A Lack of Art

Choueifati mores dictate that we look down on arts and glorify the sciences. My school just before Choueifat was renowned in the district for their artists and graphical designers, so for me, art classes were always detailed and more interesting than most subjects. We discussed simple artistic techniques and histories of some artists and works. I remember my last lesson of Visual Arts was on one point perspective drawing, a technique I still use today in my random sketches. My final Art exam was to draw my own leg and shoe in 50 minutes. I’m proud to say I got 47/50.

Then it happened. I was forced to move to Choueifat in the eighth grade. Among many things, I was shocked to learn that I would only have one lesson of art a week, on Tuesday (The fourth day of the school week at the time). After a long, grueling three days of mostly textbook math and science, I wondered how creative the art sessions would have to be to balance it out. I waited and waited and eventually it came.

Walking down the corridor to the art room with the rest of the class, I asked a new friend of mine what they last did in art class. He raised an eyebrow at me and laughed. Being the idiotic eighth grader I was, I laughed along and continued walking down. I was among the last ones to reach the room. What I saw there can most clearly be described as chaos.

You see, art is barely even considered a subject at Choueifat. It’s more of a free lesson where you can just sit around and chat with your friends or grab a piece of paper and start folding. The teacher would just aimlessly walk around the room, mumbling, mostly in Arabic. The only art I ever did learn in Choueifat was origami, from a classmate.

The world is not based on Science and Math. The arts are just as important, if not more. The “L” section for literature and arts is still strongly scientifically based, with major subjects such as history, statistics, business studies and calculus. Arts and Literature aren’t even compulsory subjects in the L section. The students deserve the right to choose and not to have these ideologies imposed on them.

An Ex-Choueifati Speaks

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who left Choueifat after the ninth grade (-KIRA- for those who know him). The topic of Choueifat came up and I told him about my site. He decided to edit the wiki. I wanted more people to read it, so I posted it here:

Highly noticable is the lack of true "student activities" such as sports and the arts. Students are able to take a minimal amount of these activities during the first 10 grades of the school, but as the students go through the system these activites are replaced by more hours of testing, and this has an adverse effect on the overall education of the student:

1) It is well noted in many psychological journals that creativity and the arts are an integral part of the learning process, and that participating in art and playing an instrument help a student to learn better in the classroom.
2) Students who go through this system end up as "educational robots" instead of "elites" as studying is emphasized above all else. These students rarely have a true hobby or interest that they regularly practice, and any such activity is frowned upon by the school as a "deterrant to the learning process" that takes time away from studying.
3) Another important part of a child's growth process is left out by the SABIS system: social skills. Rarely does a class involve any interaction between students, and if it does it is more of a informal conversation than a true interaction that would be found in the real world. For example, public speaking is one topic that is not covered in the system. Even though the school has "group leaders" and other such functions, no real leadership abilities are learned, as everying ultimately falls on the teacher.

This guy is a legend. Cheers!

The Points Method

Ah, the points method. All Choueifatis have heard of it (In Mr. G's lectures, over and over and over again...), but very few actually know what it is. Basically, it's the method by which the teachers are supposed to teach the students. To simplify it, we can just break it down into a four step method.

1. Teacher explains numbered concept from textbook, as listed in Lesson Plan or Pacing Chart (Sometimes they differ, yet we are never told which one to follow.)
2. Teacher directs general question on explained concept to class.
3. Students work on the questions individually and check in assigned "groups" of four or five.
4. The "group leader" answers the teacher.

The process may theoretically sound good to a non-choueifati, but just like communism, it is very impractical. All in all, the process takes upwards of twenty minutes a concept, and the pacing charts just don't give us that much time. There's hundreds of other smaller problems with the method that all add up and render it almost useless.

I for one, have yet to attend a single class where the method is 100% enforced. I would love to attend a lesson by Mr. G, just to see if he actually practices what he preaches.

I See Stalinism!

I’ve had a few e-mails describing atrocious Choueifati supervisor behavior and decided to share a couple with you all.

Mr. Salim from Al-Ain Choueifat has apparently stopped some children from playing tag with the opposite sex. He has also ignored reports of the PE teacher there throwing a metal rod at a student in grade 9. Mr. Khalaf from Dubai Choueifat forces students to trim or remove their facial hair and attempts to control the length of all students’ hair. Not too long and not to short. If students protest, they are given detentions and told that it’s “the school rules” by “upper authorities”. I see Stalinism.

There are many other stories on these unnecessarily brutal supervisors in the Choueifat schools. I choose not to disclose them until I can background them. In the meantime, stay tuned as I try to log what else I see in the Choueifat schools.