My Worst First Day of Teaching at a New School

When I think of my worst first day of teaching at a new school my only consolation is that it is unlikely that I’ll have a worse experience in the same situation.  A cohort of native English-speaking language teachers and myself had just arrived in a Gulf state at the beginning of the second semester to enhance the English teaching at high schools for boys throughout the country.  On the plane over I’d opened my Lonely Planet guide for the first time and read that my destination city was described as the most boring place on Earth – not a good start.  Then, on the inset day before the students returned, my British colleague had an anaphylactic shock after eating something we’d been promised didn’t contain nuts – he almost died.  And now the day had come where we had to face our classes of 40 teenage boys hemmed into a fort-like school structure with its 10-foot surrounding walls.

The year was 2003, the start of the second Gulf War.  So, when the students heard they had a couple of British teachers starting at their school they started to protest/riot - the police were called, and the ringleaders were taken away.  In a gesture of solidarity, the school’s religious leader, the imam, insisted on walking me around the school… hand-in-hand.  The intention was good, but as he stood four-foot tall and I’m almost six feet, I had to stoop sideways which caused no amount of amusement amongst the students. 

And then it was time for my first class.  I learnt later that some of the teachers of English at the school had feared for their jobs when my colleague and I arrived, so they went and told our students that we were Jewish… with the obvious intention.  I walked into my first class to see that the 40 boys had been busy – they’d used chalk to draw swastikas in different sizes all over the painted walls.  I gave the class a quick history lesson on how in Hitler’s eyes anyone not white was sub-human and that only the blond-haired Syrian boy in my class would have been safe.  I gave them five minutes to clean it up ‘or there would be trouble’.

Surprisingly, over the next two-years I got to really like my students and I learnt a lot.  The teenage boys were just going through that phase in life the Germans articulate well – weltschmerz – where life seems unfair and inadequate compared to their previous expectations; I became aware of a teacher’s need to offer pastoral care through those turbulent years – and it was rewarded with a trust and a bond that grew between me and the students.  A random top tip – when you are teaching adjectives, don’t ask the students to describe you – one of my students shot his hand up and asked how you spell ‘ugly’ (in fairness he did have a smile on his face and the question reflected the class dynamic).

When I left the school two years later a group of my pupils ran to catch me before I exited the ‘fort’ and their leader stated ‘Mr Dave, when you leave, we will have an empty space in our hearts.’ I was touched and felt a great sense of job and life satisfaction - priceless.  Another top tip – don’t tell your mates about moments like that because every time you leave a pub early, you’ll hear, ‘But Dave, when you leave, we will have an empty space in our hearts!’

By Dave