I have a mishmash to write. Since I got back from Turkey, it's been pretty busy here as we get ready for the exam period. I also had a pretty serious bout of food poisoning which had me unable to walk (without fainting) for about 48 hrs, but I'm almost fully recovered from that now.
I haven't written much about teaching on here. That has been purposeful because I want to keep most of what goes on in my classroom private (or at least out of the blogsphere). It's my first year teaching, so I don't know what it would be like to teach in the United States. But teaching here is not easy, and some of the causes are cultural and linguistic. I am having to adjust to a system that, in some ways, is very foreign and non-intuitive to me. Here are some ways and examples of how my experience has been interesting:
1. 95% of my students speak English as a second language. Many are fluent in English, but some are not. There are countless language and cultural communication misunderstandings in my classroom between myself and my students. Although we've gotten better at communicating with each other, I know that they miss (some more than others) some of what I say about physics every day simply because of a language barrier. Even the students who are fluent will write certain sentences in their lab reports that highlight them as ESL students and make it hard for me to interpret their ideas. When I grade labs, I feel like an English teacher and a physics teacher. Sometimes I struggle philosophically with the fact that I am teaching these kids physics in English ... wouldn't it be more beneficial for them to learn in Arabic? ... wouldn't they learn more of the physics? Some of them would be getting an A+ in my class if the class were taught in Arabic (they have a high level of intuition for physics and math), but they aren't doing as well because they struggle with the English. This is hard for me. It doesn't seem fair. But another teacher pointed out to me that many of these students are at King's because they want to go to college in the United States and the only way they'll succeed there is if they have the ability to take classes in English.
2. Religion permeates daily academic life here. Many of my students write the first line of the Koran at the top of any quiz or test they take in my class. It's as if giving the work to God or asking God to be with them during the test.
3. Because I teach at the King's school, many of my students are incredibly privileged. Frankly, some of them are quite spoiled. Of this group, some of them are still nice, polite and friendly young men and women. But even so, it's very interesting to observe the effects of coming from such extraordinarily wealthy and privileged worlds. I had a swimmer on the swim team who came into practice one day and said, "Ms., I don't have my swim suit, BUT I have a great excuse." He was speaking very politely and earnestly to me. He then proceeded to tell me that his parents were out of town, that his maid had run away and so no one had put his bathing suit into the dryer that morning. He finished his breathless story and looked up at me, wide-eyed, quite sure in the validity of his predicament. I almost laughed. Instead, I said, "[insert young student's name], why didn't you put the bathing suit in the dryer yourself?" The expression on his face at that moment did cause me to laugh. He looked so confused, not in a defensive or rude way, but literally the idea to dry the suit himself had not occurred to him.
4. I've observed differences between my own mentality and that of my students based on the fact that I grew up in a representative democracy and they've grown up in a monarchy. I was on duty during study hall one evening and heard a loud and anguished sound come from a girl's room. I rushed in and saw that she was quite upset over some distorted photographs of the King that had been posted on facebook by a Syrian. She was extremely agitated and horrified and also strangely fascinated by the idea that someone was capable of such an act. The pictures made me uncomfortable too, partly because the King is a good man and it seemed extremely disrespectful, and also because I'd not yet seen any evidence of political dissidence here. It made me realize how I am so used to seeing caricatures of American politicians and important figures, but already, here, I've been conditioned to find it uncomfortable and wrong.
5. The political turmoil of the area is present in the daily life of my classroom, even/only as background noise. The dichotomy of such large-scale issues functioning as daily background noise to my students' lives is an oddity in itself and contrasts with the way that I was privileged to live in the US and in my own high school career. One of my students has not seen his parents in a year because they live in Gaza and he's not allowed to go back. He's 16 years old and he's already making huge sacrifices for his future. One of my students went home to Syria for the Eid holiday and then missed almost a week of my class because he couldn't get back across the border. When he finally returned, his mom emailed me in a panic, saying they hadn't been in communication because the Internet kept being disconnected there and also apologizing for her son's missing assignments which had been left in Syria by mistake and which she couldn't bring to him "until the border situation hopefully cools down."
I feel lucky to be living in this region during such interesting times. This week we had a visit from US Ambassador to Jordan, Stuart Jones. He gave an interesting speech and answered the students' questions much more frankly than General Franks had. He shed some interesting light on the relationship between the US and Jordanian's nuclear development and, I think, cleared up some of the student's misconceptions. The only disappointing response came after a question about why the US cut funding to UNESCO after UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member state. During his speech, Ambassador Jones had adamantly and repeatedly stated that the United States wanted Palestine to have statehood. He said that the United States wanted Palestine and Israel to reach a peace agreement themselves, outside of the UN, which is reasonable, but within my brain's capacity to reason, I am not able to understand why this statement necessitates UNESCO funding cuts. I think perhaps he forgot to mention the strong financial and political influence of Jewish lobbyists in US policy making.
I had my 23rd birthday and my first international Thanksgiving this week. The birthday was pretty uneventful, though low-key was nice this year. What really made an impression on me on this birthday was the stark difference between where I was one year ago and where I am now. I mean that metaphorically and literally. I think back to the Me of one year ago, and I just want to laugh at the idea of her seeing the current Me and where she is and what she's doing and what she's done in a year. I doubt many years of my life will be full of this much change, but it is EXCITING that such a magnitude of change in one year is possible. I wouldn't even describe where I am now as "better" than where I was one year ago. It's just so incredibly different and unexpected from what I imagined was possible. Who knows where I'll be one year from now. Or two, or three.
Thanksgiving was a nice celebratory potluck dinner with the whole faculty, and it was wonderful. There were plenty of international foods available but also turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and everything. The cranberry sauce made it feel like Thanksgiving to me!
I haven't written much about teaching on here. That has been purposeful because I want to keep most of what goes on in my classroom private (or at least out of the blogsphere). It's my first year teaching, so I don't know what it would be like to teach in the United States. But teaching here is not easy, and some of the causes are cultural and linguistic. I am having to adjust to a system that, in some ways, is very foreign and non-intuitive to me. Here are some ways and examples of how my experience has been interesting:
1. 95% of my students speak English as a second language. Many are fluent in English, but some are not. There are countless language and cultural communication misunderstandings in my classroom between myself and my students. Although we've gotten better at communicating with each other, I know that they miss (some more than others) some of what I say about physics every day simply because of a language barrier. Even the students who are fluent will write certain sentences in their lab reports that highlight them as ESL students and make it hard for me to interpret their ideas. When I grade labs, I feel like an English teacher and a physics teacher. Sometimes I struggle philosophically with the fact that I am teaching these kids physics in English ... wouldn't it be more beneficial for them to learn in Arabic? ... wouldn't they learn more of the physics? Some of them would be getting an A+ in my class if the class were taught in Arabic (they have a high level of intuition for physics and math), but they aren't doing as well because they struggle with the English. This is hard for me. It doesn't seem fair. But another teacher pointed out to me that many of these students are at King's because they want to go to college in the United States and the only way they'll succeed there is if they have the ability to take classes in English.
2. Religion permeates daily academic life here. Many of my students write the first line of the Koran at the top of any quiz or test they take in my class. It's as if giving the work to God or asking God to be with them during the test.
3. Because I teach at the King's school, many of my students are incredibly privileged. Frankly, some of them are quite spoiled. Of this group, some of them are still nice, polite and friendly young men and women. But even so, it's very interesting to observe the effects of coming from such extraordinarily wealthy and privileged worlds. I had a swimmer on the swim team who came into practice one day and said, "Ms., I don't have my swim suit, BUT I have a great excuse." He was speaking very politely and earnestly to me. He then proceeded to tell me that his parents were out of town, that his maid had run away and so no one had put his bathing suit into the dryer that morning. He finished his breathless story and looked up at me, wide-eyed, quite sure in the validity of his predicament. I almost laughed. Instead, I said, "[insert young student's name], why didn't you put the bathing suit in the dryer yourself?" The expression on his face at that moment did cause me to laugh. He looked so confused, not in a defensive or rude way, but literally the idea to dry the suit himself had not occurred to him.
4. I've observed differences between my own mentality and that of my students based on the fact that I grew up in a representative democracy and they've grown up in a monarchy. I was on duty during study hall one evening and heard a loud and anguished sound come from a girl's room. I rushed in and saw that she was quite upset over some distorted photographs of the King that had been posted on facebook by a Syrian. She was extremely agitated and horrified and also strangely fascinated by the idea that someone was capable of such an act. The pictures made me uncomfortable too, partly because the King is a good man and it seemed extremely disrespectful, and also because I'd not yet seen any evidence of political dissidence here. It made me realize how I am so used to seeing caricatures of American politicians and important figures, but already, here, I've been conditioned to find it uncomfortable and wrong.
5. The political turmoil of the area is present in the daily life of my classroom, even/only as background noise. The dichotomy of such large-scale issues functioning as daily background noise to my students' lives is an oddity in itself and contrasts with the way that I was privileged to live in the US and in my own high school career. One of my students has not seen his parents in a year because they live in Gaza and he's not allowed to go back. He's 16 years old and he's already making huge sacrifices for his future. One of my students went home to Syria for the Eid holiday and then missed almost a week of my class because he couldn't get back across the border. When he finally returned, his mom emailed me in a panic, saying they hadn't been in communication because the Internet kept being disconnected there and also apologizing for her son's missing assignments which had been left in Syria by mistake and which she couldn't bring to him "until the border situation hopefully cools down."
I feel lucky to be living in this region during such interesting times. This week we had a visit from US Ambassador to Jordan, Stuart Jones. He gave an interesting speech and answered the students' questions much more frankly than General Franks had. He shed some interesting light on the relationship between the US and Jordanian's nuclear development and, I think, cleared up some of the student's misconceptions. The only disappointing response came after a question about why the US cut funding to UNESCO after UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member state. During his speech, Ambassador Jones had adamantly and repeatedly stated that the United States wanted Palestine to have statehood. He said that the United States wanted Palestine and Israel to reach a peace agreement themselves, outside of the UN, which is reasonable, but within my brain's capacity to reason, I am not able to understand why this statement necessitates UNESCO funding cuts. I think perhaps he forgot to mention the strong financial and political influence of Jewish lobbyists in US policy making.
I had my 23rd birthday and my first international Thanksgiving this week. The birthday was pretty uneventful, though low-key was nice this year. What really made an impression on me on this birthday was the stark difference between where I was one year ago and where I am now. I mean that metaphorically and literally. I think back to the Me of one year ago, and I just want to laugh at the idea of her seeing the current Me and where she is and what she's doing and what she's done in a year. I doubt many years of my life will be full of this much change, but it is EXCITING that such a magnitude of change in one year is possible. I wouldn't even describe where I am now as "better" than where I was one year ago. It's just so incredibly different and unexpected from what I imagined was possible. Who knows where I'll be one year from now. Or two, or three.
Thanksgiving was a nice celebratory potluck dinner with the whole faculty, and it was wonderful. There were plenty of international foods available but also turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and everything. The cranberry sauce made it feel like Thanksgiving to me!
