This is a descriptive, as much as an interpretive, article about the Syrian educational system and the first-hand experience of an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) practitioner describing the system from within, as much as from without. "From within" because it is based on observations derived from his own teaching experience at a private school in Syria. "From without" because of his looking back at that experience from the vantage point, and with the wisdom, of hindsight.