Wrapping up another school year in the Emirates

School Assembly

National Day Celebration

Well, it's hard to believe that another school year is almost over. Teaching a class of 27 rambunctious second grade students - the majority of whom are boys - has been very challenging to say the least. Therefore, I am looking forward to wrapping up the school year and heading back to the U.S. for the summer. Upon first glance, the children look adorable....and most are. However, quite a few of the students exhibit behavioral problems similar to the behavior of the children that I taught at an inner city school in Los Angeles. The difference is that many of the children in the inner city are often being raised by a single parent, or by an extended family member due to having at least one parent who is a drug addict, alcoholic, gang banger, serving time in jail, or physically and verbally abusive.




On the other hand, many of these children children are well-to-do, live in nice homes, and have personal nannies, as well as drivers to attend to their every need. On top of that, their parents pay lots of $ for their children's tuition. As result, you would think that inappropriate behavior wouldn't be tolerated. It just goes to show that having money does not equate with having manners, being polite, acting civilized, or showing common courtesy towards others. On any given day it is common to walk around the playground and see children yelling, screaming and fighting with each other. A large number of middle and high school students, when reprimanded for bad behavior, are actually defiant and will ignore or talk back to the teacher. Case in point: while on break, I witnessed a high school girl, who was not following school rules, talk back to a teacher as though she were the teacher's momma and the teacher was a small child. When the teacher told the student that she was out of line and had no right to talk to an adult that way, the girl basically ignored her and continued to give her lip service. The teacher literally lost it and had to be restrained from beating the crap out of the girl. Not long afterwards this same teacher handed in her resignation. No she wasn't asked to leave: feed up with dealing with smart mouth students, she choose to leave on her on accord.

My Russian Students
I used to wonder why so many of these children behaved so badly - until I saw some of the parents! Children learn and imitate what they observe their parents do. When they see their parents talk down to the hired help, they do the same. Although the majority of my students' parents treat me with respect and kindness - some parents have brought me food, given me traditional clothes and other small gifts or souvenirs to show their appreciation - I actually had an experience in which one parent, in particular, would come to my room and talk to me as though I were a child because he was in denial that his sweet, precious little angel was terrorizing his fellow classmates. When I punished the boy by sending him to timeout and then the office, the father accused me of picking on his child!! This guy was like a big bully - yelling and screaming at me - no wonder his son was following in his footsteps! Fortunately, another teacher witnessed the way the dad was behaving towards me and confirmed the incident to the principal when I filed my complaint. To my relief, this man is now forbidden to have any contact with me whatsoever. Any questions or concerns that he has must be presented to the administration, who will then pass the information on to me.

Surprisingly, I had the opportunity to meet this man's wife - for the first time - during the school assembly. What a sweet and kind woman! She hugged me and thanked me profusely, in broken English, for the wonderful job that she thought that I was doing teaching her son (the boy was nominated for the honor roll). Looking in her eyes, I could tell that she was embarrassed by her husband's awful behavior towards me and was trying to apologize for him. She even admitted to me that her son was misbehaving at home!!! In order to be fair, I wanted to state for the record that - when he chooses - her little boy can be the sweetest little angel by helping me around the classroom and serving as a peer tutor for his classmates. As I mentioned the positive aspects of her child's behavior, I half jokingly and half seriously stated, "I now know where your son gets his sweet side: it's from you." She smiled at me broadly, and laughed. Her eyes twinkling with the bright light of understanding.

My first year 2nd grade students

Looking back at my first year of teaching in the Emirates, I remember starting two months after the school year had began. This was due to the fact that the three teachers before me (no, that's that's not a typo) had left. When I walked into the classroom that first day, the students were out of control!! In fact, it was and is, common to walk down the halls at my school and hear teachers, in some of the classrooms, screaming at the top of their lungs for students to behave.

On a positive note, those students who do follow the rules and are well behaved make my job very rewarding! It is a joy to teach them and to watch their little eyes light up when we do classroom activities in which they get to paint, draw, create, act out, and manipulate things while learning. Sigh....I only wish that all of my students were such a joy and a pleasure to teach.