I have had a week full of processing, so let's see what I can share with anyone reading this blog...
To be clear, what I am here in Thailand to do as a member of the International Teaching Team of the Khon Kaen Education Initiative is "train" in the English language a teacher or teachers to which I am assigned. Training them in English is an activity to support our primary purpose: cultural exchange that relates to methods of education. Not that I have experience teaching in American elementary schools…but by virtue of having been a student for six years in an American elementary school, by virtue of my interest in education, and inherently through the task of problem solving – idea sharing and cultural exchange should be possible.
For me specifically, I will be working with P’Aom (primarily) and P’Newt. These women teach third grade at Nong Waeng municipality school (the poorest school in the municipality, which is often described as 90% kids from the slum).
This is the first school year that P’Aom and P’Newt have been able to teach only one grade – the same kids all day long. Usually the kids have to switch classes and teachers every period. This can be very confusing, especially considering that teachers often either don’t show up to the class, or are pulled out of their classes by the principal or even the municipality for meetings and sometimes preparing for activities that, unfortunately, have very little to do with learning! This week, at least one teacher from another school has been dedicating hours to preparing floats for a parade that is happening at the silk festival – an annual, 10-day, city-wide event. They are doing this because the mayor asked them to.
Note: there is no substitute teacher system in Khon Kaen. So for example, a few teachers from the school where my fellow International Teaching Team member (John) is teaching are leaving for a month-long training – it is unclear what will happen with their classes. Probably, other teachers will somehow have to absorb the task of basically babysitting them.
For P’Aom, P’Newt, and I, we hope to never leave the third grade class with less than two teachers. This is idealistic, though – the girl who had my place before me (Liz) would often end up teaching English class alone, even though it was not her role.
The kids in my class are overall very sweet, and because I am idealistic, I think at heart they are good kids. But they are also very naughty. I spent the last week observing, and what I observed was that it is very hard to teach them! Also, to top it off, copying is a way of life here. I watched more than half the class copy their assignments, and most teachers (including P’Aom) just put up with it and will watch it going on right under their noses without doing anything about it.
I’m not sure yet how many, but Liz said quite a few, of the kids can’t read, unfortunately not even having the basics down of the Thai alphabet, much less the English one. This isn’t specific to Nong Waeng school…and that is also one reason teachers put up with copying. A lot of kids just can’t do the assignments (well, not with their current level of literacy).
My only idea for this is that since I can’t read Thai either, maybe I could invite some of the kids to my Thai lessons (which I haven’t yet actually set up). We could learn to read together, and I’ll pay for the lessons??
It is likely that before the end of the semester, I will get lice and cut off my hair. So far P’Aom has spent at least some portion of the day combing out kids’ hair for lice/cutting their hair.
I’ve already had some ideas for teaching class, which I will share later, once they are tried, because this entry is getting long. I will also share later some of the different styles of teaching I have observed, and what a basic day looks like in P'Aom's class.
Some of my goals, I’ve decided are:
- Create activities that cause the students to take a role in transforming their environment (P’Aom is already doing this to some degree – a lot of what she is teaching revolves around creating a garden and she hopes to have the students start raising frogs to sell, too). I’m hoping to also carry this inside the classroom, so that students have visual reminders on the wall of what they’ve been learning. And the homier-looking this school gets the better. Why do schools have to look so bare?!
- Teach by sparking interest and investment in the students…anymore of that they can get the better.
- Encourage dialogue between P’Aom, P’Newt, and myself. Trying new things and then evaluating afterwords is going to be key.
- Connect as much as possible with kids’ families – maybe even finding ways to help kids do their homework on the weekends. Because if they don’t do their homework, P’Aom has them do it in class – and then they just copy off each other!
As for me personally, I am finally moved into an apartment, and so I have unpacked! I’m going to hold off on getting a motorcycle, and use my bicycle from last year. And, I'm really uncomfortable with how little the teachers get paid by the municipality -- 7,000 baht a month. This is less than I was given as a living stipend by CIEE Thailand. And it is less than I am given now by the municipality to do less than the teachers are asked to do.
