This first pic is the back view of a very small portion of the Early Learning Centre - If you look left of the large dark window /just right of the tree, you can see my window and door to the classroom I spend my mornings in.
One of the most dramatic things that separates teaching in the Middle East to Australia (besides the usual cultural differences) is that the ME parents really don’t understand the education system to begin with – so that kind of triples the workload. They just don't understand why after one whole week, little Abdulla-aziz Mahmoud Ali Dawish isn't running writing in English! - he is almost 3 after all!
As far as the school goes – I haven’t really worked it out – I’m not sure what type of agenda we’re on…one minute we’re to provide world class, innovative EC curriculum (which I understand is why I’m there in the first place) – the next they introduce IPC (international primary curriculum) into their early childhood school – I think they confuse the issue by initially naming the EC dept as a ‘school’ when the children who are enrolled are a minimum of 3yrs old and due to their lifestyles and histories – most have only really been involved in interaction with their large families, nannies, drivers and maids...and possess skill levels of children much younger. There is a real lack of basic knowledge that I take for granted coming from Australia – but I’m here for the experience and the growth – so, I take it all down a notch (or 10) and start from the basic beginnings!
Day 1 - an eye-opener! A constant stream of covered women and their children – drivers and nannies and not a lot of English to communicate with, greeted me! It took a while for the mothers’s to unveil themselves and for me to work out which parent belongs to which child and then getting my mouth around the names – I still don’t know the family names of any of the children without reading them from a list. The child has a ‘Christian’ name followed by its father’s first name and then the family name – which can be made up of a few names – all very confusing! I was alerted to the fact that the parents don’t know how to ‘wait’ and spoke over each other (and myself) to be heard! Hmmmm, I began to feel I would have some interesting times ahead!
It's taken a few weeks of some consistent tough love! Forget the cursive writing - these guys have a few social issues to amend!...but, its paying off and now the group (mostly) sits together without beating each other senseless and actually sings together!...am working on the turntaking with talking and calling out. I mostly don't believe what comes out of my mouth at times! I seem to bark many one word orders..like, 'sit', 'stop', 'listen', 'wait', 'no' - all with hand gestures and facial contortions as support! when all else fails - I resort to the little Arabic I've learned 'Halas', 'shoi shoi', 'la'! There has been the odd moment, when I've just got off my chair and said - 'no story today!' and had a laugh....(update today 12th Oct - Little boy gets up and speaks in Arabic to the unruly group and points to the small list of group time rules on the wall - they all listen!)
It seems whenever there is an opportunity - I get my head wrapped! I've decided these head covers are the perfect solution for bad hair days!
When I started at the school, my assistant was the Australian Barry (her name withheld to protect the accused!) but just didn’t want to be in Qatar and hated every second of it. Unfortunately, I worked long and hard and very much alone for the first 3 weeks before caving in and complaining. The children and the general everydayness of the place – requires a high level of interaction, commitment and sustained energy – all of which I wasn’t getting. Poor Michael, had to deal with my moods and sapped energy. Bazza left Qatar and went back to Australia where she wanted so badly, to be. That left me 3 weeks into term 1 without an assistant…in comes a new recruit! Oh dear! I thought I’d had it tough for the first few weeks….2nd assistant as helpful as a migrainee at a rave!
Thankfully for the past fortnight – I’ve had a perfectly functional assistant who has been there for a few years and is a treasure! She can multi-task, communicates with the children and myself, has initiative and demonstrates a high level of competence…The other ‘real’ assistant will be returning after the Eid break – and the dynamics changes all over again – I’ve been promised quality!
The only really sad thing for me with all of this is that I’ve not had the opportunity to ‘relax’ into working here – its been a tad stressful and not what I expected. However, I have managed to initiate some interesting things with the kids and am beginning to enjoy the days. I’m treating it as it always was going to be – an experience! I’ll do what I have to do with whatever passion I have, but at the end of the day – its allowing us all to enjoy a lifestyle we didn’t have in Australia and is opening up the options that are available which we don’t know exist yet!
Besides the very early morning starts (up at 5.00 and out of the house by 6.00 to arrive as early as possible to commence ‘class’ by 7.15 – and I HATE mornings! Michael is up first to brew the morning coffee – which I don’t thank him enough for). The workday is really only till 12.00pm. The children leave the classroom to go to after school care for 2 hours. The time from 12.00 – 2.00 is usually teacher-planning time, the odd staff meeting – or just down time.As it is Ramadan at the moment – we get to sleep in way past 5.00am and rise at 6.00! ooh – simple pleasures! In essence, I work one less hour a day – but I still manage to crash on the lounge at 3.30 and wake up a couple of hours later (or sometimes sooner)!
Kerry Bint Kevin Perandis-Grantham
But, at the end of the day in 21years of early childhood ed (doh! Michael just alerted me to the fact I am a sucker for punishment and deserve a side swipe to the head!) I've never had a group of children dress me up as an arabic man! at least, humour is global - and they all thought it was very funny!
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