Friday 30 November
My first placement in Riyadh is galloping to a close. I can't believe we have been here since September. Time has been spent on trying to prioritise the work, identify the major strategies, planning and delivering professional learning and working with teachers in their classrooms. Every aspect of our work has been well received and this provides the incentive to keep working hard at developing the best path forward. (Gosh - sound like a business management text).
This is not to ignore the fun we have on almost a daily occurrence. We travelled to Al Khobar last week for a 2 day workshop with the 11 principals. This annual Retreat has been a regular feature on the calendar for the school over the past few years, but has only been accessible for the male principals. This is due to the cultural consideration that women are generally not permitted to travel without a male relative. Therefore the previous leadership determined that this would be too difficult to organise, and the women were omitted. Ron initially thought that the women could have a 2 day event in Riyadh coming in each day for the workshops. After some consideration and discussion with his deputy (Mr Abdulrahman) they decided to open it for the women. Abdulrahman meet with the women and outlined the proposal and then asked them individually if they would attend. They could bring a male relative if they chose. All attended, with 2-3 bringing sons with them, who we never saw and presume staying in the room playing video games or watching pay tv. The women travelled by plane, the men drove themselves and we travelled by large 4 wheel drives in a convoy!!! So I have seen the desert - not the Empty Quarter, but the desert no less. The highway was 4 land (each way) all the way to the coast and the drivers generally sat between 140 - 150km, and they weren't the fastest on the road. We think the speed limit is 120km.
This trip provided us with our first sight of camels. We had the driver laughing as we would get so excited in seeing more camels of differing hues: brown, camel(!), cream and almost black. We saw baby camels, camels in large herds, camels with herdsman and camels at the camel markets. Ron has proposed that we buy a camel and have it agisted (spelling?) and on occasions head out to visit it and have afternoon tea in the desert. It is not unusual for families in the city to head to the desert and set up a tent, light a fire and cook and prepare coffee and spend the time enjoying the desert (and maybe their camel(s)).
The work in Al Khobar included a morning visit to a school - which was wonderful and provided all of us with much to consider for application back in Riyadh - and a visit to SciTech. This was like Science Works - with equal number of activities that don't work - but it also included an iMax cinema. This was the first time I have ever been to an iMax cinema anywhere. Not only was it wonderful to sit in a theatre in this Kingdom where cinemas have been banned since the mid 1970s, but the film we saw was absolutely brilliant. It was called Arabia made in association with the National Geographic and narrated by Helen Miren. It presented the 2 past golden ages of the Middle East and posed that we could be entered the 3rd great age if the opportunities of education are realised and the oil money invested to build a strong educated society. If you get the chance to buy (online), hire or see this - do so. We are so ignorant of the past achievements of this part of the world and the beginning of Islam. So much miss information is presented in the media that the picture of the middle east is of a backward, women hating, west hating society. Whilst there are those types about - that is not the reality, nor the reality of Islam. Islam has been highjacked by some mad people, just like the fundamentalist of any religion highjack the central tenants of the faith. Believe it or not, many people here are terrified of the west, believing that they will be persecuted, attacked or shot if they travelled there. We seem to be always scared of what we don't know or understand.
Well enough standing on the soap-box. Home in 2 weeks for a 5 week summer break before back here and hard at it again. Looking forward to seeing you and sharing a drink - something that we don't have past non alcoholic beer (that comes in many flavours: apple, peach, pomegranate, pineapple, etc!)
My first placement in Riyadh is galloping to a close. I can't believe we have been here since September. Time has been spent on trying to prioritise the work, identify the major strategies, planning and delivering professional learning and working with teachers in their classrooms. Every aspect of our work has been well received and this provides the incentive to keep working hard at developing the best path forward. (Gosh - sound like a business management text).
This is not to ignore the fun we have on almost a daily occurrence. We travelled to Al Khobar last week for a 2 day workshop with the 11 principals. This annual Retreat has been a regular feature on the calendar for the school over the past few years, but has only been accessible for the male principals. This is due to the cultural consideration that women are generally not permitted to travel without a male relative. Therefore the previous leadership determined that this would be too difficult to organise, and the women were omitted. Ron initially thought that the women could have a 2 day event in Riyadh coming in each day for the workshops. After some consideration and discussion with his deputy (Mr Abdulrahman) they decided to open it for the women. Abdulrahman meet with the women and outlined the proposal and then asked them individually if they would attend. They could bring a male relative if they chose. All attended, with 2-3 bringing sons with them, who we never saw and presume staying in the room playing video games or watching pay tv. The women travelled by plane, the men drove themselves and we travelled by large 4 wheel drives in a convoy!!! So I have seen the desert - not the Empty Quarter, but the desert no less. The highway was 4 land (each way) all the way to the coast and the drivers generally sat between 140 - 150km, and they weren't the fastest on the road. We think the speed limit is 120km.
This trip provided us with our first sight of camels. We had the driver laughing as we would get so excited in seeing more camels of differing hues: brown, camel(!), cream and almost black. We saw baby camels, camels in large herds, camels with herdsman and camels at the camel markets. Ron has proposed that we buy a camel and have it agisted (spelling?) and on occasions head out to visit it and have afternoon tea in the desert. It is not unusual for families in the city to head to the desert and set up a tent, light a fire and cook and prepare coffee and spend the time enjoying the desert (and maybe their camel(s)).
The work in Al Khobar included a morning visit to a school - which was wonderful and provided all of us with much to consider for application back in Riyadh - and a visit to SciTech. This was like Science Works - with equal number of activities that don't work - but it also included an iMax cinema. This was the first time I have ever been to an iMax cinema anywhere. Not only was it wonderful to sit in a theatre in this Kingdom where cinemas have been banned since the mid 1970s, but the film we saw was absolutely brilliant. It was called Arabia made in association with the National Geographic and narrated by Helen Miren. It presented the 2 past golden ages of the Middle East and posed that we could be entered the 3rd great age if the opportunities of education are realised and the oil money invested to build a strong educated society. If you get the chance to buy (online), hire or see this - do so. We are so ignorant of the past achievements of this part of the world and the beginning of Islam. So much miss information is presented in the media that the picture of the middle east is of a backward, women hating, west hating society. Whilst there are those types about - that is not the reality, nor the reality of Islam. Islam has been highjacked by some mad people, just like the fundamentalist of any religion highjack the central tenants of the faith. Believe it or not, many people here are terrified of the west, believing that they will be persecuted, attacked or shot if they travelled there. We seem to be always scared of what we don't know or understand.
Well enough standing on the soap-box. Home in 2 weeks for a 5 week summer break before back here and hard at it again. Looking forward to seeing you and sharing a drink - something that we don't have past non alcoholic beer (that comes in many flavours: apple, peach, pomegranate, pineapple, etc!)
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| The Desert. We were heading across to Al Khobar which is on the east coast just next to Bahrain |
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| The trip back a couple of days later was very different. It was wet! Camels in the desert. |
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| Proof that it rains in Saudi Arabia |
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