Hey guys—I’m officially employed again! This week I started work at my new school, an international school in middle-of-nowhere, Middle East. I’ve ridden this rodeo before, so to speak, as far as working at international schools goes, but this here is a horse of a different color.
I am quite pleased to have a job, absolutely tickled, actually. But allow me to rant for just a moment about how little of its shit this school has together at this juncture, mere days before students come streaming through those doors.
Okay. The majority of the problems stem from two facts: 1. The school is only two years old, and 2. They went through huge turnover last year.
With more new teachers than returning teachers and an entirely new administrative staff who have never worked in this country before, there’s a lot of head-scratching going on at my school these days. All the new teachers have questions—basic ones such as, “Where is my classroom?” and “What classes am I teaching?” and the admin have been pretty much incapable of answering them. Because they, too just got here, and have bigger fish to fry. Today I heard the principal ask someone if the parents even knew when the first day of school was. *smacks forehead*
There are issues with the school facilities themselves, too. I have been told that, confoundingly enough, although the school is far below its capacity for students, they have run out of classrooms. Therefore, until more classrooms in the new wing are ready, the other secondary (grades 7+) teachers and I will be nomadic, rotating through different rooms throughout the day while the students stay stationary. And then there’s the fact that half the shelves in the library are empty, and half the swimming pool is gradually falling into a sinkhole (true story).
Essentially, this school is going to be playing catch-up for a good part of this year just to get to a place of sustainable functionality. We need to order more novels, but apparently only ones that meet the approval of the Islamic Studies teacher. We need to hire several more teachers for positions that remain unfilled. And generally, the new principal and his team need to get a better handle on how to meet all the challenges the school faces.
Frustrating? Yes. Infuriatingly so.
But I still count my blessings. If I was in a public school in the U.S. right now, things would run much smoother, but I also wouldn’t have a say in a lot of things. I wouldn’t stand much more of a chance of getting new materials and books funded than I do here. I wouldn’t have the opportunity to know half the kids in the school by name. It’s going to be an interesting year, but I can’t wait for it to begin.