Reflections On My First Year Teaching Abroad

Today was a beautiful day! I gave my students farewell hugs and watched them depart for the summer.  Hooray! Hallelujah! Wahoo!  I have officially made it through my first year of living and teaching in Kuwait!

Our entire kindergarten class and teachers wore this shirt today! 

When I looked into teaching abroad opportunities, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.  I did not want to teach English. I wanted to do the same things I did in an American classroom while living in another country.  (I wrote about the process of finding this job here.) Thankfully, my current teaching position has allowed me to do that.  I teach an American curriculum at an American school.  I teach according to Common Core standards, which are used in most states in the USA. I thought I would write a great comparative blogpost about my teaching experience here versus back home in the USA.  Not today.  In case you didn't just read above, today was my last full day with students.  I'm exhausted.  I can, however, share some random bullet points related to this topic. 

• A class of 15 students with two adults is lovely!  I have no complaints about the student to teacher  ratio. 
• I experienced my first "rain day" here.  It was raining in the morning, school was cancelled throughout the country.  Rain is serious business in a desert climate. 

the "naughty kid"

• I think every classroom in every country has a notorious naughty kid.  You know that kid that is popular for all the wrong reasons who parents ask about at conferences. Thankfully, this year I only had one of those little angels and not 4-5 of them. 
• I felt relieved to be able to focus more on teaching without several stops during the day to deal with disruptive behavior.  As mentioned above, children here do misbehave, but I experienced with much less of this compared to my last few years of teaching in North, Carolina. 

This week's forecast. It was still 90 at 10:25 pm when I took this screen shot.

• Our students played outside year round.  This means they were outside going strong whether it was 110F or 50F.   In case you are wondering, 110 is NOT fun for supervising recess or carpool time at dismissal.

This is one fancy ride for the kids to spill their juice boxes in after school

• I went from a high poverty public school to a private school with 1 year's tuition that is equal to 1.5 years at the  University that I graduated from.  Kids are kids. They enjoyed play, laughter, and learning.  The kids here are just more likely to have passport stamps from international travel and live in nannies. 
• I had more parents who spoke fluent English here in the Middle East than I did back in America.  My inability to speak Arabic was not a barrier for communicating with parents here.

my next bullet points bring me the most joy! 

• This job pays my rent so I haven't paid rent or utilities in the last 9 months!
• I've paid off $10,000 in debt!
• I've visited 5 new countries and will add 1 more to my passport next week! 

This year has been a busy one.  It has included a fair share of ups and downs.  When I think about all of these things, I know that I still have no regrets about my choice to move to Kuwait. Have you ever considered living abroad?