Koshari, a traditional Egyptian dish
Mohamed, visibly stressed from having to "supervise" 10 foreign teachers
The school playground
One of the school buses in the courtyard after a fresh cleaning
The front entrance of the school
This is a view of the playground from the third floor, where I teach
This is another view from the 3rd floor of the school
Me and some of the other English teachers preparing our lessons before the fall school semester began. You will know their names and faces soon enough.
My fellow English teachers on the bus, waiting to be taken to school to begin work for the day
Despite the fact that she had only arrived the day before, Katie decided that she wanted to accompany Mhairi, Joelle, and I to school the first morning we were scheduled to work. Although we didn't actually start teaching the students until two weeks later, our contracts officially started September 2nd, so we were required to go in that day and get familiar with things at the school. Before coming to Egypt, I did a lot of research and spent time emailing and talking to different teachers who had previously worked at the school. Therefore, I felt that I had a general idea of what to expect upon arrival. (I have since learned that no matter how much research you do, you never really know what a place or a country is going to be like until you get there).
There was supposed to be a curriculum set by the school for us to follow, a teacher's lounge for us to take breaks and to work in, two computers for us to use, and school supplies provided for us. We wouldn't know what grade we would be teaching until we arrived, but once this was decided upon by the school Directors, we would teach 3 sections per day of whichever grade we were assigned, (which equaled about 4 hours of actual instruction per day). Although there was a set school curriculum for us to follow, we were given flexibility and creative reign over our lessons, which is one of the main reasons I chose to teach at Sakkara School.
There are many international language schools in Egypt and while researching them, I found that many of them were very rigid with how they expected their teachers to present lessons, basically outlining for them day by day, hour by hour what they had to do....Day 1 read Chapters 1 & 2 and do worksheets or review sheets on pages 9 & 10 of the workbook. That is definately not my teaching style! Some people, (read: lazy, unimaginative people who should NOT be teaching), like this kind of environment, but I believe in personalizing lesson plans and making learning fun and interesting for students.
The first day we went to the school to begin prepping, a bus from Sakkara came and picked us up in front of our apartments at 8:00 in the morning. A short, 10 minutes later, we were there. Sakkara, by the way, is a made up English word for Sahara, as in the desert. In Egypt, they don't always pronounce the 'k' sound, so when the Egyptians say Sakkara they pronounce it 'Sa-aara.' The school, like most buildings in Cairo, is simple and unimpressive from the outside, but much nicer on the inside. It is 4 stories tall, and consists of 3 separate buildings connected by open-air walkways and hallways, (which is very nice for fresh air and constant sunshine). The ground floor holds the school reception area, the two school Directors' offices, and the Kindergarten rooms. The Directors of the school are both women, Dr. Nagwa being the main Director, or Superintendent, and Mrs. Hegazy being the second Director, or Principal. Behind the reception area is a doorway which leads into a courtyard where there is a playground and a cantina. There is no lunchroom for the students, there is only a cantina which is a little hut where 2 women sell sandwiches, pop, chips, candy bars, etc.
The first floor of the school contains the classrooms for Primary 1, 2, 3, & 4, (basically 1st-4th grades). The second floor has the Primary 5 & 6 classrooms, (5th & 6th grades) and also the Prep 1 & 2 classrooms, (7th & 8th grades). On the third and final floor of the school are the classrooms for Prep 3, (9th grade, the grade that I teach), and for the Secondary students, (the students aged 16 & up who haven't gone to a separate school for their secondary education; there are only about 10 Secondary students in the school).
While I was still in the United States, the person I was corresponding with from the school was a man named Haytham, who is Dr. Nagwa's son. So I assumed, upon arriving at the school, that he was going to be one of our supervisors, and would probably be the person who would be getting us settled into the school. I found out several days later that Haytham is actually in New Zealand working for the family's oil rig, and that the person who was going to be our supervisor was actually Mohamed, one of the guys who had been with Bonnie at the airport the night I had arrived. And, as I was also about to find out, poor Mohamed really didn't know too much of anything about curriculums, or teacher expectations, or school calendars, or any of the things I would ask him over the course of the next few days. My patience was definitely about to be tried.
Bonnie met us in the reception area that day, talked to us a bit about how we were getting settled in, and then explained to us that Mohamed wasn't there yet, so we really couldn't get started on anything until he arrived. She took us up to the top floor, where the English teachers' lounge was, and told us to wait there until he arrived. The "lounge" was a room that held nothing but one large table with some chairs around it, and 5 or 6 empty bookcases. The bookcases held nothing but some terribly dusty binders, and piles of worksheets and composition books left behind by the previous teachers. No microwave, no fridge, no pens, pencils, or supplies. Nothing but a table and some empty bookcases.
Joelle, Mhairi, Katie and I sat there for almost three hours before Mohamed arrived. I didn't really mind, because we were talking and having fun getting to know each other while we waited, and we were technically getting paid to sit there and talk since our contract had started that day. But, even though I was enjoying my time with the girls, my annoyance was starting to grow. I felt like we were in seclusion, with no one coming to check on us or say anything to us...I mean, come on! Three hours? Why did they have the bus pick us up at 8:00 in the morning if we were going to sit there for 3 hours and do nothing? I would soon learn that this is usually the way things are in Egypt. Their sense of time and timing is nothing at all like it is in the American culture where people are expected to be punctual, and ready to go at a specific hour. Everything runs at its own, sometimes agonizingly slow pace here, and that's just the way it is.
I was tired of sitting at the table doing nothing, so about 20 minutes before Mohamed finally arrived, I decided to check out the bookshelves and see if they contained anything of interest. I thumbed through the stacks of worksheets the previous teachers had left behind and wondered if this was how most of them taught...through worksheets. If so, how boring and unimaginative. Then I started to look through the composition books they had left behind, and found out they were actually records of the teachers' lesson plans and their notes concerning how each day had progressed. I began reading things such as "Yellow class were angels today, but blue was terrible again. Had to take away library again." And, "Discipline problems again in green. 3 detentions given."
I looked through five different notebooks, and saw that every teacher seemed to be struggling with discipline and classroom management problems. Were they simply incompetent, I wondered, or were these kids really going to be that hard to handle? I was in a foreign country where I knew nothing about the culture or the school system and what was appropriate or inappropriate in terms of classroom management procedures. What was the norm here? Was education something valued, something the students would actually care about? Would they respect us and work hard, or we going to be glorified babysitters, dealing with spoiled brats who could care less if they learned English or not?
We were teaching at a private school, and I did know that most of the children came from wealthier families, so I had no idea what kind of attitudes they would have towards us. It doesn't matter, I told myself. No matter what they're like, this school can't possibly be as bad as the one I taught at in Chicago. After teaching there, I knew I could handle anything. It couldn't possibly be that bad.
After Mohamed finally showed up that day, he came up to the English staff room to get us, and brought us down to Mrs. Hegazy's air conditioned office on the ground floor, (the average temperature that week was 105 degrees and only the Directors' offices have air conditioning). He felt guilty about making us wait and ordered us some lunch. There is a place close to the school that makes koshari, a traditional Egyptian dish that is basically a hodge podge of different types of noodles and lentils mixed together and covered in a mysterious red sauce. Koshari is very cheap, (it costs about 3 pounds for a dish of it, which is about 75 cents), and it is quite tasty and filling. So, Mohamed ordered some for us that day and had it delivered.
As we ate, Mohamed smoked ciagarettes and asked us if we had any questions. We certainly did. "When are we finding out what grade we're teaching?" "When are we going to get textbooks?" "When are we going to see the school's curriculum so we can start planning lessons?" "When are we going to be given a map of the city...we don't know where anything is!" It was mostly Mhairi and I who asked the questions while Katie and Joelle sat there silently, but Mohamed's response to every question we asked was always "bokra, bokra." (tomorrow, tomorrow).
We had two weeks to get everything ready before the students started school for the fall semester, and those two weeks were not easy. This is a brief synopsis of how those days passed by for us: we got picked up by the bus at 8:00 in the morning each day, waited at the school for 2 or 3 hours doing nothing until Mohamed got there, (because for some reason our day couldn't begin until he arrived), and then we would eat something and sit around for another 3 or 4 hours in Mrs. Hegazy's office while Mohamed smoked cigarettes and dodged all attempts to answer our questions or to help us prepare in any way. I don't think he did so intentionally, I just honestly think he had never supervised the foreign teachers before and really didn't know how to go about helping us.
Mohamed is Mrs. Hegazy's son, (Mrs. Hegazy is one of the school Directors), and his primary role at the school is that of a disciplinarian. There is no detention system at our school, and the two Directors don't normally deal with any of the school discipline, so this is all left to Mohamed. The students at the school are not punished for coming to school late, going to classes late, skipping classes, or not doing their homework. The only things they ever get into trouble for are fighting or coming to school dressed in something besides their school uniform. And getting in trouble basically means they are yelled at by Mohamed and made to stand out in the hallway for a while. So basically the school has no discipline system, which makes it very difficult to teach there at times. The kids know they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Since their parents are paying tuition for them to attend the school, I get the feeling that the Directors keep the waters calm and baby the students so that their parents don't get upset and withdraw them, (and their money), from the school.
Those first two weeks trying to prepare for classes to begin were among the most stressful of my life, and I could have gladly strangled Mohamed by the time school was about to begin. We soon found out that there really wasn't a school curriculum, (which meant that we each had to create one on our own), and this is very difficult and takes a LOT of time to do. Curriculums are normally set up by a committee of teachers and administrators working together and takes weeks and sometimes months to do. A curriculum basically outlines everything the students need to do for the entire school year: what they should be learning each week and each month, and also what specific grammar, literature, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing skills they are expected to develop.
Besides having to develop an English curriculum for the school in less than 10 days, I also didn't find out what grade I was teaching until 4 days before classes began. First Mohamed told me I was teaching 10 year olds and then a week later, (after I had started planning all of my lessons), he told me I was actually going to be teaching 14 & 15 year olds...which is a HUGE difference when you are a teacher and planning lessons. There is an enormous disparity between the capabilities of 10 year olds and 15 year olds! So, once I found out I was teaching 9th grade, I had to start all over again and replan all of my lessons.
In addition to those stresses, we also weren't given class lists or a school calendar, (both also very important for lesson planning), until after school started. The computers, printers, and internet rarely worked and when they did, there were 10 teachers fighting to use them. This made it nearly impossible to get things done. We also didn't get pens, pencils, folders, or any other supplies until after school had started. But, what doesn't kill you really does make you stronger. Us girls really came together to help each other out during those two weeks, and we became very close to each other as a result of the whole experience. Every day when we left the school, we headed out together somewhere to get lunch or some coffee, vented for a while about work, and then we went out and explored our new neighborhood.
Since I am the oldest of the girls, I have been adopted as the big sister, and I was the one who took over during those 2 weeks and made sure we got things accomplished. Every day I would make a list of things we needed to get done: find a grocery store, get cell phones, find the metro, find the library, etc. and the girls would gladly go along with it. I have been affectionately nicknamed "la jefa," (the boss) ever since then. Some of the girls are terribly indecisive, so I had no choice but to take control and git'er done.
