"Miss Hannah"

Miss Hannah will be teaching two first grade classes in English, Math & Science at an all girls school! :)

Well, technically speaking it would be Kindergarten because I will be teaching 5 year olds, for the most part. I have been warned that I may have students of varying ages, anywhere from 4-9 yrs old! (ahk!) Kindergarten (referred to as "KG" here) is not required, so they say about half of my students will have gone to school before and half will be new to the system.

So why two first grade classes? Prior to this huge wave of NEST (Native English Speaking Teachers) coming (around 500), starting from grade 1, students had different teachers for each subject. It is the first time one teacher will be responsible for 3 subjects. (They are amazed that we are certified to teach all subjects.) There are seven 45-minute periods during the school day. English, Math, Science, Arabic, Religion (Islam), History + an appropriate elective (gym, art, music...) Obviously, I cannot teach Arabic, Islam & History, so I will have two groups of first graders where I will essentially teach the same lessons to for English, Math & Science. (I'll be teaching 6 periods, and the last period will be reserved for lesson planning.) Another reason why they do not want separate teachers for these subjects is because they want to formulate an integrated curriculum. Also, the core language in Mathematics and Science around the world is English, and in order to support students to participate internationally, English is essential.

The UAE strives to make its mark internationally and desires to become a cultural/monetary hub for the world. In order to do so, one step was to have their universities recognized internationally. This required the education to be primarily in English. It wasn't difficult to change this in their universities (they simply shipped over English speaking professors), but they soon realized that the students of their nations were not able to perform up to par to the universities' standards because they had inadequate preparations in English during their K-12 schooling. Hence, the high school graduates needed to spend another 1-2 years studying English to attend UAE universities. The Sheikhs (King/Princes in the UAE) became really disturbed by this and decided to reform their education system, which is why I have been presented with this opportunity. :)

Okay, back to my school. I will be teaching at Al Afaq Primary Model School starting...sometime soon. (It all depends on when Ramadan ends. School will start either on the 23rd, 24th, or 27th.) I really lucked out in soooo many ways. First, my school is still within city limits, which means that it's close to my apartment (takes less than 10-minutes by car without traffic). The majority of the schools are outside of the island of Abu Dhabi and are in the mainland. Many have to commute over 45 minutes, and in traffic can easily take 2 hours! Secondly, there are 7 NEST at my school! (There is a range of 2-7 NEST at every school.) Of the 7 teachers, I will have a team of 4 teachers (including myself) to plan the free-for-all curriculum for the 1st graders! The other 3 teachers will be nearby teaching 2nd grade. Lastly, my school is a MODEL school. This means that the Sheikhs have already been funding the school the past several years to promote English within the school. My school has a great resource room with Big Books, charts, and much much more! We also have computers, printers, projectors, and an ELMO (<- teacher term) in EVERY CLASSROOM! Many of the schools, especially those further out, do not have any English resources and NEST will have to provide things out of their own pockets. Since the Sheikhs directly fund these schools, only Emirati children are allowed to attend. Meaning they will all be rich, and have parents with very high expectations/are skeptical of "foreign teachers." Kind of intimidates me.

The school day runs from 7:30am-1:35pm everyday with 2 breaks. I will finish teaching at 12:50 and the last period will be for lesson planning. I'm excited! and scared!

Wish me luck! :)

Love, Hannah




P.S. The girls will be wearing HOT PINK uniforms! :) and they are only allowed to wear black, white or pink for their socks, shoes, and hair accessories. hahaha.

P.P.S. I'm also really nervous about how the students and parents will perceive me. There is a blatant social hierarchy here where the Emarati rule over all. Take note that 95% of the working class here are Asians from the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. I constantly get weird stares from people being the only Asian in the group when I am hanging out with "white" people from the U.S., Canada, Australia... (other NEST teachers). It's sad, but the people here, including some Westerners, look down on the working class. For instance, yesterday, I was wearing my shirt that says "the best girls are from Los Angeles," and two "white" men walk by me. One reads my shirt aloud, scoffs, and says to his friend "like she's ever been there." #@$%@#$!

A couple days ago, I was standing in line at the market, had put all my groceries on the conveyer belt and was next in line, when an Emarati kid cuts right in front of me with his bottle of juice without even thinking twice! !#@$!#$ The Emarati kids especially have no respect for Asian women because most of their nannies/maids are Filipino...and they walk all over them. You should see these kids when they are at the mall with their nannies. How in the world are they going to perceive me as their teacher then?!

Again, wish me luck! :)