Getting Into the Groove

I think I am starting to get a sense of the routine of the days here, which is something I wanted.  I want to go beyond the newness and get to the normal work day.  From there I can really know what I have because this will be my experience for the rest of the year.  I may not be all the way there yet but I am pretty close.  It is already beginning with my students. The novelty of me being the only black male teacher in the school is wearing off and some students are starting to rebel against the work.  They have accurately assessed that we write alot in my class and work ethic is not in abundance particularly at this school but also everywhere in the U.A.E.  So I kind of have an uphill climb.  I am constantly searching for ways to motivate them to do work, which is my biggest challenge, making it matter to them.  I am setting up a very basic reward system where on Thursdays, the students that I saw do their work will get reward with candy and a chance to relax, while those that didn't will have to complete their work while they watch their more studious counterparts consume candy.  I think I still need something else though. 

As of now, I have only talked about one student, "Bob," a.k.a ET (Emirati Tupac), and I do have an update on him, but I will take a moment to briefly discuss a couple of others that stood out to me.  I have three black students, two of them are Sudanese (Sudan, Africa).  These students are the brightest I have in all of my classes. One of them is smart but excels in creativity.  His name card looked like he went out and hired someone to illustrate it for him.  I walked by impressed with what he did with pencil so I handed him a pack of colored pencils to enhance it.  Ten minutes later he hands me this masterpiece of a name card.  He is brilliant with color, and not just fill in the space with red or blue or whatever.  He really worked with the colors, like a professional, using blends and color combinations that someone who has not been trained would not know how to do.  For example, he went over a simple line with a yellow pencil, but he used a combination of other very similar colors (a bit of yellow, maybe some orange), on the tips either side of the line to give the impression that the line glowed at the ends.  It was done well; very subtle, very polished.  Either he is crazy talented or he has had classes, or probably both.  He does well on his writings too.  He understands English enough to hold a basic conversation and gets through his work quickly.  He would do fine my Early College classes I taught in Jacksonville.

The other one does not have the creative skills, he is just smart.   He is even smarter than the other, which is an accomplishment. He is noticeably smarter than an already very smart student.  He is by far the best student academically I have.  He has already pointed out a small mistake I made in spelling when writing on the board (that's funny because I didn't think I would have to deal with that here).  He is the student that after class takes out a small notebook of words that he just randomly collects and studies as he hears them.  He asked me today about several words including the difference between alias and nickname, variety and diversity, etc.  Who does that? According to his interview exercise I had the class do the other day (which for the other students was a paragraph, but for him, after he requested, it ended up being the whole page), he explained he wants to be a doctor.  I almost would let him operate on me right now and feel okay about it. 

I mentioned this to some other teachers about these African phenoms in my class and they informed me that this is to be expected.  Apparently, Sudan has an exception education program in their country.  One of my other colleagues said he has a Sudanese student as well and is having the same results.  This surprised me because when I think of Sudan, I think of genocide (Darfur) and not ridiculously gifted students that finish an hours worth of work in 20 minutes.  This is just one of the many experiences here in Abu Dhabi where I find that I only have limited knowledge of a people or place (usually provided by the news media) and don't know the full reality, or at the very least other aspects them. 

As for Abu Dhabi Thug Life, he is still entertaining.  I caught him yesterday in the halls beating on a shelf in the hallway creating beats for the other students to bob their heads and dance to, which by the way is exactly what my students back in Jacksonville would do.  It even sounded the same, the same hip hop beat you would hear in the States.  I broke it up and discovered him at the center of the four or five boys.  They followed me back to my nearby room just laughing and smiling with me.  I looked around to make sure no one official was around and dropped a quick beat on my desk similar to the one they were just doing.  They were impressed and kinda nodded their heads smiling.  So now I'm in with the Emirati Thugs at the school here, which can't be a bad thing. 

I also have another gem from Bob.  Shortly after I finished my beat they were talking in Arabic to each other and I noticed they started pointing at each others skin still laughing and smiling.  One of the boys said about Bob to me, "He likes your skin color."  I briefly got flashbacks to the taxicab awhile back.  Then Bob says to me, without laughing now, in a rather prophetic way: "This color here," he pointed at his friend who was darker than him lighter than me, and then to my skin, "this is the color of kings where I come from."  I'm starting to like this kid.  Also, I have another quick note worth mentioning about Bob. He is in ROTC and has to wear his uniform.  He wears the cap cocked to the side or backwards, and pops his collar up.  I asked him about it today his reply was: "I told you, I am gangsta."  I couldn't take it anymore I finally decided to ask him about how the hell can you call yourself a gangsta from the streets if you live in the richest city in the world.  I believe I phrased it "I didn't think there was hard places to live in Abu Dhabi."  There are hard places, he said, and named some town.  He said he grew up there until he was six years old and a lot of black people lived there and he was down "ofcourse."  Unfortunately I am starting to see that Bob as a less legitimate thug, as one of the requirements is that you have to have been forged in the streets of a tough neighborhood recently.  He hasn't been there since he was six years old.  Yeah, I may have to collect his Gangsta card.

That's it for now.