Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Honeymoon

I've been getting a lot more hits in the last week thanks to my guest blog post on the Class Dojo website, and I just wanted to send out a quick post about my lack of activity lately. I'm on my honeymoon!  My wife and I are currently enjoying what Cuzco, Peru, has to offer. We will be scaling Machu Picchu in a few days!  We will be back in another week and the posts will follow shortly after that. School is right around the corner you know.

Jeff

Friday, July 6, 2012

Travelling as a Teacher





My wife and I are fortunate enough to both be teachers, which allows us the ability to be quite mobile in our life.  Over the last few years we've been able to rack up quite a few stamps on our passports.  In fact, my is dangerously close to being full (I don't want to pay for a new one, because it expires in April).  One of the best parts of travelling is the stories we create and the depth in which we experience a variety of cultures.

I think that being able to travel affords a teacher the opportunity to broaden the scope of their teaching, as well as the connections they create with students in an increasingly multicultural classroom.  I'm often able to get my students to think about topics in the context of other students in different parts of the world, I can provide simple stories to get them interested in a lesson or topic, and I am able to inspire them to see the richness of the world around us.  We are vagabond teachers and I couldn't ask for much more right now.


Every place we go and every culture we visit we enriches our lives, and, as teachers, we are able to enrich the lives of our students.  Great teaching can come from teachers who don't travel, but I do think that travel adds authenticity to many subjects we teach.  Not to mention that travelling forces us to be a global citizen rather than a local one.  Just my two cents, but I couldn't imagine never seeing the places I've seen.  I met my wife in South Korea while we were teaching English, so I might be a bit biased.





Wednesday, June 13, 2012

School's Out, Now The Work(?) Begins

Yes he does.
Amanda and I are a day and a half from boarding a plane to fly back to Canada for the summer.  We are both very excited to see our friends and family who we haven't seen since we came to Kuwait last September (with the exception of my awesome sister who met us in Portugal for a spring getaway).  It looks like we will be back in Kuwait around August 22, which only gives us around 2 months at home. I know that the non-teachers out there are up in arms about the fact that we get summers 'off,' but trust me I have plenty on my plate.

I will be doing a lot of education planning this summer, as most teachers will be.  I have all sorts of ideas I need to perfect in order to start them in the fall.  I've set myself up for a lot of work, which wouldn't be so difficult to complete if I wasn't also getting married in a little over a month.  Amanda and I still have a fair bit of work to do on that front, and then we pack up and head to Peru for 2.5 weeks of honeymoon joy.  Wait...why was I complaining again?  I can't remember.  The summer is almost here! 

Monday, June 11, 2012

Photos from the past year

We leave shortly, so I thought I'd post a few photos from the past year.
Marina Mall - Kuwait

View from our apartment - Kuwait

Painting a student did with our school's initials (way too much paint used) - Kuwait

Portugal

Portugal

Colombo - Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

View from where we stayed in Ella - Sri Lanka

Elephant safari gone wrong!  He is chasing us after getting too close.  The picture is blurry, because I was getting bashed in the head by branches as the jeep drove away. - Sri Lanka

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Random Thoughts

Amanda and I moved to Kuwait last September (the 11th, actually).  Before we left, I had many conversations with people about why we were moving and what it was like living in Kuwait.  

Amanda and I had a variety of reasons for moving to Kuwait, but they mostly revolved around the lack of jobs in Ontario. Teaching is an overpopulated industry in southern Ontario, because it is a very attractive career choice.  It is a relatively lucrative career, at least in Ontario, because teachers have a strong union that makes sure they are paid for the good that they do.  I am excited to eventually get myself entrenched there, so that we can start paying into the wonderful pension.

However, for the time being, we are expatriates working overseas to get experience and pay down our lofty debts.  We live and work in Kuwait at a school teaching our province's curriculum.  It is great to be able to teach the curriculum we love.  It really is the best choice we could have made.  I've already paid down a creeping credit card and my line of credit.  All that I have left is my beluga-sized student loan, and Amanda's equally hefty one.  A tall order, but living overseas will help us pay it back quicker (no car, rent, etc.).

Kuwait, as a place to live, is a bit boring.  There isn't a lot to do here.  That's a blanket statement, but Amanda and I are often talking about the lack of interesting things to do.  We are probably part to blame, but there just isn't  lot happening at any given time.  Toronto and Korea, both places we know a chunk about, all have a lot more going for them.  Kuwait has a lot of shopping, but that's not really my thing.  Not at all, actually.  I own a sparse wardrobe.

Driving is insane here, and we seem to witness or nearly witness an accident every day on the way to school.  They don't seem to see life as precious here.  It isn't uncommon to see a kid jumping around un-tethered by a seat belt, while a mother or father chats on the phone, drinks a coffee, and hopes their knees can hang on to the steering wheel.  This isn't hyperbole.

The maximum temperature for today is 45 degrees.  IT goes down to about 35 (maybe) at night.  Kuwait is hot.  It is a dry oppressive heat.  When I walk outside, it feels similar to opening the door to a pre-heated oven.   Oddly, though, it gets quite chilly in the winter.  I didn't expect that.  Not Canada chilly, but still jacket weather.  

We fly home for the summer this Thursday night (Friday morning, actually).  It looks to be around 25-30 degrees in Barrie (where we are from), so not exactly the kind of heat we are used to. It will do, though.