The attendance at the last day of the conference was sparse, so the president of NESA cancelled the closing session. We heard an excellent keynote speaker, Tim Burns, speaking on current brain research and how that should inform our teaching. I then attended two rather mediocre workshops - Goal Setting in Writer's Workshop & Helping Students Read Non-Fiction Texts. I met Patty and Chris for lunch at a terrific outdoor cafe before going to an unexpectedly wonderful spa experience at the Intercontinental that I had booked the day before. After a good pedicure, I was offered time on the heated tile reclining chairs in the "relaxation room' before taking time in the sauna, then steam room and finally a rainforest shower - HEAVEN! I floated back to the hotel to meet up with Jeff and Cole who had finally toured the Ancient Agora. We met Letty, the Camponeschi's and Meg for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, taking a cab back in an unexpected rainshower.
ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...
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