First Day on the Job

Getting ready for my first day felt an awfully lot like getting ready for the first day of school.  Curiously, I thought a lot about what I was going to wear (even though it would be covered by my abaya), and how to do my hair (it too is covered by the hijab).  Once at the University, enclosed behind the safe doors of the woman's campus I would be free to take these things off, provided I was wearing a long skirt and long sleeved shirt.  Unfortunately, no pants are allowed. Extra unfortunate since I only packed one skirt - the only long one I owned.  Dressed and covered, I made my way downstairs 15 minutes early (just to be safe) to wait for the bus.
I was nervous, but quickly befriended by Rachel, who would be transferring soon to Jouf, presumably to fill the position I was supposed to take.  We sat toward the back of the bus, even though no one else was on the bus yet, and again, I felt a little like I was in elementary school, lucky to sit in the back.  I assumed this was just Rachel's preferred spot, but found out as the bus began to fill up that actually, it was required.  Guys sit in front, girls sit in the back.  Even here, on a bus full of expats from various western countries, Saudi rules prevailed.
It just so happens that on this particular day, there was a bit of drama on the bus.  Apparently, the men's side of the campus (exactly the same as ours) hadn't performed well on the last exams.  The administration wanted to extend the men's hours, in the hopes that it would allow the students more opportunities to seek help from the teachers.  The men refused.  So, the administration forced the women to stay late instead. Though this makes no sense, since the women's side had above average scores on the exam, it did fit in nicely with what I have come to call "Saudi Logic", which isn't the absence of logic so much as the stubborn defiance of it. Normally, we would have left school at 3pm.  Now, the men would leave at 3pm as usual, and the bus would come back for the women at 4:30pm.
In a gallant show of solidarity, one British gentleman gave a rousing speech about equal rights, fairness, the degradation of women, and how we 'oughten to stand for it, and that the men should refuse to board the bus at 3pm unless the women were on the bus with them.  The bus went quite.  No one wanted to extend their day, but how could they not, without seeming misogynistic after a speech like that?
We got off the bus and made our way to the faculty offices, a typical maze of cubicles.  Currently, there are more teachers than their are cubicles; so I am wondering why they sent me, and another new girl, Sara, here.  We spent the day being shuffled around and introduced to various members of the staff and administration. I remembered almost none of their names.  From what I can tell, we have at least three "bosses".  There is an American named Chris, short for Christina, who is our HR coordinator.  She has almost no power, and is basically an intermediary between the Riyadh office and the local office. Her advice to us was, get rid of your expectations now, or you will be miserable.  She also told us we needed to have a tangible measurable goal for our time here, whether it was saving up a certain amount of money, or reading all the works of Shakespeare, or some tangible goal we could check off each day.  Without this, we would likely not make it.  None of the examples she gave us about personal goals involved teaching, or gaining an understanding of Saudi Culture.  I asked her why, and she laughed.  The teaching here is not teaching in the way you are used to.  It's not a place to expect that you will grow professionally, or that the students will greatly improve their English.  Here, the most we can hope for is that they may gain some small measure of independence and responsibility.  And as for Saudi culture, it would be very hard.  We basically need to stick to the expat areas for our own safety.  And we can't talk about culture, or religion, or politics, or relationships, or entertainment, or driving with the girls.  These are all  potentially offensive and therefore off-limits topic for teachers.    I wondered if there was anything left we could talk about with our students.
Then we have Jasia, another boss, who is Saudi, and employed by the University of Dammam rather than the company that hired us.  She is the Academic Advisor and has more control, including deciding who will get which class.  She asked us both to handwrite an essay on what teaching means to us.  It needs to be handwritten, she said, to avoid plagiarism.  I was surprised, first that anyone hired at this level of profession would need to, let alone consider "cheating", especially on a personal opinion, and secondly, that she said it so matter of factly, as if she expected plagiarism.  I suspect it is because it must be a rampant problem with the students.
Finally, we had Nada.  Also Saudi, her office is separate from our teachers lounge with all the cubicles, and she is mostly unseen.  She has final say over any disputes, including  hiring and firing. Our meeting with her was a sort of informal interview.  I felt lucky to be in the interview along with Sara, to diffuse some of the pressure.  Nada asked a lot of personal and probably inappropriate questions.  She was very curious about our religions and our marital status.  She asked one or two questions about our teaching backgrounds, but then spent the rest of the time asking us about all the topics Chris had said were taboo.  She asked about our social lives in America, and wanting to know what we thought of Saudi Arabia.  I wasn't sure what she wanted to hear, but was sure she was looking for certain answers.  I could tell by the way she addressed her questions to Sara first, and then only briefly nodded at me for my answer, that she disliked me right away.  Sara is both Muslim and married, and Nada clearly preferred her. It made me wish I had taken a ring with me and pretended to be married as I had in Liberia.
The rest of the day we were able to observe classes.  The first class I watched was a "beginner" class.  I was surprised to find the beginners peer editing a cause and effect essay on why more women in Saudi Arabia were chemical engineers than civil engineers.  The girls were way more advanced than the beginners that I am used to teaching.  I helped a few of the girls with their papers, and was surprised to find that one common cause the girls cited for fewer civil engineers was that women are delicate and sensitive, making it very difficult for them to do the job of a civil engineer, which is usually outdoors, and requires supervising laborers - who are men.  They seemed to believe this as earnestly as they believed in other factual causes, such as, no programs for civil engineering in the women's university, the inability to drive between work sites and to travel freely around the country to each new work site making securing a job with these responsibilities unlikely, and the fact that chemical engineering usually pays more. It was difficult not to question them further on this belief, but luckily, the grammar was usually bad enough to provide plenty of distraction.  The other class I observed was a vocabulary lesson on color theory.  Though these girls are in the "engineering" track, currently the only major open to them is interior design, so they are learning color theory.  I began to understand why some of them felt women could not be engineers.
In both classes, girls wandered in 10, 20, even 30 minutes late for class.  Many had not done their homework, or did not bring their books.  Often they talked over the teacher.  Neither teacher addressed either problem, aside from mildly asking the girls to please remember to be on time and to please not talk in class.  After classes (which end at 2:45) and while waiting for the bus, Rachel explained why.  The students here have a lot of power and control.  They have been brought up expecting to get their way, and for things to be spoon fed to them, and for exceptions and compromises to be made.  Rachel had wanted them to understand that the real world would not tolerate lateness, or not turning in projects.  She followed the rules in the University handbook, and marked students late, and if they showed up more than halfway through the class, she marked them absent.  She took marks off for late work, and demanded students not talk in class.  The students didn't like this "strict" teacher.  Rather, a noisy 1/3 of the students did not like it.  They wrote a petition, and had their fathers call the school.  Rather than risk the wrath of the people who pay them, Nada decided to transfer Rachel and appease the students.  This is not an uncommon occurrence.   She is the third or fourth teacher to be "petitioned" this year.  All teachers live in perpetual fear of their students, walking a thin line between rules and compromise, trying, in small ways to help the girls realize their behavior won't get them far, but letting them get away with it anyway, just to avoid being fired.
We arrived at a compromise with the bus as well.  We would only have to work until 4pm, and the men would have to wait for us, since the bus couldn't come at three, take the men home, and be back by 4:30.  We would also be allowed to leave at 7am instead of 6:30 in the morning.  Interestingly, the only one not on the bus ride home was the British man who had made the speech. Absent from his own revolution. I don't expect the other guys will ever let him hear the end of it.