School politics

Life here has become emotionally overwhelming at times. I’ve tried to psychoanalyze myself to see if it’s just normal “culture shock”, adjusting to another country, home-sickness, and first-year teaching blues, or if it’s simply the sad events that have happened lately. Probably a combination of both. Nearly 100% of the time I feel like a terrible teacher, and once a month for about a week when my hormones are going crazy, I cry almost every day. I’ve been told this is normal for first-year teachers, but that doesn’t help me feel any better about myself. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t happen to me since I spent 2 years subbing, including long-term sub jobs. I used to think I was a competent woman so it’s a terrible thing for me to feel incompetent all the time. I’ve been told that the first 2-3 years will be like this. It’s a frightening thought. I often entertain thoughts of quitting.

Three weeks ago, our superintendent was fired, along with his wife. It was instantaneous, with no warning whatsoever. Fred hired me and I feel a strong affection for him. Tanya was the senior counselor and music teacher at the school. Their son, Josh, was in the last half of his senior year. They were told they have to be out of the country by Dec 24th. The school has been in shock and many of the students and teachers feel anger and resentment toward the board of trustees who made this decision. The reasons stated in the letter to Fred don’t make any sense, and certainly don’t merit this kind of ruthless termination. The board is made up of businessmen, not educators, who clearly do not have the best interest of the school in mind. The repercussions are enormous. The school is now scrambling to find a replacement music teacher, but the burden for all the replacements are falling on other teachers who are adding more to their plate to accommodate the vacancy. It’s not like in American where there is a pool of qualified teachers needing jobs. The winter band & choir concert has been cancelled. The spring musical which Tanya was going to direct has been cancelled for now. Josh was starring in a play that had been rehearsing for 2 months – that has been cancelled. The seniors lost their councilor during the crunch to get college applications out. And the worst part of all is that this is the time when teachers must decide whether they will return next year. So far, 3 teaching couples have decided to leave because of this. Two of those couples are my closest friends here. Two other couples are still undecided. It’s heartbreaking. Our English department will be left with two of the four least experienced teachers.

I know that the school can recover from this, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the way this school operates. There has been a lot of back-stabbing and terrible rumors, of which I was part of (being quoted as saying something I didn’t say). The teachers seem to be expected to pick a camp – Fred’s side, or another administrator’s side. I refuse to be part of that, but if you don’t pick one, you’re being assigned one. It’s ugly. Needless to say, I’m ready for a vacation away from this. I’ll be flying to Manila to spend the Christmas holiday with my brother Steve & his wife Mayen.

I do have to say that the one thing that makes it worth being here is the students. They are wonderful. We just had “International Day”, an afternoon activity to celebrate the diversity of the students. I joined the Asian/Australian group since I grew up in the Philippines and borrowed a beautiful dress from a Filipino lady to wear. The Pakistanis performed a wonderful dance on stage with all those brilliant colored outfits. The North American group did a line dance. And the Middle East performed a circle dance that included a couple doing what almost looked like a sexy belly dance. It seems like a dichotomy that these students from the Middle East would perform the sexiest dance when they are the most conservative of the groups (except for the Lebanese who are the LEAST conservative). Everyone brought food from all the regions, and some girls painted henna tattoos on various parts of the body for a fee. It was a good day in a depressing month.

I did manage to acquire a fake Christmas tree, borrowed lights, and enough ornaments to cover once side of the tree. Anything connected with Christmas is illegal here, but some stores do manage to get away with selling things like lights & ornaments. My tree came over from Bahrain and managed to get through the border without being confiscated. Maybe I’ll buy more Christmas decorations from the teachers who are leaving in June for next year.