Rejected

After my first class, I was taken to meet with a man I had never meant before, by a woman I thought I had never met before.  It wasn't until about half-way through the meeting that it dawned on me that this was the same woman who had told me about the students complaints the other day.  When I met her, we were in the women's section so she had been uncovered.  But since this meeting was with a man, I only had her eyes to recognize her by, since the rest of her face was covered with a niqab. Ever try to recognize someone you only met one time without the benefit of hair, facial features, clothing.... it's pretty nearly impossible to tell from eyes alone.

Anyway, they had called me in to tell me that the complaints from the students had gotten worse.  Basically, the students were very used to getting their way, so when they complained, and I didn't instantly become a teacher who let them get away with everything and only teach for 1 hour, they now felt insulted on top of the initial injustices.  Also, the complaints mattered more now, because they were getting phone calls from their fathers and husbands as well as students, mainly over the whatsapp goup.  Now, remember, this whatsapp group was completely optional, with other ways of earning bonus points / doing the speaking and listening task for homework if they chose not to participate.  It is also worth noting that probably only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the messages sent in the group had anything to do with the English class, let alone were in English, and that most of what went on there was just the girls chatting with each other in Arabic.  He told me that one husband had threatened to destroy his wife's phone because she spent so much time on the Whatsapp group that she was neglecting her children.

I was flabbergasted. Saudi is like this:  you sort of go along, getting used to the small superficial differences like wearing the "ninja uniform" and you get caught up in getting to know your students and co-workers as people instead of stereotypes, and you don't exactly forget that you are living in one of the most oppressive societies for women in the world, but you do kind of get accustomed to it in the same way you get used to it when you sit for a long time in a place with flies constantly buzzing around you.  Then all of the sudden, you get stung by something like this.  A man, who is ostensibly liberal enough to let his wife attend medical school is angry that when she comes home she has the audacity to actually study, and that she spends too much time on her phone, and declares that the problem is clearly this English teacher who is forcing her (through an optional activity) to neglect her children.  Something this ridiculous and absurd, and unfair and just plain crazy happens and you think to yourself,  Where am I? When am I?

I was in 2014, in the office of a Saudi man, who was apparently in charge of something important, though I had no idea what his position was, with a woman who was covered and never said a single word.  He was saying, in stilted English, that while they value their teachers, and especially admire me as a teacher, they also value their students (or at least the money they earn from the students.)  Some of the fathers and husbands had threatened to pull their girls out of the school unless their girls were given another teacher. He showed me a paper which about 20 girls had signed, and which he said was a list of students who wanted to change classes to another teacher who was less strict.  This list bothered me more than anything else, because we had just finished a unit on writing complaint letters, and the girls hadn't even bothered to use this new knowledge to write a legitimate complaint letter, instead, they took the lazy way out again and just wrote their names.  There wasn't even any title or anything at the top of the page of signatures.  It might have all been worth it if only they had written a complaint letter.  At least then I would have known that I had managed to teach them something.

He told me they can't afford to loose any tuition payments, so for now, they would prefer it if I didn't teach any classes until further notice.  There was only a week before revision for exams, and then there would be two weeks for study with no formal classes and only presentations anyway, so they wouldn't be missing much.  I asked him if they had someone to cover the class or if the girls would just not have class, he told me not to worry about it, and I suspected that there wouldn't be any substitute.  What a world, when students who are paying for the privilege of learning, would rather not have a teacher at all than be forced to follow the rules and work hard.  I've never seen any group of people work so hard at not having to work in my life.  I was hurt and felt betrayed by my students, who regularly told me they loved having me as a teacher, that they loved that we played games in class, and how they wish all their teachers were like me.  Apparently the didn't love it enough to give up the luxury of shorter classes and someone who would look the other way when they came late.  I also suspected that there was peer pressure at work here, that one or two girls were more upset than the others (probably the ones who were habitually late) and that they had made the complaints and urged the other girls to follow suit.

I suppose I should have taken the first meeting with the woman who was in charge of the English Department more seriously.  I should have picked up on the cues from her, that if the school didn't care, I shouldn't care.  I should have given up then, and not even bothered to take attendance, and taught only for an hour.  I shouldn't have bothered to spend hours everyday working on lesson plans that were dynamic and engaging since the students didn't care about learning English, only about checking the boxes to get a mark and ultimately a Diploma.  I should have taken it as a sign when I asked them why they wanted to be a doctor and the most common response was "So I can be rich, and not have to work very much." that no one was here to actually learn anything, and that I shouldn't waste my time or energy to try to actually teach them.  I should have let go of my expectations that I could change the system from within and that the girls would rise to the challenge if they were presented with one.  I should have understood from the beginning that reasonable expectations everywhere else in the world are unreasonable here.  I should have, by now, after 8 months of living and teaching here, known enough to let go.

But here is the thing.  Even though I know our expectations are different, even though I know our cultures are different, even though I know that we often value different things, and that I have to respect these differences; I have some fundamental beliefs and values as a teacher, as a person, that I just can't let go of.    If I accept the premise that students are only there to get a diploma, If I accept that the grades are padded, that the rules are only half-halfheartedly applied, and that the goal is not to educate, challenge, and inspire these women, but rather to keep them happy and quiet, then it means that I'm not doing anything at all.  It means that my profession, what a work so hard at every day, doesn't mean anything.  Giving up on trying to reach these girls, using any thing that might inspire them, just a little, to practice more, to work harder, to think smarter, would mean giving up on the whole idea that education can be more than just spoon feeding knowledge to empty receptacles.

I'm not ready to give up.