Week 1 - "I'm not dead yet!"

Thursday, May 22, 2008

So today concludes my first official week of school. I still have some things to work out in terms of scheduling and I didn't actually attend a full weeks worth of school but with how the Thai school system operates, I would actually call this more official than if I had been at school for all four days.

Let's start from the beginning. My original schedule was as follows. Mondays I would be teaching Pratom 4 (4th Grade) from 9:30 - 11:30 and Pratom 5 from 1:30 - 2:30. Tuesdays I would be teaching Pratom 4 from 10:30 - 11:30 and Pratom 5 from 12:30 - 2:30. These classes would be taking place at Ban Triam school with my co-teacher, Moosa. While I know you can all do math, I'll make it easy for you all and just mention that my sum total of teaching at Ban Triam school will be (at this point) 6 hours per week. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I was originally scheduled to teach Pratom 4 from 9:30 - 10:30 and Pratom 5 from 12:30 - 1:30 at Ban Bang Wa school with my co-teacher, Meena. This would give me a total of 10 hours teaching per week.

After running over the numbers again and again in my head, this just didn't seem right to me. Although I might have fought it throughout my life, my Dad and his peers did raise me with a certain work ethic that just didn't make a 10 hour work week seem worth while. I haven't been able to adjust my hours yet with Moosa but I was able to change my hours with Meena yesterday and as a result I am up from working 4 hours at Ban Bang Wa school to working 7 as this was the best that could be done with both of our schedules. I will now be teaching Pratom 6 from 10:30 - 11:30 on Wednesdays as well as two seperate hours of Pratom 3 on Thursdays from 10:30 - 11:30 and from 1:30 - 2:30 (same class). I hope to be able to add more classes at Ban Triam next week as well.

So according to the schedule above, my week should have begun on Monday... but it didn't. Monday was a holiday and school was closed. Wan Visakha Bucha. A Buddhist holiday which I forgot about and no one mentioned to me the week prior. So I was up early and at school on time all alone without any students to teach. In case you were wondering, Wan Visakha Bucha celebrates or remembers the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. Opps! Forgot. My bad. It's ok. I sent a card. (Was that last comment in bad taste? I think so too.) So actually my work week began on Tuesday at Ban Triam school. No worries. It's not like anything bad could happen by skipping Monday right?

So within the first 10 minutes of my first class this kid breaks his arm. Dumb-ass. I haven't found out yet if it's his arm or wrist but it's broke alright. Sorry if my dumb-ass comment might sound a bit cold hearted but he literally was acting like a dumb-ass. If he was acting like an apple when he broke his arm then I would have called him an apple but he wasn't. He was being a dumb-ass playing around on top of his desk, he fell, and he broke his arm. We sent him to the hospital and I haven't seen him sent. With any luck he is doing ok but I promise you he won't be doing that again.

An interesting thing about the Thai educational system and the methods of parenting. The above comment about how he won't be playing around on top of his desk again... that is how Thai's teach their children. Many Thai children have scars. I have a small scar on my knee from stitches and another on my lip from the same reason. But these scares are small and hardly noticeable now. Almost everyone in Thailand has very large and noticeable scars. I saw one boy today who had a very large scar on the inside of his leg just above his knee. About four inches long. I can't imagine what might have caused such a huge gash but I'm sure a lesson was learned from it. It the States, children are taught not to touch a pan that is sitting on the stove or to touch a stove that is on or something along those lines. If you touch it then you will get burned and it will hurt and it might even leave a scare. In Thailand, they just let the child touch it. The child screams, will cry, and it isn't until a few moments have passed that any attention is paid to the child. Children learn from experience in Thailand and as a result, children are much better able to take care of themselves and each other in many different situations. A major downside are all of the scars.

At Ban Bang Wa school I spent my days in much the same way that I spent my day at Ban Triam. I observed my co-teacher Meena in order to gain a better understanding of her teaching style as well as to evaluate the English level of the various students I would be teaching in the coming weeks, months, and years. I will admit that a few students have impressed me but they are rare among the majority who merely memorize the words which are presented to them and just repeat the sound without fully understanding their meanings.

So that was my week. I've already established an English Club at Ban Triam and I hope to do the same at Ban Bang Wa. I'll be taking pictures all next week and will be posting them ASAP. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves with a few captions to go along with them. I think from the look of this entry and the rest that I'm starting to get a little word heavy. Maybe I should lighten up...? Probably.

love Chris