January 2008
The Teaching Experience in a SABIS Private School.
Let's be honest, when travelling anywhere, the first thing in your head upon arrival at your destination is, 'Where do I sleep? Where do I eat? And where do I shit?' There are two types of accommodation at a SABIS private school. The first type is in a modern-ish building that looks habitable from the outside. On the inside however the corridors are riddled with lizards and cockroaches, and you will discover you are not in an apartment but more of a grotty student bed-sitter. The bed-sitter consists of a princess bed, a couple of small tables and chairs with a shower and kitchenette. These are commonly referred to as 'rat-traps' by staff, although I personally refer to them as 'priest holes.' This analogy will become clear in a moment. The priest holes are not horrible, but they are far from ideal.
The second type consists of a prefabricated building designed for usually two separate teachers, although from time-to-time there will be three. This building is usually surrounded by mud, a few patches of earth and a dozen or so mangy wild cats. On the inside there is a decent size dining room and living room a proper kitchen and a couple of bathrooms with a bath and shower in both. The bedrooms consist of a single bed. Actually it's not a bed, it's more of a wooden box not unlike a coffin upon which a single mattress and blanket has been heaped. There will be a walk-in wardrobe and a bookcase also. This would be a good setup if the walls weren't paper thin and you weren't lumped in with any old stranger. Again, as these things are surrounded by mud, sand and patches of grass they are prone to lizards, cockroaches and infestations of bees and all manner of creepy-crawlies.
So much for the accommodation; what about the job itself? Teaching in a SABIS secondary is a ridiculous experience. For a start if you have any sense don't for one minute think you are going to be teaching anything at all. The children don't wish to be taught, they wish to make friends, and the hand of friendship extends to you. Woe betide any teacher who adopts an authoritarian position. As a result SABIS schools can in theory be a haven for the paedophile and kiddie-fiddler par excellence. At the High School I taught in, both my predecessor and successor were allegedly nailed for attempting to engage in sexual affairs with the students in his charge.
As usual everything on the curriculum is covered by the Points System™ and by around about grade 9 the non-local kids are so bored with the method that they can't even be bothered pretending to show any interest in it. The local Emirati kids are apparently so educationally challenged they never knew what the Points System™ was in the first place. All-in-all, the teacher who is on the ball can be certain that their classes will be a total unit of non-productivity for the next 10 months.
So what happens if you are either a professional or an idealist, or both? Simple you are guaranteed a nervous breakdown. This may only last a matter of days but you will have one. If that is all that happens consider yourself lucky that the worst thing was you spent a few days holed up in your room crying. You may be unlucky enough, as I was, to have a class consisting largely of Emirati local kids whose daddy's are all government ministers. If you try teaching them anything, or disciplining them in any way you will find the dear children go out of their way to get you the teacher into trouble, not only with the school authorities but also with their parents who are in government. I was lucky enough to teach the son of the then minister of immigration, and when I tried to discipline him for not doing classwork (let alone homework) he casually informed me that my visa would be cancelled as soon as he had spoken to his Father. I casually informed him that I didn't care because it meant within twenty-four hours I'd be in the Ten Bells in London having a laugh with my mates about how the UAE Government has got nothing better to do than to deport me for trying to do my job. As it happens I wasn't deported but that's another story for another time. So two types of kids- one wants to be your friend, and the other wants you sacked. Marvellous.
What is there to do in your free time? Answer: Not a lot. It is worth bearing in mind that the population of the UAE is a mere two million, and around 12% are local Emiratis. There are only two major centres of population- Abu Dhabi city centre and Dubai city centre. Unless you are billeted in those two places there is little to do in your free time. Free time is also monitored. There are Gate guards at the accommodation blocks entrance that monitor what time the staff leave the compound and what time they return. From my experience it was easier to bribe the guards every month with a bottle of whiskey- that ensured no details on me were ever recorded in their large blue books. Sometimes it's easier to just to stay in your bedroom in the evenings and weekends. It is no accident I refer to the bedrooms as 'priest holes.' So ten months of nothing happening in your working life, and ten months of nothing happening in your social life- if you are sensible. Is that really what anybody aspires to?
The end of the SABIS year when teaching in a SABIS High School is a strained affair. For a start the teacher is aware that the children have largely done fuck-all yet by this point it should be obvious to even those teachers who appear to have been lobotomised that the whole school is corrupt and the children will gain their High School diploma no matter what. For some reason there is a graduation party (and tree-planting ceremony) before the children have sat their final exams. This is made even all the more ludicrous when you see the children decked out in academic gowns and mortar boards. To anyone who has ever had to strive for academic achievement such an event is insulting. I must emphasise this situation is not the fault of the children, but the fault of the SABIS administration and their desire to appear a legitimate educational company. In reality the graduation-tree-planting ceremonies ought to demonstrate to the most idiotic SABIS employee that SABIS are merely pseudo-educationalists. Advice for teachers who attend this ceremony is, 'grit teeth because you'll be home within a fortnight anyway.' So the entire SABIS private school experience is ten months of fuck-all with a nasty joke at the end of it all. Is that really what any of us want?