Skoole Daz

Sunday, May 18, 2008

You are reading my blog... hehe.......

So I promised to write about my first day of school during one of my previous blogs and as promised, this will be the topic of this blog. I shall not let you down. It was a very interesting day and I’m sorry to say that I did not have my camera on hand otherwise I would be posting pictures of that day along with this blog. I promise to bring my camera to school next week.

I arrived at Bang Wa School early around 8am and was met by my co-teacher Meena along with some of the other faculty. Meena is young, roughly my age, and has only been teaching for a year and a half. We had only met a few times prior to the first day of school but from these meetings I could tell that she was very excited to be working with a ‘farang’ English teacher though she still appears to be very shy. An example of this is the fact that her English is far better than what she lets on.

While the students ran around the school cleaning and preparing for school to begin that morning and for that year, I was in the office helping Meena and another teacher organize all of the books for the school that were to be passed out in just a little while. The school received new books this year and they were only now opening the boxes, which they had arrived in. Lucky for them that when they opened the boxes they were all new school books for a Thai elementary school and not motorcycle repair manuals written in Russian. This is Thailand after all… stranger things could and have happened.

Before we distributed the books to all of the students, all of the students were to line up on the basketball court in front of the flagpole for morning role call. Remember how when you were younger (at least some of you) you would have to stand up with the rest of your class and say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning? This is nearly the same thing but instead of doing this in the classrooms, the entire school comes out and organizes themselves by grade and prepares to do something similar. Some schools have their own band, which plays the Kings anthem while others just play a recording over the PA. After this and sometimes before this, the principle or a leading faculty member will often give a speech of some kind. Not really a “Win one for the Gipper” kind of speech but also not really just a regular morning announcements kind of speech either. It was after this speech that I walked up and introduced myself to the students. I told them my name and where I was from and asked if anyone spoke English. When everyone suddenly had a scared look on their face, I said it was ok because what I was saying is all the Thai that I know. I then told them that if they teach me Thai then I would help them learn English and they cheered. After my brief speech, I asked Meena if anything I said in Thai made sense or if the students were trained to cheer when a teacher is finished speaking. She said both.

Afterwards, Meena and I worked out a schedule of when I would actually be teaching at Bang Wa school. It was understood that I would be teaching on Wednesdays and Thursdays but the times were unknown at this point. After figuring out the schedule for the school, we figured out that it would be best for us to teach at 9:30 and then again at 12:30 for one hour each. This schedule was to begin that day but on both occasions I looked down at my watch to realize that it was 10 and 1 respectfully. We arrived a half-hour late to both classes but it was Meena who said, “Ok, I think it’s time to go now,” on both occasions. Peace Corps warned us that Thai teachers have a different dedication to their classrooms than American or even Western teachers do. If someone calls in the middle of a class, they will answer and go outside to talk on the phone. Sometimes they will leave class to go “mail” something at the post office or perhaps even go to the market to buy something leaving the class unattended during that time period. I have not witnessed much of this to any full degree but many other volunteers have and have expressed how frustrating it is.

I teach Pratom 4 (4th Grade) and Pratom 5 (5th Grade) at Bang Wa school which will be the same grades I will be teaching on Mondays and Tuesdays at my other school, Ban Triam. There are 10 5th graders and 15 4th graders at Bang Wa school, which will make some activities very easy to conduct and execute. During my first day I further introduced myself to the class and Meena and I attempted to review some of the material that they had learned the previous year in order to gain a barring on where to begin this year. To be honest, this was just filler which would be followed by a quick game. It has been proven time and time again that typically Thai students learn vocabulary words but never fully understand the meaning or how to use such words in a sentence nor do they ever fully understand the sentences which the learn in class. Rather they just memorize them, which is just enough to make their teachers happy.

So we reviewed what kind of animals they know and then played a short game using that knowledge having the boys of each class play the girls of each class. In case anyone was interested, The boys just barely beat the girls in Pratom 4 but the girls carried the day in Pratom 5. After finishing up class I met up with Meena and we attempted to lesson plan for the rest of the term. Just a general outline of the subjects that she would like to cover and what materials I can bring to the table. This meeting didn’t last as long as I had expected as Meena is planning on teaching straight from the book. I showed her an example of a sample lesson plan I had made using various Peace Corps materials and I think it intimidated her a little bit. I don’t think she has ever prepared something so extensive or thorough before. But at the same time I hope that she came away from the meeting feeling that I will be a big help to her and that we can learn a lot from each other.

So that was my first day at school or at least at Bang Wa school. Tomorrow I will be starting school at Ban Triam school with my other co-teacher Moosa. Tomorrow should be equally interesting and fulfilling.

That’s all for now.

Chris

Current Music: Jimmy Buffet – License to Chill
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Current Thought – I have 30 minutes to prepare for a wedding and I’m hungry…