I could not resist but blog this.

Background:
Nooreldin (my eldest son), is now in Grade II. He goes to a private English school, which obviously teaches everything in English, except Arabic and Islamic are in Arabic of course.

Anyway, tonight he was studying for his tomorrow Arabic exam. He came across a word he wrote in his Arabic exercise book, but could not read, so he asked for help.

If you are an Arab viewer, then you can figure it out. It is the last word in the second line. So, I tried my best to read it, but with no luck. I could not figure it out. (Can you guess?)

Anyway, just with a quick look at his book, I was shocked with what I saw. It is full of spelling mistakes, out of context words and last but not least, completely irrelevant sentences to the pictures. However, everything is marked with teacher's red pen; CORRECT!?!

My God! The first picture is of a kid swimming. But Nooreldin wrote: "Nouf like drawing and painting." Teacher says; CORRECT!?!

Second picture, Nooreldin wrote: "Amal drawing #$^&%@." Teacher says; CORRECT!?!

Last line, Nooreldin wrote: "And I like to RIDE the mountain." Teacher says; CORRECT!?!

Ride; correct?! Well, to give you a background, in Bahrain they use the word "Erkab" (means Ride) when they mean to say "Climb", but for God sake, this is Bahraini slang, not correct Arabic context!!!

Honestly, after seeing all these mistakes, I can't imagine how scary Arabic teaching could be in this part of the world. And I don't mean Arabic language only, and I don't mean teaching in Bahrain only. I don't know where these teachers graduated from. In fact, let's face it. Who goes to study, and takes teaching as a profession in our part of the world? Losers, mainly, widely, and I mean it.

I don't remember that I've seen someone graduating from school with very good marks, goes for teaching. It was and maybe still is the bad apples of the class would go to diplomas or bachelors degrees of teaching as a profession later, because they were not accepted to study anything better.

Now, one has to be fair. I've come across so many great teachers during my school years, and these are there every where, ever time. But, I'm afraid these types of teachers are the exception only.

This is an alarming sign. Well, I guess it was and will continue to be like that for very long. But authorities are responsible to improve the level of education in our schools.

Last but not least (and this is self criticism), all teachers in Nooreldin's school are foreigners (non Arab) except the Arabic and Islamic teachers, they are locals. And guess what, he is doing so great in all subjects, but Arabic and Islamic. On the other hand, I hear from friends around here, that Bahrain non private schools, which have only Arab teachers, are bad enough that everyone tries to avoid them. Now that is sad!

Update (Nov 14th): After I complained and with little follow up, the teacher was fired. Seems she had a bad history. Good for the students.

Related posts:

• My ‘BBC Arabic World Service’ Interview
• Study of Arabic in the US
• Saudi women still hope to take the wheel