My stomach is hungry for noodle soup from my "family in law's" restaurant. I used to eat there often and sometimes help bus tables, but now with school I can rarely go. Today being Saturday, I can focus on noodels, in addition to KKEI and lesson planning of course.
The training in Buriram was enjoyable -- they called it spa time for us. We mostly discussed and exchanged, watched short movies the school uses to inspire their kids, and they demonstrated some contemplative activities/songs for us. I explored some of their classrooms during one of the breaks, which was helpful. Unfortunately, we couldn't observe any classes since it was the weekend -- most of the other Nong Waeng teachers were able to do that during the week-long training last time.
I thought the most productive time for us as far as group building was when we sporadically decided to play a game of volleyball. Unfortunately I haven't played volleball outside of middle school PE more than a decade ago, but it was still a good stress releaser. We've started to use it with the 5th graders, too, laying our shoes out to serve as the net. It seems like it has caught on at Nong Waeng -- they are building a volleyball court in what I suppose is the gym area.
The next weekend after the Buriram training, KKEI had our Action Research training. After listening to our different teaching roles, philosophies, and styles, P'Ben suggested we each list our questions and issues, and from that, decide on individual research themes. I'll post my own questions and issues in another entry -- they might serve as a fairly thorough journaling update as far as teaching goes. Here are each of our research themes:
P'Tuk -- How to improve her relationship with 3 particular students in her class
P'Dtaeng -- How her class is different from the mainstream
P'Soryor -- Defining his teaching technique -- perhaps deciding between integrated curriculum and contemplative education
P'Aom -- Improving teacher relationships and the teaching team process
V (Me) -- Mine is the same as P'Aom's, though we are developing our proposals individually as my teacher-teacher relationships and hers have different contexts.
P'Gaolee, P'Noos, and Jennifer couldn't make it to the training so they don't have themes yet. P'Buoy came; she is a Non Chai teacher who doesn't actually see herself as a KKEI member but sometimes joins in for activities. But I didn't understand her theme, and P'Aom could not explain it to me.
One weekend later we presented our full proposals to P'Ben and she gave us feedback. My proposal is unique as it is autoethnography, she told me, whereas P'Aom's doesn't include as much of the cultural theme. P'Soryor decided to change his theme to following 5 of the kids who were put back into his classroom from Chan Kra (the classroom I teach in with P'Gaolee). They decided to return to his classroom after one year in Chan Kra, and P'Soryor wants to see how they fair and also see how it affects his teaching/his classroom. They are kids who have trouble reading/writing/following information (for example from a video clip).
We talked for awhile about P'Tuk and P'Daeng's troubled students. P'Ben is very wonderful and likeable and has a lot of good advice and stories from her Waldorf teaching, so it has been so valuable to sit down with her these last 2 weeks as a group. Unfortunately (for us) she's moving back to her home province, so we will have to keep up the exchange through e-mailing rather than in person.
I'm going to leave you with a teacher highlight now, rather than a student highlight, as I am also privileged to work with many wonderful teachers. Actually working with P'Aom is quite a privilege -- she is very talented and an award-winning teacher, so I can't say how lucky I am for this experience.
My teacher highlight was with P'Buoy. She teaches M3 at Non Chai (the American equivalent of 9th graders). Yesterday since the kids at Non Chai were all doing boy/girl scouts and planting trees in recognition of a national holiday, P'Buoy and I spent the morning tie dyeing cloth. While clumping and banding the cloth together, readying it for its boil bath in a leaf soup called bai kwaang, P'Buoy asked me about KKEI. "Is P'Aom annoyed that she has to do everything for KKEI?"
I didn't really know what to answer to that. So I just gave her a summary of the changes we are trying to make in the organization. When I mentioned alternative education she laughed and said, "Everything is alternative education. The municipality is putting us through so many trainings on all kinds of alternative education." It's true. And now I think all the teachers in municipal schools feel they are practicing some kind of alternative education.
P'Buoy went on, "But after we go to the trainings we don't actually change the way we teach." She pointed to the kindergarten class behind us as an example. "The teachers have been told to make the kids feel comfortable, to not force them to spell, but the teachers are still having them spell!"
So I told P'Buoy that I hoped KKEI could offer something different than the municipality by bringing an international perspective. She said yes, that would be different and teachers would enjoy trainings by international teachers.
The co-teaching KKEI is also supposed to provide could also ensure that teachers understand or at least evaluate and think continuously about new teaching methods they may have been introduced to during trainings. How could the municipality not love us?? :D
I think it's important, though, that we ITT stress the invitation to learn and implement new methods of teaching, rather than forcing teachers into it. This will also set us off from the municipality's forms of alternative education. As fellow teachers rather than experts or political figures, we have the power to impress rather than force. That is one thing to love about this job! Of course we also have the power to flop, and that is one thing to keep us on our feet.
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