Grade 12. Another fab lesson

Salama my secondary ICT teacher is just a gem. She is a very flexible teachers, always ready to adopt new learning and approaches or adapt ideas to suite her classes and her teaching style.
Grade 12 are doing a unit on hobbies, so today she had the girls working in co-operative groups brainstorming about all the possible hobbies the students could have. Sadly I didn't take any photos of the finished brainstorms. One group had jet skiing and having a spa, amongst the other 54 hobbies. They are my sort of gals!
Group work and collaborative learning in new here in my school, and so is the idea of brainstorming. Have a look at the photos... were they engaged in the task. Sure were!

I say, which way to Dubai?

I was driving to Dubai today and caught up with this Toyota ute transporting a camel. You often see the bigger trucks with solid sides that transport 6 to 8 camels. Single camels on the back of a vehicle is more of a rarity. The camel is usually quite well tied in, however that doesn't stop them putting their head up to get a good view of the passing scenery, as this one did. It would appear camels don't mind the wind on their faces as the ute today was traveling at about 100 k. When being transported some camels have bags over their heads or knitted type muzzle guards on, but this one was a free spirit, enjoying the ride. :-)
On the road to Dubai is a camel market and a camel race track so I suspect her was going that way. Camels over here are expensive beasts, with young ones worth 35,000 AED and good mature ones for breeding or racing are worth millions of AED. I suspect my friend here was probably worth, excess 200,000 AED.

Which way to Dubai

The Krispy Kreme Challenge

Krispy Kreme doughnuts are big in the UAE. Now the best thing about these doughnuts, if you are a Krispy Kreme lover, is not only the size of the doughnut itself, not at all an ordinary sized doughnut, and the filling. Each doughnut is filled with an exotic filling. My favourite is caramel nut. The inside just oozes with caramel and nuts. Delicious thick and as rich as.
Our company staff at the boys school LOVE Krispy Kremes. If we have a shout or bring a plate someone inevitability brings KK. Its the ethos of the office, real blokes stuff.
Today we had a birthday shout and you guessed it. KK's. Neil (photo just polishing off the last of another one) sits next to me and was telling me he ate 5 the other day after dinner. So we are going to have a challenge. For 20 AED he reckons he can eat 15 in the course of a school day, 7 hours. I think he should do 18. We are debating numbers here but the challenge is on!

Keycutting. An interesting comparison

Back in April I blogged about the proceedure and requirements to get keys cut, and how women are unable to do this. Today was a bit of a turn around, and something that happens from time to time with bureaucracy in UAE. In the holidays I had needed keys cut for the front gate of our apartment block. So I had asked one of the managers at the restaurant on the corner if he would come with me. He took me in his car to a very small shop just around the corner which was closed. Today I needed new keys for my ICT labs so decided to chance my arm with the keycutter around the corner.
I drove to the shop which was closed. From the neighbouring shop comes an Indian man who proceeded to tell me I should ring the number on the door and the owner would come. The owner, I was assured spoke really good English, where as my Indian friend told me he did not speak good English. I beg to differ. I was following the conversation perfectly. I rang and the key cutting man took 5 minutes to get to the shop. My Indian friend then offers me tea or Pepsi from his cafeteria, small cafe while I wait in my car. My keys were cut, no paper work required, no photocopying of passports etc and he even wrote me a receipt. However Ian you will be pleased to know these ones cost !0 AED each. Must be the standard price.
I then asked my key cutting friend if he changed the tumblers on doors as I have lost the spare key I kept outside. He assured me he did and he even knew the vicinity of my apartment. Remember we don't have street address's here just iconic landmarks eg Sheikh heads roundabout. Within 10 minutes he's at my house with his box of tricks. New barrel fitted, 75 AED thank you and he was gone.
Now I have seen how easy the job was to do, and looked at every door inside my house that has 3 spare keys attached, all the same as the front door....... why didn't I think of that first?

Celebrations for Sheikh Khalifia

Our beloved Sheikh Khalifia, President of UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi Emirate, and after whom the Burj is named, returned back to the UAE on Friday. Unbeknown to me he has been away in Switzerland convalescing. The Sheikh was born in Al Ain, so the rugby club here has put on a series of 3 nights of celebrations to welcome him home. I went along tonight. The evening began with 2 lines of men, about 50 or 60, singing, and moving to the beat of a drum, as they waved their camel sticks to the rhythm. The group of drummers who moved between the two groups were quite rhythmic also playing tambourines etc. I've not heard men sing over here before, but they definitely had beautiful voices. The whole number which lasted about 20 minutes definitely had an Africian sound to the music and the singing. This was followed by a fabulous fireworks demonstration for about 20 minutes and then the men began their singing moving number again. There were probably only about 100 in the audience, mostly Westerners. It was a beautiful evening, with food provided so I was a little surprised there were no Emirati or Arab families out for a picnic tea, enjoying the celebrations. Sunday is the beginning of the working week which might indicate the lower numbers, however Arab families love late night picnics.

Starting school. Grade 1 & 2 line up

The children have been officially back at school for the last two days. Numbers of attendees at both my schools is very low, with more children arriving at the primary level. Today we had about 30% at junior boys assembly. (Incidently the white markings on the tiles is where each student stands. All very nicely spaced out) The secondary boys really are a law unto themselves and are a bit lax about attendance, especially the beginning and end of each semester. Today 4 students arrived in Grade 12 Science. The girls school is a little different in that school is also a place of socialisation. To be honest neither school is exactly ready to take students. We have had a great remodeling programme happening in both school and this is not complete, especially at boys school. Painters are still working and the maintenance men are struggling to get all the AC's working. Furniture is stacked away, or rooms eg my boys school secondary lab are the dumping ground for everything. What a mess.
The National newspaper has run a number of articles around the beginning of the school year, in what I would suspect is a gentle propaganda campaign. Parental tardiness, and school not beginning on a Sunday seems to be a scape goat. However if the numbers of parents buying school stationery at "The Bookshop" the huge stationers, or in the supermarkets is anything to go by, parents are organised and ready. ADEC has also introduced a new schooling model for the KG (kindy) to Grade 3 students and this too has been publicized through the newspaper on a number of days. My next blog post.

Les Girls. Spot the odd one out

The ICT team. Left to right.
Enas, who is Syrian, takes responsibility for lower grade ICT, teaching Grades 1- 7, a total of 14 periods a week.
Salama, who is Emirati, was born in the Al Hayer township where our school is. As her parents home is right across the road from the school, Salama has returned to teach in the school where she herself was a student. Salama teaches Grade 8 - 12 because Grades 10 - 12 have 2 periods per week.
Salama takes on board any new ideas or initiatives that you offer her. She is quite a dynamic teacher and does do extra for the students in her non contact times and from her own home. Enas is more of a traditional teacher who would much rather work in a transmission type learning model. I believe we make a great team, and I really enjoy working with these ladies. School is fun. BTW. Salama is sitting in a chair and Enas and I are perched on the arms of the chair. I just jumped in to grab a photo opportunity at the beginning of the year, as you do!

Green Sea Turtles Ras Aljinz Oman

It's Ramadan Eid throughout the Muslim World so 4 of us from our company took advantage of the holiday to visit one of the turtles reserves south of Sur in Oman, to see the Green Sea Turtles come ashore at night and lay their eggs. Rasaljinz is a heavily controlled. The guides take you down to the beach in groups, morning and night, and show a few turtles. Night tours photography is banned. You get to see female turtles, doing their business and laying the 100 eggs, covering the nests, and walking back to the sea. You also see a few baby turtles making their way to the sea. The morning tour begins at 4:00am and again photography is banned until daybreak. You get to see more turtles covering nests and leaving for the sea and a few more babies appearing and whipping off to the sea. You also get to see foxes, yes foxes, on the beach trying to find the nests to get the eggs or the small turtles on the way to the sea. The turtle number and depth of dugouts in the sand where the turtles have finished their egg trenches was amazing. Amazing too the number of turtles tracks going back to the sea in the morning.
Our turtles were younger and the shell was approx 1 metre long. The fin part of the back flippers are almost the size of dinner plates. While you are unable to touch you get as close as 1 metre. The guides are very protective and try desperately hard not to disturb the females before and during the laying proceedure. You don't see the turtles coming onto the beach, you get a small look as a the eggs being laid, however you see quite a few covering nests and returning to the sea.

So what did I learn.
Females do all the work, the male stays at sea all the time within 3 miles?? of the coast
Females mate 3 x a year and come ashore to lay approx 100 eggs.
After the 3 egg drops the females goes off well into the sea on "holiday" to return 3 years later to mate and resume the breeding cycle
Females mate from 37 - 80 years old, every 4 years
They return to the same beach all the time
The temperature of the sand determines the sex of the turtle eggs. 29 degrees above all female, 28 degrees below all male. 28 -29 either sex. Nests are all male or all female.
3% of hatched turtles survive to breed
The turtle digs a 1 meter hole to lie in then inside that another 1 met hole to lay the eggs in.
When the eggs have been laid she then digs and covers over a trench that is 3 to 5 met long to disguise where exactly her nest is
Just another fantastic experience and I haven't mentioned the eco friendly, specifically designed hotel research centre. All designed sand brown, with the windows hidden behind panels to the outside world, so no light is visable to the sea. The turtles follow the light of the sea to return home. The baby turtles followed the light of guides torch on the beach, which is why the hotel is specifically designed, to not be visable.

Parks in Al hayer

Yesterday we had our first staff meeting at Al Hayer Boy's School in the Al Hayer township. The school is having a refit and paint inside and out, so is looking pretty whish.
In the time I have been here in UAE the Al Hayer Municipality, the UAE equivalent of the District Council have been building and creating a park in the centre of the township. They have created a lovely green space with trees, plants, walkways, children's play equipment etc. I haven't walked through this area yet but it does look impressive from the road. Families in UAE assemble in the parks in the evenings and frequently on Fridays, in their extended family groups and picnic. The children play on the equipment, but more often the kids are riding bikes, kicking balls, playing football, playing games, flying kites etc. As many Arab families sleep in the afternoon they can be found out picnicing late into the evening, enjoying the cooler temperatures. I have not known a culture of people who enjoy a green space as much, and who care and respect this space. There is almost no litter left behind. While I have been away the park extension down one side of the road has been completed, with these crafty new cycle riders have been placed along the walk way and their heads are the street lights. In the autumn I extend to be a picnicer, and already I am exploring the ideas of recreation and the park for the next unit theme at both schools. Bring it on !

Iftar. Breaking of the fast

Meet Az who lives in my apartment block, works in our company and is Muslim. Although she doesn't cover Az does observe fundamental Muslim cultural beliefs and is fasting as it's Ramadan. So she prays and eats around 4:00am and fasts through the day until iftar around 6:45 pm. Last week Az invited a group of people from our company to join her for iftar at one of the international hotels. While we were waiting she talked us through the iftar proceedure.
Normally in the privacy of her home before eating Az would go through the posturing prayer first, the standing, the kneeling and stretching her arms in front of her on the floor etc. We sat at our tables in a beautifully decorated tent, very similar to a Bedouin wedding tent, surrounded by wall mounted TV sets. At about 6:40pm the TV screened coverage of an elderly gentleman, saying the iftar prayer in the big mosque in Abu Dhabi. On completion Az then said a prayer which finishes in the Arabic words for Amen. She basically asked Allah to bless the food and to thank him for supporting her through the day of fasting. We began our meal by lifting lids on bowls on our table and began eating an assortment of dry fruits and nuts, figs, dates, prunes, walnuts etc while sipping water, drinking tea or drinking watery yoghut or a mixture of date and milk with or without honey. The date and milk was rather like a smoothie and rather gorgeous tasting. The stomach of course needs time to expand and digest a great bulk of food so we took things slowly. From then on we could help ourselves to the buffet of either traditional Arabic food, some Indian food or Western food. This was followed by Arabic or Indian desserts which are rather sweet, deep friend honey, baklava etc.
A fascinating experience and fascinating to be learn a little more about the culture in which I live.

New month, new school year, new beginnings

September finds me back from a really fabulous holiday and back into the school routine, still with that holiday glow. While schools are not open yet, the providers are required to meet and begin planning and putting together pieces for the new school year. I'm working on the first unit for this term. We have moved from a 2 semester academic year to a trimester to align the government schools with the Emirate of Dubai and all the private schools in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Our assessment is be be more continuous and we are required to submit marks every 4 to 5 weeks. This is an attempt to stop the end of semester debacle where students are often "given" marks, and an attempt to provide students and parents with a current and up to date progressive picture of their learning. I'm genuinely excited by the new edicts to move students and teachers into formative and summative assessment to provide a picture of their learning.

Each and every country on the holiday had cameos of fantastic things and experiences. Ian sent me these 2 pictures which are two small snapshots of wonderful times. Meeting up with my cousins in Scotland after 30 years. I'm pictured here with my cousin Jean and husband Andrew, walking away from the camera close to the castle in Edinburgh. We spent the day with them in Edinburgh including the appreciating times at their festival and a trip into the castle.

I shouted Ian a tour of Paris in the evening on a segway for his birthday. I saw the trip advertised and thought wow what a cool thing. I just came along for the ride! So here I am embarking on my training before hitting the streets of Paris at a maximum speed of 9 kms an hour. There is nothing like zooming along to the Louvre on a segway, beats a broomstick any day!