Year 3 in Review (Shannon)

Well it’s that time of year again where we take a moment to reflect on our school year - the successes, the challenges, the new learnings, the ups and downs. Having completed our third year here in Saudi and my 13th year teaching, I can say that I have settled into a secure feeling of pride and confidence with my craft. I’m feeling myself to be in a professional stride right now and have enjoyed the experience of teaching 9th and 12th graders simultaneously because I can see the beginning and ending stages of the high school life cycle. What I love about teaching 9th grade is the freedom and flexibility of topics to teach, more opportunities for creative writing and watching students develop some skills for the first time. What I love about teaching seniors is the intellectual engagement and the opportunity to watch students on the cusp of adulthood coming into their own. After three years in Saudi I can say that I am comfortably settled in, if not a little bored most of the time.

As of this moment we’ve decided to stay put for the foreseeable future and not make our usual summer journey home to the States - at least not right now. There are so many complicated factors that factored into that decision, but it’s still very difficult to accept. When I think of not getting to go home and spend the summer with my friends and family, I’m overwhelmed with sadness, so mainly I’ve been trying to not think about it too much and just tell myself it’s “not yet.”

When looking to the silver linings of the quarantine situation, I can say I’ve been getting to read more
often; I will get to put some extra time and care into curriculum planning for next year, many organization and beautification projects around our house; and of course a great amount of extra family time. And this has been the best part, obviously. We both get to spend the whole day with H, we are watching him learn new skills and new words every day; and we are just really enjoying our extra time together as a family. When I see and read about what’s happening to other families in other parts of the world, I realize what a blessing this time is and so I’m make a conscious effort to enjoy every moment because eventually there will be a day when we must go to work all day and then we will look back to this time in our lives with nostalgia.

I think our school did an excellent job of rolling out our distance learning plan and maintaining academic continuity for our students - at least for those students that tried to stay engaged. And I can say I’ve learned a few new skills in terms of recording lessons and holding virtual meetings. But virtual teaching is not fun and I don’t like it. I miss the students and their energy, and the dynamic of a classroom that just cannot be replicated online. I miss popping my head into my colleague’s classroom to ask a quick question or tell her a funny story. I miss my beautiful classroom that I spent so much time designing and decorating and making it just right for students to feel happy and comfortable and open to learning. And I just miss “going” to work every day. I do hope that when the next school year begins we can go back to campus and start off on the right foot. I can’t imagine doing the first day of school routine online. But I guess if this experience has taught us anything it's that we need to be prepared for anything and be able to think and adapt on our feet.

Of all the trips we went on this year - Ireland, Florence, Turkey and Greece - I would rank Ireland as being the most beautiful, Florence as having the best food, Turkey as having the coolest vibe and energy, and Greece as being wonderful simply for the fact that my family was there.

And since we will have to keep ourselves occupied for a while, I have some new baking frontiers attempt including: tiramisu, strawberry shortcake, eclairs and continuing to experiment with bagels. We’ve also been on a roll with our family fitness routine of running two to three 5Ks each week, so we’ll need to keep up with this as well, especially if I”m going to be doing a lot of extra baking!
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All in all, I’m feeling good about the end of this year. And while I wish we could have had a proper ending to the year, and be on a plane home to the US for the summer, I’m just feeling so thankful that I and my family are healthy and safe and comfortable and I know that we will get to be together again soon.