It turns out that public schools suck everywhere!
So, yesterday I started a new class. In a public school. Fuck.
The backstory: There's a required exam for all UAE-citizen ("local") students to get into college for the first time this year. It's an English test. And it turns out that despite the fact that all these kids have been taking English since grade 3 or so, none of them can form a complete sentence to save their lives. The test is pretty cut-throat: if you get below 75%, no bachelor's degree for you. So the government finally sorta realized that none of their precious local students were gonna pass, and hired basically every private English teacher in the country to give extra English practice after school. Enter me.
We got assigned a public school pretty much at random. This school is in bumfuck. I mean, I live in a small city, but it's still a city. They live out past the camel pastures. And they're not real happy about being there. Hell, most of 'em don't even want to go to college. I did a little survey of "what do you want to be when you grow up?". At least 3/4 of the students said "police officer", a bunch more said army, and about 3 said they want to study in university. Great. In case you hadn't guessed it already, this is an all-boys school.
Which brings me to the education gap in this country. Specifically, the fact that the boys are idiots and the girls aren't. Already the majority of university students here are female, and the ratios going up (don't think this helps dating. Most of the universities are single-sex too). Especially among the 'locals'. The guys are quite happy to do a few years of military service and get a mid-level job somewhere doing nothing of great importance. They haven't quite caught on yet that this only works well if the girls are all getting married straight out of high school and don't think you're an idiot. Hopefully in a 4:1 girl to guy ratio, since Islam allows four wives. I'm pretty sure that little tradition is going the way of the buffalo in our generation.
I can see this in my classes - these guys have to be dragged in for class, whereas I have 2 full classes of girls who come in the evenings and pay extra to do well on this test (they started before anyone knew the government would be giving classes. ha.) And they're alot smarter. Or at least, they try harder.
Anyways, the teachers at this school are about as jaded as you'd expect from a shitty public HS in the US. Quote "you're a good teacher if you control them. That's it." And so they drop me in a room with 25 of them and leave. Uh...sure. Classroom management so far has been: those of you who want to pay attention, sit at the front. The rest of you, don't talk too loudly.
I got a ride back in one of the students' cars. Which reminded me of Jimmy Fav's 1989 suburban back in VA. So, not only are public schools univerally crappy, but so are redneck cars!
The backstory: There's a required exam for all UAE-citizen ("local") students to get into college for the first time this year. It's an English test. And it turns out that despite the fact that all these kids have been taking English since grade 3 or so, none of them can form a complete sentence to save their lives. The test is pretty cut-throat: if you get below 75%, no bachelor's degree for you. So the government finally sorta realized that none of their precious local students were gonna pass, and hired basically every private English teacher in the country to give extra English practice after school. Enter me.
We got assigned a public school pretty much at random. This school is in bumfuck. I mean, I live in a small city, but it's still a city. They live out past the camel pastures. And they're not real happy about being there. Hell, most of 'em don't even want to go to college. I did a little survey of "what do you want to be when you grow up?". At least 3/4 of the students said "police officer", a bunch more said army, and about 3 said they want to study in university. Great. In case you hadn't guessed it already, this is an all-boys school.
Which brings me to the education gap in this country. Specifically, the fact that the boys are idiots and the girls aren't. Already the majority of university students here are female, and the ratios going up (don't think this helps dating. Most of the universities are single-sex too). Especially among the 'locals'. The guys are quite happy to do a few years of military service and get a mid-level job somewhere doing nothing of great importance. They haven't quite caught on yet that this only works well if the girls are all getting married straight out of high school and don't think you're an idiot. Hopefully in a 4:1 girl to guy ratio, since Islam allows four wives. I'm pretty sure that little tradition is going the way of the buffalo in our generation.
I can see this in my classes - these guys have to be dragged in for class, whereas I have 2 full classes of girls who come in the evenings and pay extra to do well on this test (they started before anyone knew the government would be giving classes. ha.) And they're alot smarter. Or at least, they try harder.
Anyways, the teachers at this school are about as jaded as you'd expect from a shitty public HS in the US. Quote "you're a good teacher if you control them. That's it." And so they drop me in a room with 25 of them and leave. Uh...sure. Classroom management so far has been: those of you who want to pay attention, sit at the front. The rest of you, don't talk too loudly.
I got a ride back in one of the students' cars. Which reminded me of Jimmy Fav's 1989 suburban back in VA. So, not only are public schools univerally crappy, but so are redneck cars!