My Job!

I teach first grade here.   We had two days of training in which there was an ideological tug of war between how harshly to discipline the kids (in Thailand, disciplining the kids comes before rewarding them for good work.  It comes before feeding them or letting them ask questions) and how much to let their minds creatively flourish.  We would literally hear two opposing points of view within minutes of each other… “tell the students what the rules are going to be first and have each one of them bow to you before school starts” and then, “have the students develop their own rules.  Take them outside and have them experience nature”.  Or, “have them write word for word what you write on the board, to practice their handwriting” versus “don’t have them copy what you write, or else they won’t understand what it is that they’re writing”.  The school is undergoing some changes, from traditional learning models to more modern ones, and the battles are being fought right now between the stubborn teachers and the ones most gung-ho about change.  It makes my job a little bit harder, as I have to prepare lesson plans weekly and on a term basis, while following the traditional curriculum and also having to do creative projects with the kids almost every day.  I guess it’s what every teacher goes through…the basic curriculum alone is enough to keep me busy for the whole term.   

I teach English, Science, Math, ESL to a predominantly Thai speaking class, geography twice a week, social studies, and library.  Most days I have one or two hours free, meaning I am on, teaching, for six hours. We are not allowed to wear shoes in the school and the classrooms  are all hard tile floors, so by the end of the day I am exhausted, hot, and my feet feel like they are about to fall off.    We can’t have the AC on unless there are students in the classroom which may seem normal in places with moderate temperatures but here in Satan’s large intestine, it becomes like living in a room of flaming hot Cheetos mix.  I have about two minutes of silence after the students leave and the AC is turned off that I can do work before my arms start to melt.  I usually opt for popping a few Advil and doing my lesson plans in my classroom while the Thai teacher teaches them the Thai alphabet (imagine 20 kids yelling sharp, tonal accents one after the other for an hour…after a while it becomes like a soundtrack to a cheaply made horror film).

I had two Thai teachers who would help out with discipline, getting the kids to pay attention when I was writing something on the board, etc.  The Thai teachers don’t speak much English and teach their own classes and after a few days I realized that when I was teaching they would leave the room, leaving me to my own devices , which is terrifying!  Imagine having 20 precious little faces staring up at you, hands folded and waiting for knowledge to pour out of your mouth, only to realize that when you speak they don’t understand a majority of what you say and you don’t understand any of what they say.  Two of my Thai teachers are no longer my Thai teachers, now I have a different one, and there are constantly Thai women in polo t-shirts floating in and out of the classroom carrying posters with symbols on it.  I can’t understand a majority of what they tell me, and judging by the look on their faces most of it is pretty important.  The clashing of cultures often makes me laugh to myself.   

I have 15 to 20 students depending on the day, just today I got three more students.  They are mostly half Thai and half foreign (Russian, Scottish, Chinese, Korean, etc).  Their mothers are typically Thai and their fathers came here on business or holiday and decided to stay. My students range anywhere from being completely fluent in English (which for some is their third language) and able to read, write, and do simple math equations to, on the other hand, not understanding simple commands and not being able to sound out letters and simple words like “cat” and “bat”.  I spend a lot of time figuring out what to do with the advanced kids and how to cater to the ones that need the most help.  The same goes for my ESL class, which is huge (25 students) and has one student who has such severe ADHD that she isn’t part of the class, she just runs freely around the classroom and whenever I try to give her work to do, the Thai teacher takes it away.  In that class, I feel like a zookeeper.  It’s incredibly difficult to manage fluent speakers with children who can’t tell me their name in English.  I asked the Thai teacher for advice and she told me to be louder and yell at them more.  I can’t let myself do that.  Even though in this school, the children are forced to learn things that I didn't learn until I was much older, and disciplined in a way that maybe was fashionable 25 years ago, I have to remember that behind those worn out and tired eyes is a five year old who would much rather be playing than learning a bizarre language that their mom can't even speak.