I ran into Isabelle and Othman last week. I hadn’t seen them since they moved out of this country. Isabelle is Portuguese and Othman is a Saudi. Isabelle explained why they left the Kingdom.
“The main reason we had to leave was because we couldn’t find proper help for our eight-year-old son.
“Our son has had learning difficulties since an early age. We thought it might be due to the fact that he was exposed to three languages at the same time.
“Following his pediatrician’s advice, we switched to English at home, and he started to improve slowly. When he was four, I placed him in KG2 with a friend of mine who knew about his learning disability. Thanks to her patience and sweet manners with my son, we noticed improvements, and my son was happy.
“When the time came to enroll him in first grade, we had to put him in a Saudi school, as permission to send him to international school was denied. We moved him to a reputable school called My Little Home. That should have been My Little Hell.
“Little Sami started first grade, thrust into taking Arabic, French and English at the same time. He couldn’t handle it and started having difficulties at school. Talking to the teachers didn’t make a difference, and it was apparent to me that they didn’t know what teaching was supposed to be.
“Being forced into memorizing his subjects and the screaming from the teachers was too much for Sami, and he started to shrink back into his insecure and scared self. At the end of the year I told the school we didn’t think he was ready for Grade 2. But they passed him anyway.
“He began to display increasing frustration and we had him in and out of hospitals here. We told his principal that we suspected he might have Attention Deficit Disorder or Dyslexia. The principal was totally ignorant of these disorders, and suggested that perhaps we were too gentle with Sami. Something along the lines of spare the rod, and...
“Then the Americans told us of an institute in Jordan for children with learning difficulties.
“Today Sami has come out of his shell and is picking up rapidly. But it has not been easy to uproot the family and have a part-time father. I had read some months ago of an announcement that this country was planning several centers for learning disorders, but what has happened? Nothing as far as I know.”
I had to agree with Isabelle. We are very big on announcements here, on proclamations that this or that is to take place. But time and again we are left wondering where the beef is.
