“About Me”

 

I can be reached at elementaryteacheroverseas@gmail.com

Teaching third grade in an American School overseas, I’m an American woman living in a Muslim country, in the Greater Middle-East area.  The reason I will be writing this “Elementary Education” blog anonymously is that I want to maintain the privacy of my students, who confide many issues to me.  By identifying my country, or posting pictures from my school, some people would know enough to identify my class, and my students. Thus, I would not be able to maintain confidentiality.  I may, however, post occasional samples of children’s work when applicable (without names of course). 

I’m starting this education blog to share several things with readers.  First, I want to share what is going on in the minds of eight- and nine-year-old third-graders both in my country (and pretty much universally in every country).  Second, I want to share my philosophies of education and my ideas/decisions as an educator, which I make on a daily basis.  Third, I want to introduce readers to differences and problems teachers in overseas American schools face, which are often different problems from schools located in America.  Sometimes these problems are the same, and sometimes they are not.  Last, I want to introduce American readers to some cultural differences which we face teaching in American schools in other countries.

I have been teaching throughout three decades, and continuously for a decade and a half.  My educational philosophy is that the “class work” is only half of what a teacher should do.  The other half is to teach students how to be caring human beings with enough self-confidence to succeed in life.  With every classroom dispute between classmates, with every homework assignment or test grade, and with every classroom experience comes a special chance to teach something “more.”  I feel I have one of the most important jobs in the world–that of “molding little people” to become the next adult generation.

Personally, I am married to a local man from the country I live in, having met him on a vacation to this country.  My husband has a managerial office job.  Together we have a young teenage daughter who speaks three languages.  Our daughter is in a local private school studying in the two languages of our local country.  She has learned English at home and has dual citizenship in both our local country and the United States. 

As time allows, I plan to post at least one entry per week, and possibly more.  My hope is that my readers will learn something useful from my blog, and I would love to have reader feedback through comments.

Sincerely,

Eileen

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