"None of us are as smart as all of us"

Sunday starts the work week here and we started our first full day of orientation. It was pretty amazing filled with details on the Abu Dhabi Vision for the next 20 years. I was excited to see the city planning that is going, the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day," really doesn't apply here. The four themes of the vision for 2030 are Green, Live, Work, and Connect. The The are plans for a more green city, a community based plan for housing, water taxis somewhat like Venice, and a world class transit system.

Then we learned about some of the challenges we as educators and this new education reform will meet. I was astounded at the low numbers of students making it directly into the colleges here in the Emirates. The facilitator said it best when he said imagine if in the States you were told that in order to get into college you must speak fluent Chinese, well this is essentially the current expectation of the students of the Emirates as they are expected to speak fluent English to make it in college which leaves their direct entry rate from high school to college under 10%. Other challenges that the emirates face that are not to different from the challenges we face in many schools in the states are poor student results and students performing below grade level. Of course they have 90% literacy in their own language, they are struggling with their own language. There is also a large absenteeism problem among the students.

The education reform is focused on a Bilingual approach that enforces reading, writing,and speaking in both English and Arabic. Which had me thinking about my ESL students in the states, the approach is full immersion and the students speak fluent Spanish at home with family and then learn to read and write in English. There is no literacy support in their home language and there skills in English are mediocre at best, this system simply isn't working. I think I will learn a lot about how effective the bilingual approach is with continued support until college in both languages and I believe the results will be astounding. Suddenly instead of a speck on this planet I am starting to feel more like a dot with a purpose!

The next portion of the orientation was a very informative presentation on Ramadan. Ramadan is the 9th month of the Islamic calendar and its start and finish is determined by the lunar calendar; as are all the Islamic holidays. The word Ramadan means dryness or heat in Arabic. Fasting means to abstain from food, water, smoking, intimacy, gossip, and swearing from sunrise to sunset. The first meal before sunset is called Sahoor and then they have their first prayer and then the main meal comes at sunset and is called Iftar and this is before the fourth prayer of the day (five prayers a day).

Then they put us in a bus and took us to Al Mawaheb an all girls school.

We had some Arabic lessons and I learned that my throaty noise known as "kh" is going to need some serious work, it almost sounds like you are hacking a lugi for a more disgusting illustration lol. Here are a few phrases (pretty phonetic):

• Hello al-salam alaykum
• Hello (response to someone saying hello) wa alaykum al-salam
• Goodbye (person leaving) ma'a salama
• Goodbye (person staying) alla ysalmak (y says "e")
• Good morning sabah al-kheir
• Good afternoon masa' al-kheir
• Good night tisbah ala-kheir
• Welcome ahlan wa sahlan OR marhaba

Today we get to meet Mr Ali Alsaloom, he is the founder and cultural consultant for Embrace Arabia. He is an author, cultural consultant, professional speaker, and TV show host, and we each get an Ask Ali book! Here is a link to his website http://www.ask-ali.com/main.asp?pageID=476

On a side note last evening was the closest we have come to a normal night of sleep! We all went to sleep around 8:30 pm and woke up this morning around 4:00 am. I will update you after today and hope to take pictures!