Am I Dreaming?

We. Are. FINALLY. DONE!

- Rant coming up, y’all! -

Oh my God, it was a nightmare! Ta97ee7, grades, 11th grade, 12th grade, Tawjeeh, students’ statistics. Wow. That was a whirlwind that I thought would never end.

Last year’s strikes and demands from Kuwaiti and expatriate teachers left a huge dent in the number of high school English teachers.

Here’s an explanation:
Most Kuwaiti teachers quit their teaching jobs quickly because they either couldn’t handle the teachers’ society, Tawjeeh’s demands or the students in general. Sometimes, it’s just very simply all about the money. So their strikes were unjustifiable, and I really hated how they could just quit their students (their future doctors, architects, accountants and their children’s teachers) just because they weren’t given a stupid unnecessary raise.

The expatriate teachers however, their cause was/is completely justified. They still have their same old salary and have to bear the inflation and high prices. They’re treated with disrespect by students and parents who lack manners and self-respect (words such as “m9arwa” and “zalamat” are spewed). Then they had to be treated with disrespect regularly by their own bosses (who, keep in mind, NEED THESE TEACHERS) when they were told they could just go back to where they came from if they weren’t happy with the salary and living conditions (I hear the hostels are quite painful). So a large number of Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian and Indian teachers just quit right after school finished, then they up and left the country because they weren’t given a slightly better salary to help them keep up with the living expenses.

Then the revolutions began and embassies were just too busy with politics to even care about telling new teachers if they wanted to go teach in Kuwait.

So our lovely Ministry of Education was in deep crap. There was a huge shortage in high school English, French and Math teachers. So what did the geniuses decide to do? They decided to take middle school teachers and force them to teach high school. Many refused, but the MOE was insistent. So what did those teachers do? They quit too! Just amazing! Smashing!!

This brings us back to ta97ee7:
There weren’t many teachers to do the work. Teachers who corrected the Science majors’ papers went to a school in AlFaiha, and I went to AlQadsiya to correct the Arts’ majors papers. We corrected from Monday to Friday (5 evening sessions from 4 to 10pm, and 2 morning sessions from 7:30am to 1:30pm), whilst Al-Faiha teachers were forced to go to one more evening session on Saturday.

Of course, we weren’t asked nicely. One supervisor (remember the Wicked Witch of the West? Yeah, her) kept threatening us with bad evaluations and lawyers! No thank you, no ya36eekum el 3afya! Bs kil kalamhum: “Ben7awelkum el she’oon el qanooniyaaaaa!!!”
We’re coming here to finish the work because we want to, $@&$!! Not to see your pretty face!
And the funny thing is she yelled at us, telling us we had to come on Friday, OR ELSE!! then when we were looking for her on Friday, we were told she was gone. On a plane, to be precise. Funny, huh? Hilarious.

After that, we had to start correcting 11th grade papers. That was the fastest (but still precise) correction phase ever. We 5 teachers finished 14 exam folders in 2 and a half days. It was hell. We would stay at school till 8pm and correct and re-check every paper.

Another thing that annoyed us throughout this whole thing: The exams and grades.
As future teachers, we take a class in KU, College of Eduction, called Qiyas oo Taqweem.
In that class we learn how to design an exam. Making sure it covers all the material and that it isn’t too easy or difficult for the student. These exams weren’t fair for the students. I heard that there was a sentence in the 10th grade exam that didn’t even make sense. The Setbook questions for the 11th grade were all from the workbook rather than the main students’ book. 12th grade exams were a little unbalanced.

By the end of it, we finished everything on time and breathed a sigh of relief.

*sighs* Holiday, here I come!