I have spent 13 years of my life trying to get out of school, so
it's pretty weird to be back at one, of my own free will, with no pay.
When I was a kid, if I had heard that I would do this as a free adult
I'd probably have studied a bit harer and got into oxford straight out
of high school. Especially as I'm back at school in the despicable role
of a teacher!
But despite all my childhood oaths, the past few
weeks have been rather fun even if at first I was, well, unsure of what
I was doing let alone how to do it.
The school is a lot better
than I imagined, even after seeing William's pictures. I had thought
that there would be some extent of Thai poverty, but I am sure this
primary school is a class above the one I went to. Just not in the
standards of english! One weekend a danish guy called Ben came to visit
and he told me all about the school - its actually more of an example
for government schools to go by! So this school is a hell of a lot more
than a primary school. They even get business people doing training
sessions here; one business has booked for 400 people to come in
october. All of this makes me a bit nervous about teaching, as I sure
don't want to stuff it up. But the students and teachers make it a lot
easier - most of the students aren't shy and will chase me, hug me, try
to hold my hand and get me to play. I am more or less a rope in
tug-o-war. It's good as its easier to know the students like me but bad
as I feel likea paedophile everytime a student hugs me. Yim assures me
its ok as the students were taught to do it in Kindergarten but it
passes of as they get to P4. I try and escape the smaller kids
sometimes to go play soccer, though the heat is really a killer and I
get so sweaty. I can only do it at lunchtime when I have no afternoon
classes as then I can have a shower!
The first day of school wasn't actually a day of school; it was
a parent- teacher day. Wichian had told me that morning that I would
have to do a 5 minute speech, which seemed stupid as 70% of parents are
farmers so noone would have any idea what I was saying. It was even
stupider as I had 1/2 before speaking after he told me, but luckily I
guessed right in that he was joking. I still had to get up with the
other new teachers (its the start of the school year in Thailand) and
say a few words. I said "Sawadee Krap" and "Mai ow prik" but noone
laughed, either because my thai is bad or it isn't funny to thais. Damn
it! Yim showed me around the school whilst the parents listened to
Wichian and then I was free for the rest of the day. Which was good as
I had no idea what was going on, but bad because I didn't know what to
do. So I just hanged around and talked to people, well tried to. Later
in the afternoon we played volleyball, which is apparently the latest
craze for the teachers. My skin was so red and sore afterwards! Then we
went into town for some noodles on a street stall (I love thai street
food). On the table there was chilli, fish sauce, vinegar and sugar. I
put a little bit of chilli in my noodles to try and build up a
resistance but was shocked to see Yim put 3 tablespoons of sugar in her
bowl! Yim said she loves sugar. I soon learnt that Thai's put sugar
into more or less every dish they have and hence don't really have a
dessert menu, though westernisation is changing that. It causes a lot
of diabetes problems too! The funniest thing is Yim and the other
teachers will say they dont like things as the sugar will make them
fat! Like some fruits or alcopops! Odd way to look at it.
Most
nights I have been taken out for dinner, especially that first night.
Actually I get taken out by everyone, anytime. They all want to show
off to the foreigner! The first weekend I went to a temple on each
morning, we donated some food and money to the monks so they could eat
and build a stupa, then we ate all the leftover food. But the praying
on Sunday really put me off going again, I just can't sit cross legged
for so long! I feel out of place as I dont think foreigners would ever
get close to these temples, they are seriously off the beaten track.
Teaching
at Lamplaimat Pattana school isn't too hard as mainly I'm used to help
and pronounce things. Though I can't say I'm overly good at the latter,
especially after 5 months of chinglish. I have 2-4 classes a day,
usually in the mornings, but Teacher Yim is the only one that talks to
me out of class in regards to the lesson. I dont think the others have
to as there isn't much to planning a kindergarten lesson (read a book,
laugh and sing) but Yim teaches P5 and P6 and they are older. I had to
quickly think of other games and be extra creative with hand tricks as
William had used them to death for these classes, so most of the time
I'm struggling to remember what we did in primary school. Sometimes
it's nothing to do with english but the kids enjoy it and the main
reason I'm here is just to interact with the students and let them
speak english! The school has everything set up, but the teachers
aren't good enough at english and the students don't have much
incentive. I mean, everyone speaks Thai and there isn't any english up
around here unlike Bangkok or Singapore. A lot of students speak Isaan
(local dialect), lao and Khmer as well as Thai so English can be a 3rd
or 4th language! Teacher Yim is good, but nowhere near perfect at
English. Teacher Saeng was at Singapore so I don't know how good she
is, but close to Yim. The others all know english but it is riddle with
mistakes and mispronounciations. It's worrying when the students are
learning mistakes as to them it has to be correct as the teacher is
always right! Its frustrating sometimes, like when Teacher Da wrote up
5 sentences on the board (not part of the lesson plan) which weren't
too good. She asked me in front of all the students if it was correct
after they had spoken it together but by that time I couldnt say
anything without making her look stupid in front of the students!
Last
week we had a group of students come from Singapore. They couldn't have
been a bigger contrast to the local students. They had dinner in the
canteen and freaked out at all the bugs, which most of the Thai's catch
and eat as a snack! They could speak and understand english better but
they a really bad accent whereas the locals don't know much but have
can pronounce most things really well. On the last day they were here
(they came all the way from singapore for 3 nights, 2 days) they had a
cultural exchange show: thai's did Muay thai (kick boxing), a few
dances and a ritual with a fair bit of enthusiasm and home-made
costumes, but the Singapore students were dressed in casual city
clothes and just sang songs like "you are my sunshine" and "it's a
small world". To be fair, I think Singapore has too many cultures to
recognise but still. Maybe I am just being bias towards the students as
now I'm a teacher and in some parts responsible for their shows (I
helped with some English speeches).
One thing I noticed and
didn't particularly like was the seperation of muslim and non-muslim
Singapore students at meals. This was because of pork being dirty to
muslims and how they couldn't sit at the same table as someone eating
it. But to me it was just defining the culture as being different a
little too far. Why didn't they just not serve pork? But another thing
I noticed thats really what the school is about was the teaching
methods. Lamplaimat Pattana school is mainly an example via its
teaching methods: the teachers are all young, nice and will never
berate or command a student - the ultimate goal is to encourage the
student to learn freely and independently. But the singapore guy was
nuts. I dont even think the dickhead teachers at my high school were
this bad, and this guy was talking to 10 year old kids! Wichian seemed
happy when I pointed this out.
The Danish guy called Ben had worked for the Population and Community Development Authority (PDA, Non-government organisation run by Mechai) but his contract had just finished and he was visiting Wichian before going back to Denmark. He had met William at a english camp somewhere. It was good to talk to someone in proper, fast english and on Friday I went with him to Cambodia (its 2 hours or so away) so he could renew his visa. I learnt a lot about PDA, Wichian, the school and Thailand in general so I was actually happy to sit in a car for so long. At the border you could see all the casinos about 50m into Cambodia! As gambling is illegal in Thailand they all hop over to blow their money and buy fake booze and cheap cigarettes. There was a huge line of cars and a few buses that take home those who have bet away their cars. Later in the day we declared beer o'clock and went into Lamplaimat with Wichian to a little roadside cafe of sorts (all outdoors, i'll put up pictures soon...) but Ben had to stop and buy a case of beer for Wichian first. I thought it was a goodbye present but Wichian had actually beaten him in a game of golf! We were joined by Teacher Toi, Pawn (haha her name sounds like porn) and another office chic i dont know. I ended up footing the bill for dinner - Wichian was happy as he had two rich foreigners paying for his beer and food!
Oh and for all you boozers back home, the alcohol here is cheap! A large bottle of decent beer is a dollar or so, 2 dollars if you want to buy heineken. You can by smirnoff double blacks for 2 dollars from seven eleven - they cost 12 dollars a 4 pack back in Aus! And a bottle of Absolut vodka that costs at least 40 dollars back home is about 20 here. And if your really tight there are plenty of 3 dollar bottles of whisky... I remember telling Simon that Dad is drinking crownies these days when they are on special for 45 bucks - simon couldnt believe how expensive that was! Its about 25 bucks for a case of heineken here. Jealous?
I know this blog isn't in any particular order, I'm just writing as I think of stuff. Here are a few funny moments of misinterpretation:
Teacher Au (said like oo) was walking to the bathroom and saw me. She said that she wasn't feeling too good so she was going to use some white powder to make herself feel better (making a motion with her hand to her face). What??? Teacher oo is a drug addict! It took a while to explain why it was so funny to me. Maybe thats why the school car has eye-whitener in the glove box (im not joking, it actually does have some in it).
Teacher Pawn has a dog call Dow-hu, which means Tofu. It usually follows her everywhere, even if we go out for dinner somewhere. One night I asked teacher Da what was in the big dish and she said Dow-hu - your cooking Pawn's dog?? It was even funnier when Pawn came in looking for the dog and I pointed to the pot.
It's very hard to remember everyone's names due to the vowels and incredible difference from stereotypical English names. So I give nicknames to all the teachers with difficult names, but sometimes just because it is funny and the other teachers suggest it. So far there is Hippie (she wears env.org clothing and bracelets), Miss Cambodia (cambo chic), Miss Happy and a few others but the funniest is Grandma Puffy. Real name is Zhaou but she is the oldest teacher apart from Wichian (still only 34) so the other teachers suggest her nickname be grandma. The puffy bit comes from when she got an infection and her face swelled up greatly, looking like a puffer fish for the better part of a week. And yes, most of the teachers here are girls, which Ben and I agreed was due to Wichian's selection.
One night we had a volleyball competition. It was so hot I was soaked in sweat just from walking to the nets! Then afterwards everyone piled straight into the cars for a teacher dinner - no shower! I was plagued by the feeling I smelt bad the whole night! I was especially worried as I did'n't have my wallet, but luckily the school was paying for everyone. It was a BBQ night where we sat outside and in the centre of the table was a coal pit, which on top went a bowl that had a centre for grilling and an outer ring for boiling veges. I had to try and cook some some foods (I had no idea what I was cooking) but of course ended up knocking the dodgy bowl off the coal pit, burning my foot. Luckily noone else got wet and the pot was nearly empty, so I saved a small amount of embarrassment and of course had to smile through the pain in my foot! Oh, I forgot to mention that only 2 utes took all 20 teachers into town, and we had to cram in the open back to do it. Normally I wouldn't do it (or maybe I'm just saying that for Mum's benefit) but being so sweaty I didn't have much choice. Wichian was driving and I hoped like hell he hadn't drunk too much... After dropping off the other teachers we had to drive around the school to where Wichian and I lived. With me still in the back, Wichian thought it would be really funny to go really fast and swerve - I had to cling on hard to stay in! It was funny but when I jumped out of the back into the side of the rice paddy (wichian had parked close enough..) where I got stuck knee deep in mud and had to come back the next morning to search for my thongs.
I was going to finish the whole ramble in one go, but I'm at the school community development centre and there is a bit of a line for the computer. Im pretty sure the kids will just play games, but they are paying and I'm getting teacher's benefits of free internet!
