I think that energy gets re-directed into a bank and siphoned into the students, who by the end of the week are just getting their groove on.
Come Monday and the teachers walk in battle-ready and refreshed, whilst the students slump on their desks in extended slumber; hoodies pulled over their eyes and a make-shift backpack pillow propping them off the desk. The bus deposits us outside one of the main entrances to school to be greeted by security and we proffer our finger tips or eye balls for scanning. The automated ‘thank you’ in response to the recognition of my own unique body patterns turns out to be the only thank you I generally get in a day. Well - thank YOU.
That is generally the most organised part of life here.
The daily round up of wayward students then begins as they all put maximum effort into hiding so as to avoid the 15 minute daily assemblies where the Egyptian and International School’s anthems are sung. This part is like herding cats. It’s the same daily mess and the same daily battle. I am always left thinking about how it is such a negative start to the day as kids get shamed into compliance.
But still - isn’t it just easier to do the right thing?
The school day is a battle-field of varying approaches to warfare, with the odd oasis of calm (generally the 30 minute ‘break-that-isnt-a-break’) we get which divides the teaching day into two even halves.
If we are lucky enough to garnish a FULL non-contact lesson, we may even be able to prep for the next few days ahead or attempt to stay ahead of the marking, but more often than not I find myself covering someone else’s class, and even if only for 40 minutes of it, it is enough to add more burden onto the shoulders of us already exhausted teaching crew.
It is unheard of to be a sub-teacher, whilst being a full-time teacher in New Zealand, and it would only ever happen at the end of the school year if teachers of senior grades find themselves with too many free hours on their hands.
Fair enough then.
The students roll into the classroom with nonchalant enthusiasm for the day ahead, and usually spend more time on games and trying to hide their phones than engaging in actual lessons. Toilet visits punctuate their otherwise extremely busy day, and often this turns into a man-hunt, as students use the opportunity to visit friends, call their drivers for food deliveries or to play a quick game of football on the field.
Anything rather than being in a classroom - yep, I get it.
The energy dedicated to doing everything but the task at hand, is truly noteworthy, and the follow-up groaning heard during reporting time is also impressive, especially when they realise their messing around DOES have consequences. I am sure the students never hear the word ‘NO” at home. They are more than happy to argue, in your face, at grades you give them - swearing to God they worked so hard (on chat GPT), to produce the essay they handed in, and when you suggest they sit with you for a verbal assessment, they somehow suddenly can’t speak.
Break time however is always a time to be treasured if on field duty - not only just to break up any fights which often occur, but to watch the physical skill and flamboyance of the kids playing football. They use their whole body, in huge sweeping open movements - a style of football I have never seen in New Zealand kids (perhaps we don’t play enough there to get this good at it!); tricky footwork, speed and agility coupled with untamed investment into this short hiatus of other-place transporting, I truly appreciate the athleticism of the boys I teach.
I barely ever see girls out there. In fact the girls usually sit around in small huddles on the edges of the field, oblivious to the football landing almost on them, catching up with the latest school dramas. It’s a microcosm of fascination. A sea of dark hair and tall lanky bodies - such is the Egyptian phenotype - and a penchant for laughter and good humour.
There is never a dull moment.
If I am lucky enough to get some teaching in, it has only been because I had had to stop and consequences kids a dozen or so times; send kids out; separate kids; warn kids - just so I can gain some sense of sanity. Self-regulation is a foreign concept here amongst these kids and when you take a look outside into the streets of Cairo you can see why.
We cannot hope to change a well-embedded culture within an anglicised school system.
And neither should we try to.
However, some sensibility would go a long way, especially when meeting botox’d and lip-filled baby-doll Mums who clearly spend more time on their faces than they do bringing up their kids to be decent respectful humans and they cannot understand why their little muffin is not an angel at school. Its all about how things look here. Once you can accept that, seeing everyone doing selfies every second on the streets in random places, becomes the norm.
My teaching day is over by 4.20 on a ‘late’ day but usually by 3.30pm and we board the bus in exhausted silence to be dropped off back in the calming surrounds of Maadi with its overhanging trees filtering through the softening afternoon light.
Sometimes a little chatter on the bus to debrief or discuss an occurrence might poke holes in the silence, but generally most people are lost to the world outside as it passes by the bus window.
