The Brainwashing Sessions. (Part 3)

The above is a fairly accurate sketch of Mr G, probably drawn in one of his Advising lessons by a very bored individual, tired of listening to the same things over and over again. Imagine watching that hideous face for one hour straight, with no breaks or discussion. How he can continue to blab on and on about that rubbish is beyond me. EVERY videoconference, he will never fail to mention that Choueifat is in fact, the best school in the world before citing his obscure "friends" as references who agree with him. I recently heard that he actually thinks he's fooling us as well.

"[You know you went to Choueifat if] You wondered if Mr. Germanos really did have friends in the CIA and the FBI." - Choueifat=Hell? Facebook Group

See, Mr G likes to tell us anecdotes about his so called friends and family. These can range from his son who cryed when he fell down the stairs, to his friends in the CIA who were simply "amazed" by the SABIS system. Well they might not be that far from the truth; I mean, I was amazed as well. He tells us about how inefficient and unproductive other schools are. He tells us about how Ivy League and Oxbridge univerities are "hungry" for students like us. Basically, he talks about Choueifat as if it were more than just an insignificant speck-stain on the planet.

Choueifat Approved Activities

"No playing cards of any kind allowed in school. Cards are associated with gambling and students can always take part in a more productive activity". - School Rules

My friends and I have a total of at least eighteen card decks currently with the head supervisor. Why we can't play "Spades" or "Bluff" in the breaks, I'll never understand. Seriously, we're not ALL gambling addicts who are just looking for a fix at school. If that were the case, I assure you that we would have found some other way to do it. Gambling isn't really Choueifat's main problem with playing cards because even bloody Pokemon Cards were confiscated from the primary kids!

What could the motive be behind banning cards then? Read the excerpt from the rules I quoted above: "students can always take part in a more productive activity". Choueifat wants the students to be PRODUCTIVE in their breaktimes. They want them to put down anything and everything they enjoy and go back to WORK. Children are enlisted as hall monitors (read: guards) and "environment prefects" (read: cleaners) instead of being allowed to play tag. Some students are actually brainwashed into thinking that their duties are fun.

How sick and twisted.

(Thanks for the idea, Alexa)

The Books. (Part 1)

And now I’m finally on the topic of Choueifati books! There’s just so much to say…where can we start? The English course, you say? Okay.

The year before I first moved to Choueifat, I read the likes of Beowulf and The Merchant of Venice in school. Once I moved in the eighth grade, we had to read biographies of Henry the Great and Thomas Jefferson. First of all, who the hell assigns eighth graders to read biographies? They should be given famous creative literary works instead of simplified life stories of politicians. Secondly, the books were something like 80 pages thick with double spaced fonts. I was reading books that size at age 10, and I was still reading a lot less than most of the people in my grade at the time.

Along with these “Class Reader” books, we had Dictionaries and Vocabulary Lists picking on particular words in the stories. We had to memorise definitions and circle the correct answer in the exam, regardless of how obscure the definition would be or how irrelevant the word was. We would then proceed to forget the words after the exam. This may work to some extent in the lower primary grades, but one cannot expect high school students to put up with it.

The literature syllabus in Choueifat needs to be thoroughly revised and updated. The “SABIS approved” class readers aren’t doing much good for the students at all.

Positive And Negative Points.

I have something to confess. I am a "head of department" in Student Life. The school gives me tasks and missions to do, and like a clueless puppet, I do them.

Usually....

Well... more like rarely.

...

Umm...Never?

Anyway, the main reason I do this is for the universities, simply because they generally don't like a huge statement on your report card saying that "This student needs to participate more in Student Life Activities".

How this system works (or fails to work, rather) is through "positive and negative points". Each detention and failed exam is considered a negative point. To "delete" these negative points, students are supposed to spend one hour of their time in an exam hall, whether it be in a lunch break, afterschool or on a weekend. Most of this time is generally spent staring at and scribbling on a desk, all the time having unplugged surveillance cameras staring at you from all corners of the room. Choueifat figures that leaving the students isolated for an hour will teach them that what they did was wrong.

Positive points are gained after a student signs up for a club, activity, peer tutoring or as a prefect. After this, no matter how much work they do, they will gain a certain number of positive points every week. It's ridiculous how useless the system is if it rewards anyone who signs up, rather than those who work.

After all these points are tallied at the end of a term (when the student gets his or her report card), one of two generic comments is given. Either the first "This student needs to participate more in Student Life Activities" or "Excellent involvement in Student Life Activities". Sadly, neither truly reflects what's happening.

They Took Our Sports Away. (Part 3)

Want to know why I haven't posted for over two weeks? Well, it's because I've been happier than usual. Want to know why? The regional tournament is coming up and everyone's working harder to find time to practice sports and athletics. This is the only time of the year that Choueifat somewhat promotes sport and physical activity, solely to beat the other schools and bring back trophies to display along with all those university acceptances that they treasure so.
Back to the point, I've been happier than usual. I've been scoring higher on exams and I feel a lot more motivated in general. I'm now a lot more determined and confident in everything I do. In class, I can manage to stay awake longer than usual. I don't feel like a lazy git any more. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it feels like a wisp of school spirit is actually forming. Why? Because of sports.
Sports should be a huge part of school life. Staff and students alike should be rooting for the home team against rival schools, all for the sake of healthy competition. Sports releases endorphins in the brain, creating a sense of well being. It's completely necessary for a successful school to make sure that their students engage in physical activity frequently. Again, I stress the fact that school, as well as life in general, isn't all about academics.
Most of my classmates and teachers believe that PE should be compulsary in schools in grades 11 and 12. In Choueifat, it's obviously not. Hell, it's not even optional. PE is slowly removed from our timetables in Grade 10 and by Grade 11, it's gone. It's not even available as an elective subject. Along with Arts and Music (and anything else that has anything to do with liberty), Sports is not recognised as a "real subject" in the school. It's sad because after the regional tournaments, We're going to have to revert back to our lusterless Choueifati lives.

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.

Some Mr. G Quotes

I'm feeling very lazy, so all I'm going to do this week is post up some of Mr. G's quotes from the Student Life video conference last Saturday. Enjoy!

"Your enemy would say: "Let's go home and have fun."."
"We want students to enjoy school by giving them more work"
[Referring to us senior prefects]"You are the elite. You are the selected. You should do the dirty work."
"The heavy guns are over there; feel free to use them."

These are all geniune Mr. G-quotes. I have a few more (Did he actually expect me to listen to what he was saying rather than jot down notes for my anti-choueifat blog?), but the four above would be the cream of the crop.
I don't think I even need to comment. Really, the quotes speak for themselves.

The Regional Dictator. (Part 3)

Mr. G is a man who likes to judge things on his own. He never values the opinions and input of others anywhere near how much he values his own. I don’t recall him ever taking a student’s opinion seriously, whether in person or over the video conference. No-one can influence the regional dictator.
This post is dedicated to his habit of taking stabs at the idea of sentimental value. He is possibly the most cynical person on Earth, assessing everything only by its material worth. I remember a lecture when he ridiculed the price of diamonds, Rolls Royce cars, Rolexes and paintings by Picasso as opposed to fake copies. Normally, I wouldn’t mind if someone voiced this opinion to me, but Mr. G had the nerve to broadcast it to 600 students and not even allow us to disagree. Basically because it’s the SABIS way. Little does he realize that most of the students have parents with diamonds on their fingers...
We’re not debating the idea of sentimentality; we’re going against the apparent authority Mr. G has to try to force his opinions on us.
Thanks for the e-mail

The Brainwashing Sessions. (Part 2)

“Choueifat is the best school in the world!”
What do you think when you hear “Careers” or “Advising”? University guidance? Information on courses? Major career fields? Perhaps just a simple Q&A session for the students to ask for help in their decisions?
Hahaha, are you kidding me? Through almost the whole Careers and Advising courses, Mr. G decided that it would be more fun to teach us Biology and Cell Division, because apparently we need it more.
Honestly, the closest thing the Choueifat schools have to a real Career counselor or advisor is the “University Department” in the Student Life Organisation. Some schools don’t even have that, and are forced to just turn to this chap broadcasting himself live to something like 600 students a day.
One wonders what the point of Careers and Advising is if we don’t get any relevant advice.
Thanks for the e-mail.

A Taste Of Choueifati Logic.

Rarely is there proper reasoning behind the decisions Choueifat makes. One can only imagine the conversation that took place before they began on a new branch in Erbil, Iraq.
“You know, I don’t think developed or developing countries are the way to go for us. They’re not getting us enough money.”
“Yeah I know! Perhaps we should try war torn countries.”
“War torn countries? That's ingenious! How about Afghanistan?”
“No, they’re closer to recovering than some other countries.”
“Oh, I know! Iraq!”
“Perfect. Let’s get to it!”
Not that it affects the current Choueifati students so much, but being able to laugh at and mock the school board’s decisions is a harsh deterrent to the reputation of the school. There are hundreds of other examples of twisted Choueifati logic that could simply be described as “stupid”.
The following question was on a Grade 10 Business Studies exam:
“Which of the following are not disadvantages of nationalization as opposed to privatization?” Way to go Choueifat. You’re confusing hundreds of students with your own stupidity and you’re showing off the fact that you are incapable of the making even the most simple decisions.

They Took Our Sports Away. (Part 2)

An anonymous friend recently pointed out to me how completely wrong it was of Choueifat to keep us from making use of our talents and ambitions. How they strive to block off everything but those utterly worthless SABIS books.
They say that they want us to take part in as many extracurricular activities outside school as possible. Obviously, they hadn’t thought it through before they told us that. How are we supposed to do anything outside Choueifat when we have 9 hour school days plus travel time?
“On the weekend?” you may suggest. You would be wrong. Our weekends are considered to be working days. If the school wishes, they have the power to drag us into school for random prefect chores and exams, or just for their own sadistic pleasure.
I recall many an incident when a fellow student would be forced to abandon his or her dreams because Choueifat simply wanted him or her to. Guitar classes, stage performances, sport training and even charity fundraisers have always been frowned upon by the Choueifati administration. Anything “skipped” on weekends or after school has always had severe repercussions.
I thank my anonymous friend for pointing this out to me. Normally, this would have caught my attention, but it’s just such a typical Choueifati trait.

Choueifat Needs To Understand. (Part 1)

Choueifat needs to understand what the students really need. How far will their studies alone take them? If the students are to do exactly what Choueifat wants them to, they’ll end up becoming outright unsociable morons. As such, eventually in their career, they’ll hit a wall. You can’t get too far at all unless you have these skills Choueifat is so hesitant to provide.
Later on, it becomes more about how you deal with others. How convincing you are. How decisive you are. How you present yourself. Choueifat can’t put these skills into textbooks or tests. Hell, they don’t want to. Their mission is to pilot their students into university and then abandon them completely, regardless of whether the student is doing well or not. But there’s no need to worry, they’ll be sure to let you know if any are doing well in the form of those pieces of paper that they call “achievements”.

The Regional Dictator. (Part 2)

Picture a Grade 12 Advising Lesson.
“One piece of advice that helped me through university and life: Always do the opposite of what your enemy wants you to do.”
I heard sniggers from all around the video conferencing room. It was yet another memorable quote by Mr. G.
He went on to talk about how all Choueifatis are to hate other students because “they are our enemies” in that they compete with us in external examinations and places in universities. To even suggest that students in other schools want us to fail so that they will do better proves how ignorant and cynical Mr. G truly is.How could one even imagine how he expects us to hold a grain of respect for him when all he “advises” us to do is to be misanthropic?
_{I know this is a short post, but I have weeklies to study for...}

AMS Tests And Weekly Exams

One of the scariest facts about Choueifat to newcomers is the number of exams and tests they will be doing a week. I can still remember my first day at Choueifat, laughing when my friend told me that we were going to have an English test, third period. Then I realized he wasn’t kidding…
The average student in the seventh grade has something along the lines of four weekly AMS tests and two weekly periodic exams. By the tenth grade, this generally escalates to something like 9 weekly AMS tests and three to four weekly periodic exams. Every single one counts towards the final grade point average.
A failed AMS would mean a “make-up” exam after school. Failure in the make-up would mean a weekend “retest”. And on the weekend, the student would have to keep repeating it until he or she would pass.
Is there really a point? I mean, we are pretty well prepared for written exams by the end of grade 12, but sacrificing 13 hours a week solely on exams seems a little excessive. Not to mention how tired the students can be after three hours in the exam hall. Then they expect us to concentrate in class for the rest of the day.
What a truly amazing system!

The Regional Dictator. (Part 1)

The Regional Director of the ISC branches in the Gulf is man of many names. “Mr. G”, “Ratman”, "Germaniac" and “Jumanji” to name a few (Sadly, I’m not exaggerating.). I have been, and will be referring to him as Mr. G in my blog for the sake of confidentiality. His name though, is not of much importance. We are supposed to judge people by their actions and this man’s actions have heavily affected the last twenty-odd year groups of Choueifati students.
“Choueifat is the best school in the world!”
He would tell us, over and over (and over and over). Advising, Careers, and any other videoconference he would host. He would take things like the average graduating GPA in the UK and compare it to Choueifat’s, thinking that the students wouldn’t realize how misleading the statistics were. Of course we’re going to have higher Physics grades when the average UK student is allowed to have a life!
“Choueifat is the best school in the world!”
The videoconferences were also filled with post-graduate stories of Mr. G’s private club of “Power Prefects”. (Haha!). The basic layout would be “Dear Mr. G, I would like to thank you and the SABIS system for the huge advantage you have given me in university. Yours faithfully, X”. It would be painfully easy to tell that X was lying, and that he/she simply sent the letter in to get it published in the Advising/Careers textbooks. Or, it could be one of the rare freak students who Mr. G had managed to completely transform into a pure Choueifati. Truly sad stories.
I think that any Choueifati would agree with me when I say that Mr. G is probably one of the most interesting people on the planet. I mean, who else can so blindly believe in the SABIS system and everything it stands for?

The Brainwashing Sessions.

For students in the eighth grade and above, Mr. G holds weekly “Advising” and “Careers” lessons in Abu Dhabi, which is also video broadcasted live to the other regional ISC branches. In these lessons, the innocent students are repeatedly told that Choueifat is “The Best School in the World”. Ha. They are told how they are to think and how they are to behave whilst in and outside of school. It is here where much of the Choueifati mentality is planted in the minds of the children. Although, even at that young age, I thought that both the ideology and the classes were inane. I can even recall some of my friends and I releasing grasshoppers and throwing eggs in the classes…
In these classes, we are supposed to be taught that it is good to be a snitch. That it is good to get other students into trouble, no matter how minimal a mistake they make. This is a serious moral and social problem in some Choueifat schools, especially in the younger grades, when they haven't matured enough to know better. You would probably find that a large portion of the comments on this blog are complaints about it (See: Mr. G and his “Shadow Government” or “Power Prefects” as he likes to call them).
I often discuss with my friends what would happen if a brainwashed grade eight Choueifati were to move to a non-Choueifati school. When it actually does happen, we could take bets on how long it would be before he or she becomes a social outcast…

The Opinion Of An Older Non-Choueifati.

Spoon says (7:06 PM):
i think my old schools going ur way though
Spoon says (7:06 PM):
new principal is an ass
Spoon says (7:06 PM):
turning the students into drones
Spoon says (7:06 PM):
they just dont understand
Spoon says (7:07 PM):
by doing that they r robbing u
Spoon says (7:07 PM):
of social skills essentially

I couldn’t agree more. Although in our case it’s not so much the staff. It’s the entire SABIS system (and the ideology of Mr. G…).
Spoon was telling me about how his or her school used to be more focused on extracurricular activites rather than academics in the past. It was one of the top schools in the city then, and it still is today. I wonder why Choueifat cannot ease on the academic side and still maintain a school of high standards.

Detentions And The "Discipline Sheet" System.

See, Choueifat has managed to create a system to make it just that little bit easier for teachers to generously distribute detentions. Every possible reason, from "Talking in Class" to "Setting a Fire" is coded on the back of the "Discipline Sheet" which the "Class Prefect" has to make sure is signed by every teacher of every class. All the teacher has to do is write the student's name and the code of the "offense" on the sheet and the student instantly loses at least an hour of his or her life.
Of course, since our breaks are usually full of “extra” (read: mandatory) classes, we usually can’t do lunchtime detentions. After-school or even weekend detentions are frequent for students in all grades. These detentions tend to pile up, forcing students to stay seated in a dead quiet exam hall with a textbook for three to four hours at a time.
Apparently, Choueifat didn’t think that having classes from 8:00am to 4:00pm (or even 5:00pm, depending on classes.) every day was enough to build a student body that despises the system.

They Took Our Sports Away. (Part 1)

It's funny how they try to make maths problems sound less dull by using words like "Exercises" and "Activities". It's probably just another daft Choueifati attempt to compensate for the complete lack of physical activity in the higher grades.
In Choueifat, most students are forced to “drop” PE in the tenth grade. In the eleventh, there is no mention of sport or PE whatsoever. If the students wish to play some kind of sport, they have to go through a long and grueling process of registering a “club” at the SLO office.
Not that we even have enough time to play anything. In an average grade 12 student school week (44 hours), we usually get about two (three if we’re lucky) free periods in which we can throw a ball around. Of course, we’re advised to either work for SLO or study in an exam hall for the duration of the free period. Generally, by the time we’ve arranged to get a basketball or a football, we’ve wasted about half the break…

The Opinion of a Fellow Choueifati

Grenade says (8:25 PM):i hate my life
Grenade says (8:25 PM):this sucks

The above is the basic overall outcome of the Choueifat Effect (not to be confused with normal teen depression). For over 120 years, the SABIS system has ruined lives through Choueifatism. The students have been tortured, brainwashed and given no chance to lead a normal school life. We have been given incredibly excessive workloads with little or no proper recreation. There is no school spirit. There will never be school spirit. There is no bright side. There will never be a bright side. There is no hope. There will never be hope.

The Choueifat Effect.

Let's Start With A Few Photoshopped Logos!