Students

When will I ever be greeted every single day at school by a swarm of students saying, " Hello Teacha, How are youuu?" and battling with each other over who gets to carry my teaching materials to the classroom? The amount of respect and excitement that I get from my students everyday has made being their english teacher an honor and a truly wonderful experience. Having students that really want to learn has made teaching that much more rewarding.

Throughout the year I viewed my job as the english teacher not only to teach english but to also widen my students cultural understanding of the world. Many of my students barely make it out of their 1 mile long village and they like most of the teachers have very little understanding of how the rest of the world functions. My ending unit with my students was Professions. As their last assignment I asked them "What do you want to be when you grow up?" This might seem like a question that gets asked to children quite often, but I don't know if my students have ever even thought about it. Most of them are without question suppose to follow in the foot steps of their parents and be a rice farmer, which is a perfectly admirable profession. So when I asked them their first response was, Farmer. Slowly as they thought about it one brave student would say, Police Man or Teacher. As soon as someone broke the ice their minds went wild but the majority settled on Teacher, Nurse, and Police Man. Although most of my students viewed this activity as a fun pretend assignment, I hope to have planted a small seed in their minds that they can do and be whatever they put their minds too.

Here is some of their work! (6th grade)

Recently in my classroom I made additions to my world map and put people from different countries around it and taped a string to where they are from. This has ignited a new curiosity. There now is usually a huddle of students pointing to the different people and tracing them back to a country. The student are most curious about the other asian looking people and where they are from. It's been exciting to watch them explore the world from my classroom!

#20 Thai Competitions

One thing about Thai schools is that they love competitions. This can range anything from the week long sport competition we had in December to an academic spelling bee or writing competition. Today though, I experienced my first school cooking competition between local elementary schools. Of course it starts off as any normal event would for me having no idea what it is for, where we are going, and what we will be doing. I've learned that sooner or later in the event I'll figure it out or at least get the gist of it. My scheduled pick up time was 8:30am so naturally they arrive somewhere around 9 am with a truck load of students piled in the back of someones pick-up truck. I jump in and see what the day has in store for me.

My 6th grade students are some days in charge of preparing all the student and teacher lunches, so I was pretty confident in their cooking skills and would fare well in the competition. They got started right away chopping up vegetables and preparing the fire that the meal would be cooked by.

Of course there has to be some entertainment while the students are cooking so all the pre-school students were invited to have some sort of dance competition. Many of these little ones are my student's younger brothers and sisters. They basically stood up on stage swaying back and forth or even one group hula-hooped their way through a song while the adults stood and laughed at their cuteness.

The end product was a lemon-grass streamed fish topped with garlic and a side of laab (minced meat salad). I am amazed at their skills knowing that when I was in 6th grade the only thing I would make was boxed brownies or chocolate cookies. That brings me to my next point. Although I have many issues with how the thai school system works I think they do a wonderful job in teaching the students life skills and things that they will be using in everyday. For example PlaPak Noi school has a student run garden and rice field, fishing pond, and cooking lessons. 2 hours later the food was ready to be sampled by the judged and the verdict read. PlaPak Noi came in second place getting to take home a trophy and 1,500 baht! yahh. The students piled back in the truck and we are on our way back to school.

#29 Nicknames

#29 Nicknames

Goong : Shrimp

Oan : Fat (his twin brother is named Joy- Skinny)

Book: Book

Poo - said more like Bpoo but still funny

Nicknames are an important aspect of Thai culture and is among one of the first questions you'll be asked. The other volunteers and I have shared many laughs at the silliest of nicknames of our students as they come in all forms. The reason behind nicknames is their full first name is too long and elaborate to say so the parents give them a nickname to go by. How they come up with these names, I do not know! I think I would be depressed my whole life if I had to go by the nickname Fat and my twin got to be Skinny! Or how about weird english names such as Book, Ice, Bank, A, Bow, Nut,or Luck. Some of the most common names amongst my students seem to be : Gkai- Chicken, Som- Orange, Chompoo- Rose Apple, Lek and Noi- Small and Malee- Jasimine flower. Then, I start thinking about my own Thai nickname Bai Tuey, which I finally found the english translation to: Pandan Leaf. I always laugh when I think of the english translation of what my students are saying " Teacher Pandan Leaf, Teacher Pandan Leaf!" One of the many reasons why I love Thailand....

<-----Bai Tuey!

Little Moments

Throughout my days here there are little moments that I really cherish with my students. Now that my students are comfortable with a new foreign teacher in the classroom we have been able to let loose with each other yet have a set routine that makes the class run smoothly. Here are some of those occasions:

1. Greeting me everyday when I arrive at school lining up by the car reciting, "Good morning Teacher, How are you?" They then insist on helping me carrying any teaching supplies for me to the classroom often trying to get a peek into what we are doing in class today or if there are any surprises. This also connects for when I am about to go home for the day. They approach me usually in pairs to say, " Goodbye teachaar, see you again on Friday."

2. Hellllooo teecha. When I'm done with my classes for the day and I'm sitting in my classroom grading notebooks, lesson planning, or decorating the classroom every few minutes a student will walk by the room peeking in their head to say "helllloo" or "Tam arai, Teacher?" (what are you doing?) This sometimes happens when I am on skype with my parents and they hear the foreign voice and immediately ask "Teacher, may I come in?" They LOVE seeing my parents and then get to practice their go-to phrases of "My name is ___. I am ____years old. I am from ____. Today's weather is____."

3. Goodbye Hugs and handshakes. With my 3rd and 4th graders at Wang Yang our Goodbye routine now consists of a mandatory hug and handshake. After putting away their notebooks for the day they line up to get their handshake and hug from me. As the girls are leaving they usually say , "I love teacher Bai Tuey!" and I of course respond with "I looove you!" They have even now started blowing kisses hahaha

4. Dance Parties while cleaning. As mentioned before in "Day in the life of a Thai Student" post the students are responsible for the school being in tip-top shape. At the end of the day they sweep the school again, mop/scrub the floors, water the plants, put away dishes, and any other chore that needs to be done. During this time if I am in my classroom with my computer I usually play my students favorite song "Waka Waka" by Shakkiera while they cleaning and we can dance around and try and make the chores a little more fun . My co-teacher usually walk by at this point and think I am absolutely ridiculous! oh well

5. Afternoon gardening. After I finish lesson planning and cleaning up my room for the day one of my favorite activities is to sit in the Pla Pak Noi garden while my student diligently tend to their grade level's plot of vegetables. I walk around and my student quiz me on the Thai name for the vegetables. Their garden has chili plants (all thai food MUST have a few crushed chili peppers in it to add some kick), onion, garlic (you'll find whole cloves of garlic in Isan food), cilantro, and some veggies I can't remember right now.

6. Stickers. One thing the other volunteers and I have learned is Thai students LOVE stickers. It doesn't matter the age, students even in 12th grade will do about anything for a sticker. During games students will get so excited about the possibility of winning a stickers that they will be jumping over one another or desks to answer the questions or clinging onto one another in anticipation. Of course as the teacher I find this hilarious!

All of these things really make teaching in Thai unique and special. They make up for all the times I sometimes struggle to convey one simple direction of "come here" or "Say this...phut Today..Today" and they just stare at me with blank faces. It has only been 4 months here and I still have a lot of time left to make more special routines and moments with my students!

Teesha Teesha Bai Tuoy

Pla Pak Noi students in morning buddhist prayer and meditation

Three days of teaching down! "Teesha Teesha(teacher) Bai Tuoy (My thai nickname) " is what I've heard on a constant stream throughout my days at the 2 elementary schools. Everyday whenI arrive at school, students run to where my ride drops me off greeting me with flowers that they have picked from the road, pictures they have drawn, and any other miscellaneous objects they can conjure up. The past 3 days have been exciting, exhausting, and sometimes just crazy trying to figure out my classes, level of students, materials available to me, co-workers, and being around Thai all day. There is not a minute in my days at school when there isn't an adorable Thai student smiling at me wanting to say Hello.

First day of Class:

Monday seemed like a long day partly because I had no idea what was going on ( which is how most of my days are here). I arrive at 8:30am with my co-teacher Kim. Students start class at 9 so I had a half hour to sort through my lesson plan one more time which only consisted of some easy welcome activities, "about me" poster, and name tags. My next class was suppose to be at 10, however no students showed up. During this time I had no idea what was going on or whether to expect students or not. I heard a bunch of noise next door so I peeked in to find my 6th graders(who I just taught) just hanging out with no teacher. I asked where the teacher was and they said "working (pointing out the door)". This seems to be acceptable for teachers to leave students unattended for allotted amounts of "free time" if there needs to be an impromptu meeting or even I've caught teachers taking an afternoon nap. I wandered down the hall some ways to look into another classroom to see a teacher at her desk with a TV on behind her and students wandering around. This is one aspect of the Thai School System that will take some adjusting to and many "Mai Pen Rais" (no worries- in Thai) will have to be said. Anyways As my day continued I happily taught my Welcome lesson with many students being fascinated by the pictures I brought in of my family and friends. After going out to lunch with Kim I came back to find out that I'd be teaching grade 5 for the second time today because they decided to change my schedule and grade 5 will now be after lunch. Not having another lesson plan ready I had to make one up as we went through class. According to past volunteers these "change in schedules" happen frequently. I resorted back to subjects we planned during curriculum doing some Days of the Week and ABC activities that didn't need any pre-made materials. From 2-3pm I have prep time before heading home around 3:30 pm however many students end up filing in my classroom to say hello or just look at me. Having this amount of attention all day is oddly tiring, which is weird to say.

However being around the students makes me realize why I came to Thailand. Events in the US, even Halloween or the Giants winning the world series seem insignificant and not in my frame of mind anymore. Living in Thailand makes you live in the present. Planning is not significant but living by what the day gives you. A pertinent example of this is not having a school calendar or schedule. Besides the national Buddhist holidays there is no set time for when vacation starts or ends, what days you have off, and so on. This can already seem at times frustrating when you are handed these scenarios last minute but I'm learning fast not to dwell and keep going.

In attempts to learn all my students name I had them make name tags and take a picture. Students are required to wear some type of uniform to school everyday whether it be sports day, scouting, or regular, which makes it even harder to differentiate them. Also girls are required to have short hair till I think around grade 10 and boys are expected to have no hair around ears. This means almost everyone has similar haircuts. I'm pretty sure I butcher their names every time but it'll take some practice. Here are some of my adorable yet crazy students from my class of 31 kindergarden, 1st, 2nd graders.

**I also added a few new pictures under Photo page!

1st grader girl Pom:

1st grader Luck: