Tag: school

Late last month I posted about how some schools are banning the book Harry Potter. Well I now have the full list of books banned which I’ve shared below. This list was created by the Ministry and the Foreign Schools Committee. The list below is for 2014-2015, if there are any spelling mistakes I’m sorry but I had to type the list below manually since I only received a print version not a digital one. In brackets I’ve also mentioned who was behind the ban and you’ll notice the schools have banned more books than the Ministry but that could be because they’re following the Ministry’s guidelines. One thing to note is that schools are recommended to follow this list and not obliged to follow it except for the books banned by the Ministry. Check out the full list below:

According to a contact of mine at one of the top English schools, their librarian last week received an official letter from the Ministry stating that Harry Potter books are now banned in Kuwait and all copies should be removed from the library. Whats interesting is that previously Harry Potter books were the only magic books that were actually allowed but it looks like that’s no longer the case.

Update: According to a friend who works at the library of a different English school, they weren’t requested to remove Harry Potter from their shelves.

Last month I read an article about teachers being deported after public authority inspectors started doing random checks at schools and finding out many of them were working on visit visas. I didn’t think of it much at first since I thought these incidents were taking place at random no-name schools around the country.

Last night though I found out from a teacher friend that some of the top ranked schools in Kuwait were being busted with one of the American schools in Hawalli having had 30 teachers deported. Another American school made 50 teachers not come into school for 3 days because they were expecting an inspection.

My guess is after the child sex offender was found working at a local American school, the government probably ran an investigation to see how he slipped through their background checks and realized that he was working here illegally. Obviously this is the fault of the schools but what I don’t understand is why they don’t get the teachers proper work permits in the first place. Is it to save money or are schools having visa issues like every other company in Kuwait?

Mrs. Jehan Rajab passed away earlier this week. She was the co-founder of the Tareq Rajab Museum and the New English School.

While a student in the United Kingdom, Tareq Sayed Rajab met his future wife, Jehan Wellborne, who from her childhood was interested in folklore and particularly the arts and life of exotic peoples and minorities.

They got married in 1955 and after their return to Kuwait; Mr. Rajab was appointed as the first Director of the Department of Antiquities and Museums of Kuwait. He resigned from his post in 1969 and together with his wife opened the New English School for Kuwaiti and foreign children. By then they were already involved in collecting material for a future Museum of their own.

They travelled all over the Islamic world and beyond to Central and South-East Asia and the Far East, collecting artefacts and photographing monuments, peoples, their customs, everything they believed could be used and exhibited in a museum. As a result of their hard work and research, they were able to open the Museum to the public in 1980. [Source]

The photo on top of Mrs. Jehan was taken outside the New English School following liberation of Kuwait from Iraq. The photo was taken from the Al Jazeera Class of 1990 documentary [Here]

Last week I was invited by both GUST University and NES to come in and speak about my blog to their students. I was never a big fan of public speaking since back when I was working in advertising, public speaking was part of my job. I was always presenting work to clients and it was always a nerve-racking experience but last week I realized, I actually love public speaking when it has to do with my blog. I mean why wouldn’t I? Getting invited to come and basically talk about myself to a large group of people who are interested in what I have to say, who wouldn’t love that? Although I do that with the blog on a day to day basis, in person its a completely different experience.

At both GUST and NES I spoke about various blog related topics but the most important one I wanted to discuss with everyone was not only how the blog had taken over my life, but how it’s also taken over my day to day thinking process. It’s something I’ve only come to realize recently and something I’m still trying to understand better so it was pretty therapeutic talking about it out loud.

Speaking to all the students last week was a very exciting experience for me and I’m hopefully going to being doing more of it from now. Thank you to everyone who attended, NES students you guys were a blast and GUST students, I’m sorry you had to endure an hour and a half of my sober ramblings!

Minecraft is an insanely addictive video game and one I stopped playing some time back since whenever I played it I wouldn’t be get any work done. A local school teacher on the other hand has been using Minecraft as an educational tool in his classrooms. Intel recently conducted an interview with Eric Walker, a teacher at the American International School of Kuwait on how he uses Minecraft to teach his students. You can check out the article on the Intel Free Press website [Here]

K’S PATH were called in to a school in Salmiya yesterday to capture two baboons that were on the loose. The two baboons had climbed into the school from the streets forcing the children to stay inside until they were caught.

That’s just so random…