QA Educational?

QA an American school? Oh, I soooooo don't think so.

I'm not sure what the teachers name was, he was British and he teaches the Grade 10 boys. He was forced to apologize in front of the class and say that he was wrong to ostracize the boy for his views, that everyone as the right to an opinion. So in the fickle way of children things are better at the school now for the kid.

"we will not be silent" is also the slogan(?) used by the white rose org (german students) who were against the persecution of jews during ww2.

A couple of interesting articles showing the "paranoia of sheeple"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14591252/

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=75907&d=6&m=8&y=2006

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=13016

Dear HelloQatar

does that mean that all those consultants and the advisors etc etc etc who are here from all over the globe are hoodwinking the government in the educational sector!!??

what i have observed is more growing awareness of what is good and what is not educationaly ..of course within the cultural limits of the middle eastern countries.

one bad example case of a teacher or child is the last thing that should be applicable to all the qatari schools private or otherwise. Yes the teacher needs to be more non judgmental and guided. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MAKING SWEEPING STATEMENTS

YYYaaaaahhhhh....Lilipink!!!! where have you been?? Good to know that old buddies are still around...sorry everybody for interrupting this interesting argument...go on with your civilised fights please ;) lol

So what was the teachers nationality???

It would be a real shame if he/she were arab or muslim.We should try and explain our views in a civilised way.... a way that best represents our religion.....violently criticizing peoples veiws only makes them more defensive .lili.

I see myself on the place of this boy.

Simply, the same views.

I can imagine how they look at him.

Once I got suspicion from some Arab people that I'm a Jew, have some Jewish blood.

I answer: "No, I'm not".

& added: "Unfortunately".

After this I protected people from Gulf land also, especially we spoke about Kuwaity people.

But this time they did not know what to think of me.

They decided that I'm simply crazy.

I find it nice :)

It's interesting, what would they do to me & to my family, which is full of such ideas, if I was in their area.

I would go to their jail.

Here is a lot of not Russian pupils & everything is ok.

Even too ok.

We must learn something from Qatar, I guess.

Ha

ha

ha

Black humor.

But I wonder... how this boy feels after this?

I mean he is still sure in what he wrote & face all these troubles as a person who knows what he does it for?

We can all agree or disagree on the issue who was wrong in the last war btw Lebanon n Israel but I truly disagree with the teacher action in putting the poor kid on the spot. Maybe the teacher was more of a proud of what the kid wrote than hating it, but still he should have thought of the end results in making this essay public when it's against the mainstream thinking. We can sympathize with a teenager for jumping to the front n not calculating the risks involved but for an adult teacher to do this is unforgivable.

On the same note, I had the same thing happening to me in a class in the US where the subject was racism. I called for a huge attention when I stated that the biggest victims of racism in the US r white males in the ages of 25 to 35! It was a long discussion which took most of the class time. What I liked at that time is even all the students, African American, Hispanic n women were against my opinion, the professor loved it n said that I brought a new way of thinking of the whole subject, n even he became a friend of mine after. The professor was not white n disagreed with all I said :)

So it happens all over the world but there r few who will appreciate diff opinions than the mainstream :) Still, I think this QA teacher should at least be questioned so this will not happen again :)

doha girl ... can you pls give the name of the teacher? i just ask my girlfriend who her son is in QA and he seems never heard about this.

As angelwing said ... i think unfair for the teacher too ... there is the other side of the coin from each story.

It seems that most locals don't see the trees for the forest kind of thing. The only basis for conparision someone from inside the environment has is what they know or have seen. Most local people don't know good or bad education because that have no basis of comparision. That may have been a broad generalization on my part but most of my experience in this area is to get better, you have to know you have a problem.

Qatar may be ahead of some other gulf states but the lead they had before is slipping. They have become too unfocused on Education and moved on to other areas.

why would only non-middle eastern types on the board care for the poor quality of education?

Maybe it is time to pass this on to the Board of DIrectors of QA. I know there are some non-middle eastern types on the board so maybe they would be interested in the poor quaility of teaching. From what I hear the quality of education at QA has been in decline for the last couple of years and the treaching staff has gone down in ability. The word in the local education field is that QA is not what it once was in terms of education excellence and leadership.

Maybe that is why the American school is growing. I have heard that complaints have been filed about QA with the major International Teacher Recuriting firms. Poor conditions for teaching, poor pay, inconsistant leadership. If that is true, they will have a harder time getting & keeping good teachers. QA is no longer a leader in the K-12 education field in Qatar much less the Gulf region as they had been in the past. The sad thing is nobody can say this in a public forum, on the record, they would be in trouble for questioning Eduation City.

It could be great but the problems are not being dealt with, nobody cares.

Is it possible to know the name of the 'teacher'..?? I think they should be able to defend themselves if need be. And if someone would be so kind as to tell them to read what is written here on the forum pages, we'd get another side to the story.

?? Dohagirl?? can you do this?

Angelwings.

A teacher that singles out any student other than to praise them, shows him/herself to be weak. They are to be pitied, and so are the classes that they teach! I hope its been brought to the attention of the Board of Governors, as not all teachers there have this attitude, and nor should it be allowed to continue.

The student hopefully will grow from this experience and not shrink away from it.

Unfortunately we have many schools filled with weak teachers of this sort right now. If praise for his attempt at prose was the issue, that would be great, but such a topic as this can only bring agitation, and it was a completely wrong thing to do, even if the teacher had wanted to give credit!

In addition, I know many Lebanese here who do not support Hezbollah, never have done, and never will. They spoke more of their anger at Syria and Iran smiling away at the carnage, than they did at Israels destructive action.

Angelwings

I think canragaz has got it right. This is unfortunately part of human life no one says it's right but..it just exists. In good ol' canada I was sitting in my CANADIAN history class in highschool, and my teacher asked the entire class to say their original nationality well...once my turn had come around and I said I was a Palestinian (one of the very very few in that community) my teacher had responded "you know the bible says Israel is the land for the Jews" thus singling me out in front of the class yada yada.

I didn't think this experience made me a sheep though I think it toughened my skin and taught me to defend who I am and my opinions.

BTW. when I had reported the incident the staff was very pro-teacher and there was not any empathy in the slightest...it was awful at the time, but it was one of those lessons learned that has proven to be invaluable. If you care enough about it you'll stick up for it. But, to be honest when Sept. 11 hit my views were that American foreign policy was a main cause, but I was smart enough to stay very quiet until the smoke settled. Otherwise, qatari is right I probably would have had my home burned down. so yeah, name calling isn't all that bad compared to what would/could happen in a small right-wing north-american community.

I wont even dignify what you just said with a response. I can see where this is going. Im 18 btw.

Bajesus I find it ironic that although you teach me how I should (and shouldn't) treat you (how old are you again??) and how I shouldn't dare tell you how to think (I wasn't), you at the same time find it perfectly normal that a kid at school here is brutally forced to comply with the "mainstream".

Fun fun fun.

qatari and others..., so are comparing middle easters schools with american schools. Not surprisingly students in both parts of the world will end up like sheeps with no opinion whatsoever that differ from the rest and with no capacity of judging by themselves. Way to go QA.

whoever says that education should not be biased.

Maybe the teacher made everyone read his essay to emphasize that more than one view (no matter how wrong *hides*) exists. And he didn't give out anyone elses essay since they were all the same!

Anyways, I'm sure if an Arab kid was in a US school after Sep 11 and said "Maybe US Foreign Policy had something to do with this" he wouldn't have got called names...he would have got beaten up!

I think we have visited this topic before..and We all agreed that discrimination is everywhere..Its applied in a Crude form in the middle east..and most subtle ways in the west...

In our previous thread on the subject the ladies were not even willing to agree that there is discrimination in the clubs here..today everyone agreed to it...

Well its not just the west and middle east..EVERY part of the world is infested with it in some form or the other...If you find 3 passengers with a suspicious behaviour in the flight..who will get the handcuffs...?? The one with a middle eastern sounding name..(In fact he could be completely innocent...)

Compare this previous thread with one on the side on clubs...

http://www.qatarliving.com/blog/qatar-girl/do-i-look-like-a-freak-2-u

Flip it around and I would not be surprised if a kid writing a pro-Hezbollah essay in a U.S. school got a visit from Homeland Security. (I know that sounds like hyperbole, but the level of one-sided fear-mongering in the U.S. media is truly frightening -- and the level of paranoia around the U.S. that has Middle Eastern men regularly arrested for the most specious reasons makes me think that country is just as intollerant of dissent as you are claiming QA is.)

This is not to say the epithets apparently flying around QA about this student are justified, merely that there is context to the singling out of a dissenting view. And in this context (QA-Qatar-Middle East), it is not all that surprising to me he was singled out. Is it wrong? Sure. Of course. And in a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. But as the current state of Lebanon painfully illustrates, this is not a perfect world.

And I don't read bajesus's posts as defending it as much as not being at all surprised by it.

For a second there I actually felt like I had something more important to do!

on a totally differnet note though, does any1 know where Aisha has been? She hasnt been around heard from an awfully long time now. I missed her!=... kept the conversations flowing in a civil manner and ppls gloves on! Aisha if ure reading this give ur peeps a shoutout :-P

this is a funny thread....the kid cudnt know better, besides, I'd have been fooled into it, being fifteen and full of ideals. I'd even have tried to take the anti hezbollah stance just to seem unique and maybe get an A. so it backfired and this kid got shafted, it's another injustice in life. bigotry, and prejudism is everywhere. I wouldnt blame the kid though, Id tell him he did good, and he shud stand for what he believes in. besides dohagirl, u sure u got ure facts straight though, sounds like a crazy bogus story.

Ill have to continue some other time as I have an important meeting to attend.

hmmmm thats a tough one.....ill take a wiiiiild guess and say its MAYBE.... JUST MAYBE "DRUMS ROLLING"............... because he's pro-Israeli!

Ok so now that its out and clear that this should not be tolerated what was the moms reaction. Did she clam up or did she adderess this problem productively since, according to you, the school hasnt?

Niether you nor I represent any1's stance on this issue so dont twist this to make it sound like u speak for the ppl ! LOL u have every right to get upset and I am not gonna argue about that. However, theres nowhere perfect and we said this b4. Your in QATAR in the MIDDLEEAST and u know the general publics opinions and sentiments regarding this issue and weve discussed this b4. You said it urself and I quote " if you dont like it here then leave" and once more it was discussed b4. getting my drift? Good. I personally like to see ppls different perspectives and their take on this issue and would more than welcome them to participate in this thread instead of just browsing thru it. Were all entitled to our opionion and thats 1 thing I thought Id never to mention whilst talking to you.

ANd if this kid is to have his opinion publically posted, why not the opinions of some of the other students in the school, what about the Anti-Israeli opinions? Why were there opinions not photocopied and passed throughout the school?

Bajesus the kid wrote his opinion in an essay required by the teacher. THe teacher did not tell him that he was going to photocopy the essay and hand it out to every other student in the school. And it is not "namedropping" by a few students you Git. It's "namedropping" by almost every single person in the school, and some teachers. Calling someone a "Jew Lover" is deragatory and racist, plain and simple. The kid is not pro-Israeli, he simply said he is Anti-Hezbollah and thinks that Israel has a right to defend itself, he didn't say whether what he thinks there doing is right or not.

I mean HONESTLY didnt this kid see this coming even in a small way? I mean, come on ppl, he writes something of a very sensitive nature and then expect no backlash whatsoever?! Again I dont justify what the teacher did and he should be sacked for it. But this isnt entirely unexpected!!! LOL u all very well know if this was carried out in a bigger scale there would be a massive public outcry to say the least. And then you all get worked up when theres namedropping by a few students because SURPRISE SURPRISE he's pro-Israeli! "eyes rolling"

give me a break!

Good Bajesus, I'm outraged and disgusted at Qatar Academy at the moment. I hope people realize exactly what that school is teaching their children. Which is apprantely to think like everybody else and not have an opinion of your own, and that apprantely racial slurs are quite all right as long as they are not about Arabs.

I have a feeling this is going to be one loooooooooong thread.

Spare me the pity. I know exactly what Im thinking. I should have made myself clearer. I Certainly dont condone how it got handled and wasnt addressed in an appropriate, intellectual manner. Quite the opposite I found it carried in a rather tasteless, immature way. But dont for a second think that Im going to be scapegoated into thinking the way you want me to. I know you mean well QC and you seem to be a mediator at many instances. But, just like you, I dont like it when Im being patronized or dictated on what or how I should think unless I ask for it.

Bajesus you are NOT serious, please tell me you aren't.

Because if you really meant what you said then I feel sorry for you.

That's what I thought as well Killer Bee. Nice to know critical thinking, analysis and individual opinions are taught at Qatar Academy.

seems like QA wants sheep as its students. Differ and you're out of the flock.

BaJesus the school and the teacher made a point of ostrasizing the child because his views were different. QA is teaching intolerance and bigotry instead of academics.

And the point you are trying to make is.....?!

Ummmmmmm incase you havent noticed nothing out of the ordinary happened. LOL Is it because he's Canadian? feeling a bit patriotic are we?