Students' reflections

My teens were inspired by another class of teens to prepare a survey, and ask fellow students their questions. Today we collated answers and prepared the presentation. So proud of their collaborative efforts, their enthusiasm, some emerging leaders (strong women) and their feedback about what they thought they achieved. They will present their information to one of our senior teachers next week, adding to their levels of confidence. 

We took it a bit easy after this, and just made conversation. One of them asked why I didn't approve of their large families. I explained that I was very surprised as it's not normal in my culture, and no element of disapproval whatsoever. She proceeded to tell me she had 17 uncles and 4 aunts - from the same mother, but 10 uncles had died in the war with Syria. Pretty powerful stuff. Another student told me his grandfather had had 7 wives. I asked why. Apparently his mother never approved of his choices, so he would divorce them, find a home for them, and then marry another. He also told me that he'd lost two brothers in the war when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. I commented that the mothers are very powerful and many of the students commented that that's the norm. I've also heard the divorce rate is very high - I'd been told because they marry too young, but this is another reason. All my students - Kuwaiti, Egyptian and Syrian/Turkish reported having very large families. So different. They live in big homes altogether and this is their life. They were surprised at how small my family is. They all had stories to tell of large families and family tragedy. More than I felt we would probably experience. 

A moving and powerful experience for me as a teacher, felt quite deeply. Took a while to rebalance before I had to go teach my class of adults (in name only for some of them...).

And another request from a former colleague - I'm divorced and I have four kids. Help me find a job in Kuwait as it's not easy in Egypt anymore she said. Thousands come over, I don't know how many succeed.