I’ve been in Kuwait about a month now. When I last wrote, I was struggling with the new environment, very aware of the garbage around my neighborhood and the lack of trees here. Teaching four subjects and having the same students in my classroom all day was stressful and new. Things have gotten easier at school, I’ve made some friends, explored Kuwait, and I’m really enjoying my new home. Three weekends of cleaning out my classroom resulted in a less cluttered environment. I rearranged the desks into table groups so the kids can work collaboratively and there is more room to walk around. While this initially resulted in a louder room, the kids are really starting to understand classroom procedures and learning is happening! Exploration and helpful friends led me to bookstores around Kuwait, where I purchased some new novels for my students, stickers for “A tests,” and an abundance of Post-its. The kids LOVE graphic novels and are devouring the series Amulet. I had to be careful selecting books, because the Ministry of Education here keeps a watchful eye over the literature that students read. Censorship is alive and well here in Kuwait. Here’s a letter from the Ministry about which books we aren’t allowed to have in the schools here. I wore my “I Read Banned Books” pin during banned books week and encouraged my students to think about what censorship means and whether or not it is a good practice. My principal glanced at the “Happy Banned Books Week” announcement that I wrote in red dry erase marker on my tiled walls and I wondered if I would be asked to remove it, but he made no comment. Initially, my language arts lessons weren’t very successful, which was frustrating. Language Arts is supposed to be my thing! I was teaching content that was over the kids’ heads and hard for my ESL kids (most of them) to grasp. Using pictures, letting them act things out, and letting them work together is helping. I also think that these kids are pretty used to rote memorization and I’m going to have to push them to think critically, to analyze and synthesize. I don’t want to relax my standards, I just need to continue to find different ways to teach. I love teaching science and math. We use whiteboards and manipulatives in math. The kids also like coming up to the front of the room to teach their classmates how to solve problems. An 8th grade science teacher gave me a microscope that she wasn’t using and the kids get so excited looking through it. It’s like magic to them. We just finished learning about the difference between plant and animal cells and made plant cell models using jello and different types of candy. Out of all 29 kids, only one experienced a “cytoplasm explosion,” so a successful activity in my book. I’m really enjoying my students and their parents too. I had parent-teacher conferences last week. Since I’m coming from a middle school where I’ve only had team conferences, it was essentially my first time having these conferences one-on-one with parents. They went really well. My favorite moment of conferences was when a dad encouraged his daughter who came along to speak up more in class and work diligently in science and math so she can grow up to be an engineer like him. The kids found out it was my birthday last week so a few wrote me cards and gave me gifts. A parent even sent in a chocolate chip cookie-cake that I was able to share with the other middle school teachers. I feel so welcomed and appreciated. Outside of school, I’ve been getting to know the other teachers, have been exploring Kuwait, and joined a church. My church meets in a converted villa in Salwa, a 10 minute taxi ride from Hawally. There are a lot of westerners there and many are teachers that are around my age. I started going to a small group with some of them and I look forward to it every week. I sang in church this week because the usual worship band was all traveling. It’s not something I would normally volunteer for, but I’m glad that I did it. That’s what this whole experience is about… trying new things, pushing myself to grow, et. etc. (insert travel blog cliche here). ;) Another highlight of the past month was Skyping with my students who are now 7th graders at Mills Park Middle School in North Carolina. Last year we read American Born Chinese and Shadow Hero by Gene Yang. He came to the school in September to tell the kids about his new book and the lovely people I used to work with were kind enough to let me attend from my living room in Kuwait. After Mr. Yang talked to the students, they had the chance to ask me questions and I got to see them all. I miss them and my old school, but I'm really glad that I'm over here doing something new. The last step in my residency process was going to the ministry of health to have a chest x-ray and bloodwork done. The school sent me with a group of other teachers to get this done about two weeks ago, so hopefully I’ll get my Civil ID soon and can start planning my Christmas trip. Until then, we don't have any other long weekends, so it's going to be a long stretch. Until next time, my friends, maʿ al-salāmah.
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4/4/2024 12:21:53 pm
Meet me in 7thHeaven,
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