With the very first term of The World Academy under our
belts it has become a time for reflection. I don’t just mean the personal kind
(though we’ll get to that) but the academic kind in the form of report cards
and parent conferences. The last two weeks in particular have been quite
stressful and long with the addition of organizing these two things on top of
our regular planning and scheduling work. Being in a brand new school has many
challenges that I haven’t ever come across or thought about when working in
England. For instance, the report cards needed to be completed for the end of
last week but in addition to filling them out we needed to actually create the
report cards. A template, enveloped, the look and feel of the whole report
needed to be created before we could fill any grade information in. Part of the
ad for the job when I applied emphasized a pioneering opportunity and this is
an accurate reflection of what we are doing here. Lots of policy, document, and
template creation from scratch. Even the day to day routines are being created
by us because there is no precedent. Luckily we do have a very willing and
talented staff with different experiences feeding into this. Needs become
identified, plans are made, and actions are taken to address any issues
promptly and efficiently. I couldn’t be more thankful for that.
Parent conferences have been on a very different level than
what I was expecting. The style was very similar to how it was done in London.
Teachers were set up almost “trade show style” (thanks to Peter for that
description) and the parents came to us during allotted hour time frames. For
the most part the conversations were just what you would expect. Education and
educational expectations really do not change between countries and cultures,
but the actual appearance of it took me for a loop. It really was like taking a
North American school and just transplanting it into the middle of nowhere in
the Middle East (which, I suppose, is exactly what they’re going for). Parent’s
waiting in queues dressed in their abayas and thubes was very different. I
guess growing up in western cultures it’s hard to picture your way of life
being very similar or exactly the same as other cultures. It really helped me
understand just what we are trying to accomplish here and how we are bringing a
whole new style of education to these people and this country. The picture
below will hopefully help illustrate this for you.
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| Parents waiting to speak to teachers...seems almost like a surreal cross of Western and Middle East cultures. |
The parents themselves have been very helpful. There’s lots
of constructive feedback and good conversations about what different students
need to do in class and parents asking what they can do at home to help their
child succeed. We have a large portion of Indian students as well and their
parents are very concerned with ensuring their child is working hard and
completing tasks. A unique issue that comes up for these parents is speaking. Most
of the students in the school (as I’ve alluded to many times in the past) do
not speak English of their primary language. As a result most of them have an
accent of varying degrees from slight to “You’re speaking English?” levels.
Parents are rightfully concerned about this and wish for their children to
learn to speak more like we, the teachers, do. Essentially, with a North
American accent. Hopefully just listening to all of their teachers talking will
affect this but they will need lots of practice as well. This is where I’m
hoping Drama is going to come in handy.
I have been starting new units about character:
understanding what characters are, how to create them, and the manipulation of
movement, voice, and expression to do so. With all of this practice in their
speaking skills it should start to flesh out some good, slow, pronounced words
instead of the fast paced accent-ridden speaking some of these kids are guilty
of.
It was a long week in general this past week. We were
burdened with seemingly never ending fire alarms (all false…but it begs the
question of how to know when it’s real), power supplies being shut down
unexpectedly (our water is connected to the power…L), and the most inconsistent
internet signal I have ever experienced (there’s like a 25% chance it won’t
work on any given day…which is small but a pain in the ass). Combine all of
these interruptions with the long days of the conferences and it makes one
grumpy, stressed out Erik. Luckily in times like these I can always rely on
those around me to make me feel a bit better and put things in perspective. It’s
nice to know that I am not the only one going through all of this. All of the
other teachers and staff are experiencing the same difficulties and
frustrations and it creates a closer community amongst us when we can share,
vent, and calm each other down during these times. I also had a great
conversation with my Mom that helped to cheer me up and gave me a good vehicle
to just let out all of the frustration. When push comes to shove it’s nice to
be able to count on family to be there for you.
It’s all finished now…I got through it…problems have been
solved and we’re back to a brand new week. New experiences, new difficulties,
and a new chance to approach everything with a new attitude.
3 weeks until Christmas Break!
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| This guy's excited for the break! And he has facial hair now....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeird. |
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