One of my “frequently asked questions” (and by frequent I mean my family and approximately two others have inquired), is what my daily life is like. Well fair friends, you are in for a treat, for I shall tell you. Every morning, I wake up at 6:30 am. Even when I do not have to go at school, the combination of rice trucks, my confused rooster, and rowdy neighbors rouses me from my slumber fairly early anyway. I do yoga and pilates every morning for about a half an hour, which not only makes me feel centered and awake, but also stretches my body, stiff from sleeping on a mattress (albeit a large one) on the floor. Then I open my doors, curtains, and gate, and eat breakfast on my porch. During the hot season, I ate mangos and bananas and pineapple every day, which was a very yellow breakfast, but a delicious one. Now that it is rainy season, I am somewhat less than impressed with the fruit options. Watermelons are everywhere and I eat them in abundance, but for some reason I have a firm opposition to eating watermelon in the morning. The other ubiquitous fruit types are rambutans, which I feel “meh” about, and durien, which is frankly disgusting. It can be wonderful only eating fruit that is locally grown, because it is fresh and delicious and you see the face of the person who grew it. On the downside, sometimes a girl just wants a banana in the morning and does not want to have to travel 45 minutes to get one.
School (which I’ve already written about) goes from 8- around 3:45. I leave for my daily bike rides (or run/aerobics class) at 5. Thus, each day there is about an hour of ‘in between’ time. Some days, I go run errands. Other days, I return home, change into comfy clothes, and collapse into my hammock under the jackfruit tree with my i-pod and a cool glass of water. The days at school are draining, although [generally] wonderful, and all I want to do when they are over is have 30 minutes to loll in my hammock and daydream off into the sky. Pii Baw can usually be found puttering around my yard at this time, and on lucky days she will push the hammock for me, which creates a lovely breeze. I try to nap, but am never successful because after-school-before-dinner is the time when kids are running amuck, and often like to come and peek into my gate and yell “hello” at me.
A bit before five, I change into my biking gear and set off for Mr. John’s house, about 2 k away near the market. The assembled group for that day sets off, barring rain, and the journey begins. These bike rides continue to be a significant source of pleasure for me, because the landscape is so beautiful and I really love to cycle. I get home around 7:15, unless I eat with Mr. John and Film, and concoct some sort of dinner. From 8 to bedtime is wildcard time. I’ve been known to read, write in my journal, construct blog entries (like right now), tidy my house, do some sort of minor art project, chat on the phone with other volunteers, or a combination of the above. My shower gets thrown in there somewhere, and as of yet, I have not found myself at a loss for something to do. Most of you know I am quite adept at entertaining myself.
Lately my evenings have become dominated by CAT, otherwise known as Community Assessment Tools. CAT (meow) is new to PC Thailand this year. As volunteers, we arrive at site filled with the desire to improve our communities and help its people. But what does that entail? What needs to be developed? What are the needs and wishes of the community? What are the issues not being addressed? The answers to these questions are neither intuitive nor obvious. Sometimes, clear projects will fall across your path. For example, the environmental habits of Thai people are awful. The people in rural areas remain unaware of global warming, and not only consume massive amounts of plastic, but burn all their garbage, including toxics. I think it’s fair to say that environmental education and development are needed in a majority of rural communities in Thailand. However, every community is unique and thus has unique issues. For real, sustainable, and meaningful development, the communities must be involved in creating and executing projects. Peace Corps is not about sending in 22 year old farangs to tell people who have grown up in these towns what they should be doing better. If the locals are not interested in a project, nothing will get accomplished. Thus to have successful projects, we must first collect information and talk to people about their communities. Enter CAT.
Gathering information about the villages is not a simple task. What is the main force driving the economy? What are the specific health issues? How many people are registered as having HIV/AIDS? How many students continue their education past the 9th grade? How many people are living below the poverty line? Are the officials doing their jobs properly? These are necessary questions with specific answers that cannot be answered passively. CAT is basically a series of tasks, surveys, activities, techniques etc…that will answer these questions and aid community integration. Examples of include drawing community maps and writing up daily and yearly schedules for various people in the community. They also provided 20 (or so) surveys about agriculture, the environment, health, AIDS, schools, local government structure etc… etc… to be filled out by knowledgeable people. These questionnaires inquire about factual data, but also about the main problems, resources available, current projects, and potential projects. These “needs” assessments are meant to help us volunteers find a project, but also to meet as many people in the community as possible. Getting to know the health workers and village headmen is helpful, because once we have a project that we want to execute, we can’t do it alone, nor should we. We need Thai counterparts to help with communication and planning, as well as support from the community and those who provide funding.
In one week, I head to Korat, a large city in Western Isaan, for a second round of training. It will last two weeks, and involve learning more Thai, additional sessions about Thai politics and culture, more technical stuff, and a counterpart conference. At PST2, every volunteer has to give a brief CAT presentation. For us TCCO, our presentations should focus on our schools. How many students, how many teachers, assets, challenges, needs, potential projects etc… For CBOD volunteers, CAT is a much bigger deal. At the beginning, it is essentially all they are supposed to be doing, because they arrive at site with no pre-existing project, and must use CAT to find one. Their presentations are on their communities as a whole. While I want to have secondary projects with my schools, I am also interested in community development, and so have spent my past two community days (Fridays when I do not teach), surveying. I went to two local health stations and the local governing body with questionnaires and chatted with the people there.
Most of my evenings over the past two weeks have been spent CATting, or processing the information I have collected at my schools and drawing school maps. I have so many ideas for projects already, based on my personal observations, but I look forward to discovering things about Wat Bot I have not discovered on my own. I am also looking forward to the English language movie theater and Mexican restaurant in Korat (according to Lonely Planet), spending two weeks in a hotel with all the other volunteers, the hiking/camping trip 10 of us have planned for the weekend before, and then visiting my host family in Lopburi after PST2 finishes. I will return home on July 12 (Happy Birthday Sarah!) with 3 days to prepare for a large teacher training I am helping to plan. I’ll let you folks now how allllllll that goes.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Bekah in Wonderland
Every year in Thailand, some English language education body headquartered in Bangkok selects a theme for a national English camp. From what I understand, not every school or district must put on the camp, but many do. This year, the theme was “Wonderland of English Camp”. Pii Som mentioned to me a few weeks ago that Wat Bot School was holding one. While I knew I would be teaching at it, I was unsure of what my role was in organization and planning. English camps are an inevitable part of Peace Corps Thailand life- Thai people love them. Camps usually last anywhere from 1 to 3 days, can be localized at a school or district-wide, range in size from 50 students to 200, and can be themed or not. I, and others, doubt the effectiveness and sustainability of English camps- how much will the kids really gain or learn from a few intense days? But there are always banners with the title of the camp, certificates handed out at the end (Thai people love certificates too), and something tangible to put in a report. No English camp is complete without a farang, and many volunteers dedicate a significant amount of time to attending and putting on camps. I do think camps have some value-namely in getting the kids excited about English and showing them learning can be fun- but I am not the biggest fan either. Regardless, my school and co-teacher sponsored this one, so of course I would be involved.
Pii Som took care of logistical stuff, like funding, food, inviting teachers and students, so my responsibilities were centered on what to teach. This camp was district wide, so two sixth grade students from somewhere around 20 schools in the district came with an accompanying teacher. There were about 60 students and 14 teachers. Dan and Kelsi, the two volunteers in Sukothai, were luckily able to come and help out. Pii Som wanted the camp to be a general overview of English subjects: “about me”, “shopping”, “directions”, “health and the body” etc…, with 9 rotations total. On Wednesday, there were three sessions where all 60 students learned together. Dan, Kelsi, and I taught about American holidays. We made giant flashcards with colored pencils, did a New Years countdown, and Dan acted like a turkey. Thursday and Friday morning, there was a series of 6 rotations, 10 students per group, each rotation 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Each group had a color.
My topic was “Wh questions” words. I decided to create a “mystery” story and then scavenger hunt, where the students had to collect clues by answering “Wh questions”. I wrote a short story titled “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?”, and made serious use of clipart to make a visual storyboard, to help the students understand words they did not know, like “kitchen” or “stole”. I randomly had a 26 year old Danish teaching assistant named Klaus, who teaches at a special education school in Phitsanulok. Each farang teacher was supposed to have a Thai counterpart, to give the camp an element of teacher training, but my counterpart was Pii Som who did not have time to teach with me because she was in charge. Klaus however made an excellent assistant.
First, we taught the kids “who, what, where, when, and which” using charades, dialogue modeling, and Thai translation. Then we went through the story slowly, using pictures and actions to help them understand. Klaus took one group of five and I took the other (in each rotation) and we went through 5 reading comprehension questions about the story (“Who baked the cookies?”; “Where did Johnny bake the cookies?”; Which types of cookies did Johnny bake?”). Once they completed the worksheet, each group got a manila envelope with a question mark on it. They pulled out the piece of paper with their group’s color and read the clue. For example, “who is the foreign teacher who lives in Sukothai, with blonde hair, and a big body?” The students would think, yell “Dan!” and set off running for Dan’s classroom, where they would find another envelope. “Where do students eat lunch?” “Roong A-Haan”. “Which building does pratom 6 study in?” etc… etc… After they made 5 stops and collected 5 clues, they returned to the classroom. There, they received another worksheet and had to match their clues to the questions. “Who stole the cookies” “Where did they go?” “When were they stolen?” etc…
It was an activity that took a lot of work on my part, but the students responded incredibly well. They seemed to be having so much fun, and maybe even learned the question words. The running all over the school caught the attention of teachers as well, and I had people coming up to me all day asking about the activity. Many teachers even asked for copies of the worksheets. It showed me that many of Thai teachers really want to do creative, exciting activities with their students, but do not know how, because they have never been taught about student-centered learning and being innovative in the classroom. In addition, Kelsi, Dan and I lead many games and songs for the whole group. We played an awesome game where the kids pretended to be riding various vehicles, sang silly songs, and organized a round of steal-the-bacon.
Dan and Kelsi were the first volunteers to visit my site. A few weeks ago, the Peace Corps director in Thailand came to visit for a few hours, but Dan and Kelsi were genuinely my guests. I met them at the market on Tuesday evening, and we went bought things to eat for dinner and snack on, like fried chicken (for Dan) and locally made popcorn. Back at my house, the three of us kicked back and relaxed. Since our daily lives at site do not involve farangs, sitting around a table with two friends is quite the luxury. They stayed for four nights, each night upon returning home, we pretty much did the same thing, involving beer, fruit, fried chicken (for Dan), and various arts and crafts with music in the background. Kelsi and I attempted to choreograph a dance for our friend’s birthday, inspired by Thai aerobics.
On Wednesday evening, Pii Orasa took us to an event in a nearby village. Boy and girl scouts are big in Thailand, and every school has a scouting day where the students wear scouty uniforms and do vaguely outdoorsy activities. This event was for all the adult scouting groups, 10 groups with 10 people total. They were all drunk, all wearing colored neck kerchiefs, and there was dancing around a bonfire involved. We only stayed and watched the “show” until 9, and then went back home 1) because it was bizarre, and b) because the mosquitoes were attacking our sweet foreign skin. Pii Som took us to dinner at her favorite restaurant/som tum place and then the weekly wat market on Thursday. Then on Friday, all the teachers had a little party to celebrate the end of the camp. In Dan’s honor, there was fried chicken. It was a fun and exhausting week, but I am looking forward to a bit of “normalcy” next week.
Pii Som took care of logistical stuff, like funding, food, inviting teachers and students, so my responsibilities were centered on what to teach. This camp was district wide, so two sixth grade students from somewhere around 20 schools in the district came with an accompanying teacher. There were about 60 students and 14 teachers. Dan and Kelsi, the two volunteers in Sukothai, were luckily able to come and help out. Pii Som wanted the camp to be a general overview of English subjects: “about me”, “shopping”, “directions”, “health and the body” etc…, with 9 rotations total. On Wednesday, there were three sessions where all 60 students learned together. Dan, Kelsi, and I taught about American holidays. We made giant flashcards with colored pencils, did a New Years countdown, and Dan acted like a turkey. Thursday and Friday morning, there was a series of 6 rotations, 10 students per group, each rotation 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Each group had a color.
My topic was “Wh questions” words. I decided to create a “mystery” story and then scavenger hunt, where the students had to collect clues by answering “Wh questions”. I wrote a short story titled “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?”, and made serious use of clipart to make a visual storyboard, to help the students understand words they did not know, like “kitchen” or “stole”. I randomly had a 26 year old Danish teaching assistant named Klaus, who teaches at a special education school in Phitsanulok. Each farang teacher was supposed to have a Thai counterpart, to give the camp an element of teacher training, but my counterpart was Pii Som who did not have time to teach with me because she was in charge. Klaus however made an excellent assistant.
First, we taught the kids “who, what, where, when, and which” using charades, dialogue modeling, and Thai translation. Then we went through the story slowly, using pictures and actions to help them understand. Klaus took one group of five and I took the other (in each rotation) and we went through 5 reading comprehension questions about the story (“Who baked the cookies?”; “Where did Johnny bake the cookies?”; Which types of cookies did Johnny bake?”). Once they completed the worksheet, each group got a manila envelope with a question mark on it. They pulled out the piece of paper with their group’s color and read the clue. For example, “who is the foreign teacher who lives in Sukothai, with blonde hair, and a big body?” The students would think, yell “Dan!” and set off running for Dan’s classroom, where they would find another envelope. “Where do students eat lunch?” “Roong A-Haan”. “Which building does pratom 6 study in?” etc… etc… After they made 5 stops and collected 5 clues, they returned to the classroom. There, they received another worksheet and had to match their clues to the questions. “Who stole the cookies” “Where did they go?” “When were they stolen?” etc…
It was an activity that took a lot of work on my part, but the students responded incredibly well. They seemed to be having so much fun, and maybe even learned the question words. The running all over the school caught the attention of teachers as well, and I had people coming up to me all day asking about the activity. Many teachers even asked for copies of the worksheets. It showed me that many of Thai teachers really want to do creative, exciting activities with their students, but do not know how, because they have never been taught about student-centered learning and being innovative in the classroom. In addition, Kelsi, Dan and I lead many games and songs for the whole group. We played an awesome game where the kids pretended to be riding various vehicles, sang silly songs, and organized a round of steal-the-bacon.
Dan and Kelsi were the first volunteers to visit my site. A few weeks ago, the Peace Corps director in Thailand came to visit for a few hours, but Dan and Kelsi were genuinely my guests. I met them at the market on Tuesday evening, and we went bought things to eat for dinner and snack on, like fried chicken (for Dan) and locally made popcorn. Back at my house, the three of us kicked back and relaxed. Since our daily lives at site do not involve farangs, sitting around a table with two friends is quite the luxury. They stayed for four nights, each night upon returning home, we pretty much did the same thing, involving beer, fruit, fried chicken (for Dan), and various arts and crafts with music in the background. Kelsi and I attempted to choreograph a dance for our friend’s birthday, inspired by Thai aerobics.
On Wednesday evening, Pii Orasa took us to an event in a nearby village. Boy and girl scouts are big in Thailand, and every school has a scouting day where the students wear scouty uniforms and do vaguely outdoorsy activities. This event was for all the adult scouting groups, 10 groups with 10 people total. They were all drunk, all wearing colored neck kerchiefs, and there was dancing around a bonfire involved. We only stayed and watched the “show” until 9, and then went back home 1) because it was bizarre, and b) because the mosquitoes were attacking our sweet foreign skin. Pii Som took us to dinner at her favorite restaurant/som tum place and then the weekly wat market on Thursday. Then on Friday, all the teachers had a little party to celebrate the end of the camp. In Dan’s honor, there was fried chicken. It was a fun and exhausting week, but I am looking forward to a bit of “normalcy” next week.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Post 14: School House Rock
Schools have been open for a few weeks now, and I kept intending to write a thorough (and eloquent) blog post detailing my schools and life as a teacher. After the first few days at school, I felt too exhausted to write. Then, the material began gathering, accruing and coalescing (this is where the eloquence part comes in) into one massive load of information that felt too big to tackle-an experiential multi-headed monster. In other words, I put off blogging because there was too much to write about, and I was busy. So here is my first attempt. I think I have mentioned this before, but I work at two schools. The first is the main school in the district…
Wat Bot School
Wat Bot school has kindergarten (anuban) all the way through maw 3, or the equivalent of ninth grade. Education in Thailand is free up until ninth grade, and then students have the option of continuing with the final three years of secondary education, if they can pay. Wat Bot school has about 850 students- 650 pratom students (1st through 6th grade) and 200 matayum students (7th grade and up). There are somewhere between 30 and 40 teachers. As is true at most Thai schools, a vast majority of the teachers are women. The administrators, however, are men. Like in the states, the primary school teachers teach every subject while secondary teachers specialize.
I am teaching two maw 1 classes, level 1 and level 2. Within grades, students are divided into classes by their “levels”, or relative abilities. However, the divisions into level 1 and level 2 (at least for English) seem fairly arbitrary. Thus far the students who are in the allegedly “less smart” class are better behaved and more productive workers. My co-teacher, Pii Som, continually tells me how all the students are bad, not smart, and do not like to work. Since the “smarter” (read: wealthier) students go to school in the city, I think it is a common perception that students in the country schools are less capable. But from what I have observed, these are intelligent, motivated, and [mostly] well-behaved, normal kids, which means that they are willing to learn and will listen, but have difficulty sitting and listening to dictation for two hours (don’t we all?). They are all excited to be learning with the “farang” teacher, and even seem to enjoy my attempts at classroom management, a new concept for Thai schools. Many Thai teachers use varying degrees of corporal punishment, from light raps on the head to paddles. I prefer positive reinforcement. However, the ways students are treated is different here. In America, if the students do not understand the material, the responsibility lays in the teacher’s hands. The students may not be learning because the teacher is not presenting the material effectively. In Thailand, if the students are not learning, it is because they are slow, bad and stupid. No culpability at all is put on the teachers. And when a teacher takes an afternoon off to run errands or sit in another teacher’s classroom, it is the students responsibility to learn on their own.
I teach at Wat Bot school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and two Wednesdays ago was the first day of school. It was a completely overwhelming experience at first, with 850 students and their parents running around in normal first day confusion, staring at me as they went. I will admit I was intimidated by the sheer number of children and unsure of my place within the school community. The students spent the entire first day cleaning the school from top to bottom. The day felt long and exhausting, but I knew it would get easier as it grew more familiar. The second day, I told my co-teacher clearly and adamantly that I wanted to observe her teach, as Peace Corps strongly recommends we spend at least two weeks doing, to assess the students and the teachers, and get our bearings. I was sitting in the back of the class with my pen and paper poised to observe and take notes, when Pii Som says “Bekah, come up to the front of the classroom. What will you teach today?” I had nothing planned and was taken off guard, but I improvised and tried to be dynamic and positive.
Pii Som had told me multiple times she did not want school to open and was not excited, but she totally fed off my energy and motivation. By the end of the class, she was smiling, having fun, and even building on the activity I introduced in the classroom. It made me see that by simply providing an alternative teaching model, I may be able to affect some kind of change. However, I recently found out that her attitude is not [only] a result of not enjoying her job. Apparently the paw-aw at the school and Pii Som do not get along. He is unfriendly, arrogant, and close-minded. She told me today that once I return to America, she wants to change schools because he makes her so miserable.
Wat Bot School has been open for four weeks, but I have barely taught. The students spent a large portion of time the first few days cleaning the school and then hanging out. The second week, the school had a 2 week “training” on manners and etiquette. The first week (but second week of school), only matayum students came to school- all the primary students had the days off. The teachers taught multiple rotations on various subjects, ranging from hand-washing (which I taught) to singing the anthem of Phitsanulok province to the appropriate length of hair for girls. There were also sessions on “wai”ing, the formal form of greeting in Thailand, and how to be polite when purchasing things in a store. Allegedly since the students are “bad”, this type of training is more important than actual education. The second week of the manners training, the high school students taught the primary students, so yet again, no actual learning occurred. Then last week, the school hosted a district wide English camp (a full post about that to come), so I did not teach my regular classes. It is totally normal on any given day for students to be roaming about the school, hanging out on benches, and generally doing anything but studying. If the teachers don’t feel like teaching, they don’t. It is frustrating for me to see sometimes, because I feel like these kids have so much potential and could be learning so much, but aren’t given the chance.
Thangam
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I go to Chumchon Ban Thangam, or the Thangam community school. It has kindergarten through sixth grade, and a grand total of 76 students. The school is underfunded and only has six teachers, not including the woman who cares for the anuban kids. Unlike Wat Bot school, where just as many teachers live outside of the community as in, a majority of the teachers at Thangam school were born and raised in Thangam. My co-teacher, Pii Orasa, is such a case. She teaches first grade and this year only has four students. However, the school decided to combine the first and second grade classes for English, and thus I have 13 students. Pii Orasa, unlike Pii Som, clearly loves to teach and loves her students. She has a wonderful manner with children and loves to sing songs and be silly in the classroom. She is a bit like a mother figure at the school, and the other teachers frequently wander into the classroom with questions or wailing children. Since Pii Orasa’s students are so young, I also teach the sixth graders with another teacher. That class has eleven students.
Everything is on such a small scale at Thangam it almost feels like an elf school. The fact that it is such a local, community-based school means that everything is very relaxed. The bell rings when teachers decide to push the bell button and the “schedule” is more like a general guideline. The teachers at Wat Bot school are relatively reliable about teaching when they are supposed to. Not true at Thangam, I think I have yet to be there one day when all six teachers were present. Howoever, the students are remarkably adept at taking care of themselves and never get into mischief. Furthermore, teachers at Thangam are constantly using the TV to “teach”. Each classroom does have a TV, as part of a push by the Thai government to integrate technology into the classroom. Most of the teachers will turn it on and either sit in the back of the classroom or wander off. The second grade classroom is right next to the bathroom, and I have literally passed it one time in three weeks when the TV was not turned on. This really bothers me, because no matter informative, having 7 year in a classroom and passively stare at a television is not educational. When I asked the teachers about it, they said it is because they are under-staffed and get tired, which is fair, but I know if I was to calculate the amount of hours the teachers actively spent teaching their students, it would be shockingly low. In some ways, it feels more like a day care than a school.
Usually when I teach the little kids, we take the class outside to the area underneath the mango trees. There are tables for the kids to sit on and work, and it is a quiet, shady space. Although I do not have a chalk board, I love teaching outside and the kids have room to move around, particularly useful when I have them make letter shapes with their bodies or play “letter zoo” (B bear, C cat, D duck, E elephant etc…). Pii Orasa is really good and keeping a schedule and starting class on time. Pii Sompit, however, almost always leaves the students to their own devices or turns on the TV, so I can basically teach whenever. There are usual times I teach, but if here or there I want to push class back thirty minutes or teach an extra half hour that day, it is fine. The sixth graders get so excited when I come to teach, but it is clear they are not used to using their brains at school. Seriously, the concept of critical thinking is new to them at age 11.
For lunch, we eat food hand-cooked at the school by a retired teacher, usually sitting at a picnic table under a big tree, and everyone shares fruit. When we finish eating, a few nearby students get corralled to rinse our dishes, and then the bell gets pushed again. I really enjoy spending time with Pii Orasa, even when I am not teaching with her, and when I have time, help her teach art to the first and second graders. I have already started brainstorming ideas for the school, like implementing a recycling program and holding a teacher training workshop (where I emphasize turning on a TV is not teaching) and all six teachers, and the paw-aw, have already made me feel welcome and valued.
PS-If you want a picture CD, email me your mailing address.
I miss you all!
Wat Bot School
Wat Bot school has kindergarten (anuban) all the way through maw 3, or the equivalent of ninth grade. Education in Thailand is free up until ninth grade, and then students have the option of continuing with the final three years of secondary education, if they can pay. Wat Bot school has about 850 students- 650 pratom students (1st through 6th grade) and 200 matayum students (7th grade and up). There are somewhere between 30 and 40 teachers. As is true at most Thai schools, a vast majority of the teachers are women. The administrators, however, are men. Like in the states, the primary school teachers teach every subject while secondary teachers specialize.
I am teaching two maw 1 classes, level 1 and level 2. Within grades, students are divided into classes by their “levels”, or relative abilities. However, the divisions into level 1 and level 2 (at least for English) seem fairly arbitrary. Thus far the students who are in the allegedly “less smart” class are better behaved and more productive workers. My co-teacher, Pii Som, continually tells me how all the students are bad, not smart, and do not like to work. Since the “smarter” (read: wealthier) students go to school in the city, I think it is a common perception that students in the country schools are less capable. But from what I have observed, these are intelligent, motivated, and [mostly] well-behaved, normal kids, which means that they are willing to learn and will listen, but have difficulty sitting and listening to dictation for two hours (don’t we all?). They are all excited to be learning with the “farang” teacher, and even seem to enjoy my attempts at classroom management, a new concept for Thai schools. Many Thai teachers use varying degrees of corporal punishment, from light raps on the head to paddles. I prefer positive reinforcement. However, the ways students are treated is different here. In America, if the students do not understand the material, the responsibility lays in the teacher’s hands. The students may not be learning because the teacher is not presenting the material effectively. In Thailand, if the students are not learning, it is because they are slow, bad and stupid. No culpability at all is put on the teachers. And when a teacher takes an afternoon off to run errands or sit in another teacher’s classroom, it is the students responsibility to learn on their own.
I teach at Wat Bot school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and two Wednesdays ago was the first day of school. It was a completely overwhelming experience at first, with 850 students and their parents running around in normal first day confusion, staring at me as they went. I will admit I was intimidated by the sheer number of children and unsure of my place within the school community. The students spent the entire first day cleaning the school from top to bottom. The day felt long and exhausting, but I knew it would get easier as it grew more familiar. The second day, I told my co-teacher clearly and adamantly that I wanted to observe her teach, as Peace Corps strongly recommends we spend at least two weeks doing, to assess the students and the teachers, and get our bearings. I was sitting in the back of the class with my pen and paper poised to observe and take notes, when Pii Som says “Bekah, come up to the front of the classroom. What will you teach today?” I had nothing planned and was taken off guard, but I improvised and tried to be dynamic and positive.
Pii Som had told me multiple times she did not want school to open and was not excited, but she totally fed off my energy and motivation. By the end of the class, she was smiling, having fun, and even building on the activity I introduced in the classroom. It made me see that by simply providing an alternative teaching model, I may be able to affect some kind of change. However, I recently found out that her attitude is not [only] a result of not enjoying her job. Apparently the paw-aw at the school and Pii Som do not get along. He is unfriendly, arrogant, and close-minded. She told me today that once I return to America, she wants to change schools because he makes her so miserable.
Wat Bot School has been open for four weeks, but I have barely taught. The students spent a large portion of time the first few days cleaning the school and then hanging out. The second week, the school had a 2 week “training” on manners and etiquette. The first week (but second week of school), only matayum students came to school- all the primary students had the days off. The teachers taught multiple rotations on various subjects, ranging from hand-washing (which I taught) to singing the anthem of Phitsanulok province to the appropriate length of hair for girls. There were also sessions on “wai”ing, the formal form of greeting in Thailand, and how to be polite when purchasing things in a store. Allegedly since the students are “bad”, this type of training is more important than actual education. The second week of the manners training, the high school students taught the primary students, so yet again, no actual learning occurred. Then last week, the school hosted a district wide English camp (a full post about that to come), so I did not teach my regular classes. It is totally normal on any given day for students to be roaming about the school, hanging out on benches, and generally doing anything but studying. If the teachers don’t feel like teaching, they don’t. It is frustrating for me to see sometimes, because I feel like these kids have so much potential and could be learning so much, but aren’t given the chance.
Thangam
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I go to Chumchon Ban Thangam, or the Thangam community school. It has kindergarten through sixth grade, and a grand total of 76 students. The school is underfunded and only has six teachers, not including the woman who cares for the anuban kids. Unlike Wat Bot school, where just as many teachers live outside of the community as in, a majority of the teachers at Thangam school were born and raised in Thangam. My co-teacher, Pii Orasa, is such a case. She teaches first grade and this year only has four students. However, the school decided to combine the first and second grade classes for English, and thus I have 13 students. Pii Orasa, unlike Pii Som, clearly loves to teach and loves her students. She has a wonderful manner with children and loves to sing songs and be silly in the classroom. She is a bit like a mother figure at the school, and the other teachers frequently wander into the classroom with questions or wailing children. Since Pii Orasa’s students are so young, I also teach the sixth graders with another teacher. That class has eleven students.
Everything is on such a small scale at Thangam it almost feels like an elf school. The fact that it is such a local, community-based school means that everything is very relaxed. The bell rings when teachers decide to push the bell button and the “schedule” is more like a general guideline. The teachers at Wat Bot school are relatively reliable about teaching when they are supposed to. Not true at Thangam, I think I have yet to be there one day when all six teachers were present. Howoever, the students are remarkably adept at taking care of themselves and never get into mischief. Furthermore, teachers at Thangam are constantly using the TV to “teach”. Each classroom does have a TV, as part of a push by the Thai government to integrate technology into the classroom. Most of the teachers will turn it on and either sit in the back of the classroom or wander off. The second grade classroom is right next to the bathroom, and I have literally passed it one time in three weeks when the TV was not turned on. This really bothers me, because no matter informative, having 7 year in a classroom and passively stare at a television is not educational. When I asked the teachers about it, they said it is because they are under-staffed and get tired, which is fair, but I know if I was to calculate the amount of hours the teachers actively spent teaching their students, it would be shockingly low. In some ways, it feels more like a day care than a school.
Usually when I teach the little kids, we take the class outside to the area underneath the mango trees. There are tables for the kids to sit on and work, and it is a quiet, shady space. Although I do not have a chalk board, I love teaching outside and the kids have room to move around, particularly useful when I have them make letter shapes with their bodies or play “letter zoo” (B bear, C cat, D duck, E elephant etc…). Pii Orasa is really good and keeping a schedule and starting class on time. Pii Sompit, however, almost always leaves the students to their own devices or turns on the TV, so I can basically teach whenever. There are usual times I teach, but if here or there I want to push class back thirty minutes or teach an extra half hour that day, it is fine. The sixth graders get so excited when I come to teach, but it is clear they are not used to using their brains at school. Seriously, the concept of critical thinking is new to them at age 11.
For lunch, we eat food hand-cooked at the school by a retired teacher, usually sitting at a picnic table under a big tree, and everyone shares fruit. When we finish eating, a few nearby students get corralled to rinse our dishes, and then the bell gets pushed again. I really enjoy spending time with Pii Orasa, even when I am not teaching with her, and when I have time, help her teach art to the first and second graders. I have already started brainstorming ideas for the school, like implementing a recycling program and holding a teacher training workshop (where I emphasize turning on a TV is not teaching) and all six teachers, and the paw-aw, have already made me feel welcome and valued.
PS-If you want a picture CD, email me your mailing address.
I miss you all!
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