Day 5 in the Kingdom: Education

I have a short time before we fly to the west coast of Saudi Arabia. We will be staying at Jeddah which is very near the Red Sea. Hopefully they I will be able to get my computer connected to the Internet at the hotel so we can begin to Skype tomorrow. I have been using the desktop here at Steineke Hall which has worked for most things I need. It is important that we make sure we have back up plans when we travel because not everything is the same and it is not as easy to get things to work.

1. Today was very enlightening. We began the day by visiting the Dhahran 3rd Street Middle School. This middle school is used to educate the students that have parents who work for Aramco, but are not from Saudi Arabia. It was very similar to schools back in the states, but it was unique to Rockford in that it was very diverse. Students are primarily taught in English, but they were also teaching Arabic. There were many clubs to be involved in and different levels for sports. Soccer, baseball, and basketball all seemed to be very popular to the students. What I found extremely interesting is this is where the students received their education and grew up. They live on the Aramco Compound and enjoy the perks of living there, while also having to make sure they are culturally appropriate off the compound. Students had about the same number of days in school, but there were many opportunities for different types of learing throughout the summer. The school is from Kindergarten to 9th grade. After ninth grade many of the students attend a boarding school away from their parents. There are some opportunities for students to study only a few miles away from the compound, but many of the students traveled internationally to continue their education. In fact, many would go to study in the United States for the very first time. Everyone we talked to seemed very confident about their decisions to send their children abroad to finish their high school career, including many of the students.

These are the things these students consider as they grow up.
How would you feel about studying in another country for your 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years?
Would it make it easier if all your friends were going to travel to learn?
Where would you want to go? Why? Would language be a barrier? How would you prepare yourself?

Please share your comments.

2. Next we went to Shumua Al Amal School for Special Education. I think there are many of you that will find this interesting because we don't always get a clear picture of what other countries do to help the people that have mental disabilities.
What kind of facilities are available?
What type of emotional support is available for parents?
How does society view this portion of their society? Are they respected?
Who funds the needs of these groups?

I would have to say that this visit was absolutely beautiful. It made my heart warm to see a determined group of people working to represent students with mental disabilities. I think one way of judging is a society is by looking at how well they value all of their different sectors of society. The good news is that the United Nations is getting many countries to sign agreements to meet certain regulations in special education services. They are being a driving force to help people gain support from their government so they provide adequate facilities and trained professionals. The facilities were state of the art in the school we visited. This will definately be the model for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and possibly the world. There are 125 teachers with 220 students. The staff is extensively trained and the students are from 0 to 45 years old. The focus of the school is to help students become respected as citizens, offer them the right to get help, and to gain financial help from the government in the future. The facilities are huge and have many different functions to meet the diverse learners. It is private right now because they need to do things that the government will not be efficient in and they want to make sure they provide an accurate model for the rest of KSA. There are other centers around Saudi Arabia, but many lack the quality professionals (e.g. psychologists) so they are not as effective as needed. The school has parents pay on a sliding scale and if they cannot pay anything they find a way to get outside help. They do not want to turn anybody down. The students were so cute and it is very evident that they are very lucky to have the support they have from the wonderful staff. I could have stayed there all day and played with the little cuties, but we had to keep with our schedule. If anybody has a question that is interested in this topic let me know and I will see if I can get it answered.

I have to go catch the bus so I get on the plane to Jeddah.

Until next time.