Teach Away

Most schools in the UAE are strictly male or female.  There are some schools that have mixed gender classrooms, but that is a still a fairly new practice among the schools and culture here.  But this doesn't mean that a female teacher can't teach at a male school.  Because of this, everyone who was in my group (well all the females) wanted to get girls of course.  The boys here are very energetic.  Some of you may be wondering what the difference is between boys in the US.  Well the culture is different.  Moving on...

My third week is when I found out what school I would be teaching at for the next two years.  Everyone was anxious to find out what gender and what grade they would be teaching.  Well ladies and gentlemen, I got my paper, looked up my school, and found out I was teaching boys!  This was not the easiest pill for me to swallow, but I was staying positive because I didn't really know what to expect.

Next week I finally got to see my school, meet the staff, and find out what grade I was teaching.  The principal asked us (the three new English Medium Teachers - EMTs) what grade we would like to teach and what grades we had experience in.  Everyone of course thought I would want first grade, but I was ready for something different.  Plus here in Abu Dhabi, for some students first grade is the first time these children are going to school because kindergarten is not mandatory.  So I was actually interested in teaching second grade, but after my principal saw that I had taught first grade for eight years I was placed in....FIRST GRADE!  I guess that's where I was supposed to be.

My school is very small, especially compared to the seven first grade classes I was apart of last year.  Here my team consist of two Arabic teachers and two EMTs.  I have two classes every day.  We start the day at 7:10 with a morning assembly.  Male schools start earlier than the female schools.  You guys know I was not excited about that start time!  Then I teach one class (my homeroom 1C)for three periods.  Next it's break and then I have fourth period off.   For the second half of the day I teach another first grade class (1D) for the last three periods.  I switch classes with one of the Arabic teachers on my team where they learn Arabic for two periods and then they go to a special class for the other two periods.  We finish the day at 1:00.  Now that was a plus coming from a school that started dismissal at 3:40 last year!

Here is what my classroom looked like when I arrived:

Excuse the mess on the floor.  I was working.

In Abu Dhabi, you have to buy all of your supplies for your room.  To make myself clear that means you have to buy pencils, paper for your bulletin board, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, any classroom decoration, and the list goes on.  I wish I would have known that before I bought all that furniture.  Luckily my school does have a resource room, which many schools don't have here.  I was able to get creative and use some of the items I found in there in new ways to make it work.  Also the school was nice enough to buy some poster paper for our boards.  My classroom is still a work in progress, but here's what it looks like now:

We started school August 31st.  So I've been in school for four weeks.  There has been some adjustments I've had to make coming into a new school.  It's going to take some time to get used to, but that's apart of the package when you move across the world to go teach!