliss…
In a nutshell, the beginning was terrible and I wanted to
leave because I couldn’t handle it.
Fortunately, as I write this, I know that I overcame this
beginning and writing it all down reminds me just how strong you have to be to
be an ESL teacher in the UAE. I am a strong person and I always knew that, but
after this year, I’m a pure badass.
Sarah don't wanna mess with this Wun
Stay tuned for the next few chapters such as these two:
Tears, Fears, and Spears…
into my face
Baby Crazy
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