Do You Have Sunflower Seeds?

At all of the schools here in Al Ain, morning assemblies are held outside to start off the school day.  They begin with daily ‘exercises’; that is if you can call clapping your hands as you spin around while the physical education teacher barks which direction to turn exercise.  After that hard core, blood pumping, invigorating exercise regime; the whole school sings the UAE national anthem.  There is nothing like starting off the morning with off-key, miss-sung, high pitched singing, it makes putting up with the hot 40 degree plus sun raise burning through your back less painful.  Just then when you think it’s almost over and you can escape from this torture soon enough that you can almost begin to feel the cool air from the A/C, you get smacked with reality when you get hit with sunflower seed shells.  Just then you know its not going to be a good day.

“Do you have sunflower seeds?” along with, ‘Take out your text book’, ‘Stop fighting’ and ‘I don’t understand Arabic’ are 4 phrases that I repeat constantly.  My day is spent so often saying those phrases that I would be able to get through a whole day if I was restricted to only saying them.

After I getting hit with sunflower seeds I knew it was time to find out who had them.  The problem is that once the students enter the school with sunflower seeds, you will find the classroom floor completely covered in sunflower seed shells.  The students spit them out like they are camels out in the desert with a complete disregard to who will clean up after them.  That means I now have to stand outside until the students forfeit over their seeds… told you it wasn’t going to be a good day.

Bryan the Camel Says…

             هل لديك بذور عباد الشمس؟

Now Who’s Laughing?

It has been a while since I last posted anything because of my two-week holiday at the end of the second term last month.

The end of the second term meant final exams; the time of year were students become desperate because they know full well they are not prepared for the exams coming up.  So this begins the ensue of panic where students approach teachers for last minute reviews of everything that was mentioned in class; and I mean this literally.  Students come up to you asking for you to quickly go through the entire term from beginning to end because they never listened to you before, but are ready to listen now.  And it is unfortunate to say that students do this because it is common for the teachers here to give the questions/answers straight from the exam during these review periods.  Hence why my review periods usually end up empty after the first 5 minutes when the students realize I wont me giving answers away.

For me, the exam time here has become the part of the year I enjoy the most.  I have to put up with an entire term of students misbehaving, not listening, homework incompletion, assignments not handed in, projects that have obviously been purchased from the local store that sell ready-made-projects for students to buy instead of actually do themselves, and just a complete lack of respect.  So, I reflect back on all this as I write my science exams. 

The exam periods are two hour long, but most teachers write exams that are completed in the first 15 minutes of the exam; and students are use to this.  So when it came to the science exam, students where stunned to see exams 12 pages long that would in fact take up the entire two hours to complete.  The greatest joy for me was after about 10 minutes after the exam started, I saw most of my grade 9 students with their hands up and worried expressions across their faces.  Assuming they had a question, I approached the student closest to me and noticed there was fear in his eyes.  I asked what was wrong and he responded with the most sincere look and a desperate voice: “Sir, if I bring in a project can I get bonus marks?”  And it was at that moment that I laughed to myself and thought… ‘Now Who’s Laughing!?’ 

Bryan the Camel says…

            That’s what I call a spit in the eye!