Standing In The Sun

Friday 3rd July 2009
The week just gone was not such a bad one. Only one bad day, and that was the Saturday which so often IS a bad day these days anyway. But when it IS a bad day now, it seems to REALLY be bad and not just a little bit bad. Not worth going into details about Saturday because it was the usual thing of me trying to get the lesson going and them having their Big Discussion which means that the presence of me in the room is non-existent. And as usual it centres around a group or a few individuals.

But there was drama this week. Oh YES! And THIS time it was not of my making.

You will recall a few weeks ago now that I was off sick with my flu-ish thing. Three teachers were used to substitute for me. One of them enjoyed his time there and was liked by my students. One of them, who only took the class for one lesson only and spent much of the time shouting and bellowing at them, did NOT enjoy his time. And the third teacher seemed, so I thought, to have got on alright (but now I have my doubts because of what I've heard about him).

However …. Saturday at almost the end of Lesson 4 we had a visitor. Actually on THAT day there were four interrupting visitors. Days like this happen as you know. In THIS case it was another visitor of some distinction and of rank 'one crown and one star' (sorry but I don't know my Saudi army insignia).

So he came in at about five or ten minutes to 11 which is almost the end of the day. I don't know what he expected from such a meeting, but he said he wanted to talk to me for a moment outside the classroom. WHY do they ALWAYS have to come and crash my lesson like that?? Because they CAN – that's the answer, and because they're army and because they run the show around here. And pfffft to it all, but there you go.

He had received a long memo from our HoD which he showed me. I'd had no idea of such a memo being written and I, for sure, hadn't said anything to make it happen. The gist of the memo was that, “These soldier boy students are an unruly bunch, how are we expected to teach them? And anyway they all fail when they come through the system. And their discipline level is low and etc. etc.”.

Well, yes, this is actually true. But it didn't come from me. The HoD shows little interest in what we do over with these soldier boys. So WHO had made it happen and WHY was it being dealt with in THIS way?

The thing is, if this guy wanted to deal with this matter properly then some proper time should have been scheduled to talk about it. Not ten minutes to the end of the teaching day and certainly NOT in class time. But they don't respect that. I don't know what he expected from me as I knew nothing of this memo having been written. I had not been consulted either. So WHO exactly was making judgements on the classes?

Well, I told him, yes they can be difficult and yes they have good and bad days. I also said that this year was not the only time that such trouble occurred. Not interested in other years, the man said. Surely it was relevant since such behaviour is not new as I have heard much about. Yes, I HAD had some discipline problems, I added, but these had been dealt with (I was referring to the key-throwing incident).

That was about all I said. No names mentioned and no specifics given. Back in the classroom they wanted to know what I had talked about. I told them that it was only general stuff and that was about it. I also said that I mentioned no names.

Fast forward a little to Monday morning in the lesson. First it was my teaching colleague who informed me that all the students had been standing out in the sun for two hours the previous afternoon after classes. Standing in the SUN?? Yes, I'd heard that they do that sort of thing around here. Into the classroom and yes indeed – the students confirmed this. “Because of that man yesterday”, they said.

That was not the end. The next day, Tuesday, they said that AGAIN they'd been two-plus hours in the sun. Standing there, caps ordered off, face up to the sun. Then exercise, crawling around on the concrete soldier-style and more of same.

OK, now I'll say this. Although there IS a problem with this class and indeed with these soldier boy classes in general, this is NOT THE WAY to solve it. Punishment versus Rehabilitation I guess is what it's all about. Plus copious amounts of sadism and so-called “discipline” hoping that THIS will teach them to not do it again next time.

I'll tell you what it has done. First of all, I had a class of students who were feeling (and excuse the non-intended pun here) very much under the weather all day. More sleepers than usual in the classroom. And a VERY angry bunch of people who now wanted to know WHO had caused all this to happen. Having established that it was neither myself nor my colleague, they were then pointing the Finger Of Blame at one of those teachers who had taken my class when I was off ill. And the one they most suspected was the first teacher who had shouted and yelled them so much.

“What is his name? Where does he live”, they wanted to know from me. What the hell were they going to do?? I was having no part in any vendetta here so I just said his name which they were never going to remember anyway.

Even at the end of the week they were still being given this sun treatment. Ah no, all except the Wednesday when they told me that it had stopped. One of my students said they had complained during all this sun exercise and so he was going to be in the “jail” for a while. Came back into class Wednesday middle with the blue finger which meant he had been fingerprinted and classified and processed. Others seemed too to have had trouble because of answering back and stuff.

Well now, THAT is a part of the army which everyone knows you must not cross into. Answering back or questioning orders is always going to be dealt with severely as it would be in any army in the world. THAT is fair enough.

But what of the sun punishment? Well, as I have said already, this is, in my opinion, NO WAY to solve the problem. In fact, when the temperature is in the mid-forties celsius it is downright DANGEROUS! Those guys could dehydrate, get nasty sunstroke and other such things! Sunstroke can even KILL if it is serious enough. I've only had it a few times in my life, but it REALLY is unpleasant.

I have heard that the possible writers of this memo are two in number. The shouter teacher and the third teacher who had them on my second day away. And, apparently, he is not so cool, calm and laid back as he seems to be. The word is that he gets very uptight with such discipline problems and cannot take much of it. He is on a very low number of teaching hours. I have EVEN heard that he lost one other job in this country possibly due to this. And, in addition, he was heard to be complaining a lot that my class was a really bad lot and that if he had this class himself then he would quit the job at once.

Hmm …. well I can't say that I haven't thought in that way. When those boys are at their worst, when they just won't be quiet or when they are having one of their heated discussions amongst themselves then they will NOT shut up and I certainly cannot make them. Then I feel like I'm not even there, I don't want to be there, they descent into total chaos and I feel like I want to quit-and-run there and then. But then when they are OK, then it is better for everyone. There have been a lot of bad times lately for me in that class it is true. But then there are times when they're quite agreeable too although this does not mean they work any better! But if they were at that worst ALL THE TIME then really I would not stand it and WOULD be going crazy and thinking of exiting. And I have written plenty about THAT since I started with them more than two months ago.

HOWEVER …. perhaps what they need is a proper motivation to be there and maybe incentives to learn more. We all know full well that they don't NEED to be here learning English however much you can justify it as being a “Foundation Course” for medical school next year. Marks they get in the tests I give them don't seem to matter to them. So what IS the motivation to learn more English? And HOW is this sun punishment going to suddenly make them better?

I am not the guy in charge so I do not decide what happens.

Ah, one more thing. This 'crown and star' guy in charge came out, on successive days, to sit with me at break time to have a chat. Nothing much, just small talk really. He seems to have been in England for some period of time. Some mentions of if I needed to drive then he might be able to help with the “paperwork” here ….

The students obviously saw him sitting with me chatting and wanted to know what he was talking about. I told them it wasn't much. But in any case, I was not going to be caught in the middle of loyalties to anyone. And was not going to be seen to be taking sides.

Next week the students are on holiday. FREEDOM for a while, and the chance to relax a bit.