Back 2 School!

The first week of school is over and I'm starting on my second. The old ITT are making their ways back to the States, along with the CIEE Interns. So basically, by the end of the next couple weeks, I'll have no white friends in Khon Kaen! Freak!

I feel surprisingly comfortable with the fifth graders at Nong Waeng. I look at their faces and simply absolutely love them. They have matured considerably since their first year in P'Noos and P'Aom's classroom (my first semester with KKEI -- see old blog entries). It's impossible not to notice that, and also, how they compare to the sixth and fourth graders this year. It is testament to the value of relaxed routine/discipline, steady role models/teachers, and deep student-teacher relationships. It may also speak to the multi-cultural teaching team, and how that affects their curriculum.

I suppose it could speak to many values cultivated by the intentionality of an ideal KKEI classroom.

Though I get to spend most of my time with these fifth graders -- which I love because such a classroom also cultivates a happy work enviornment -- I spend the other 60% of my time between 3 other classrooms.

Fortunately the municipality has instituted a policy changing all of Nong Waeng's classrooms to be more like P'Noos and P'Aom's, meaning each grade has a teacher pair assigned to them who will for the most part keep that class throughout the day. I'm happy for the teachers and the school because I think the policy leaves potential for a better working and learning environment for everyone. There will be a lot of challenges inherent in such a top-down approach, though.

And meanwhile my job has become more similar to how the school was before. English remains split between 2 teachers, so that I have to teach the fourth and sixth graders by myself one morning each per week. The greatest challenge of this is the number of kids and the behavior of about a third of them, especially when they see they have been left with "just" a foreigner. My first challenge is simply to get to know each of them, so that we can gain each others' trust and not spend the rest of the year bullying each other.

The fourth and final classroom I help take care of is at Non Chai -- 12 kids who don't do well in the regular seventh, eigth, and, ninth grade classrooms. So far we seem to be taking pretty well to each other and I'm excited to work with them on English. My co-teacher for that classroom (it is a KKEI classroom) is P'Gaolee. Unfortunately he's been off doing camps or something outside school about 50% of the time, so my Monday role with this class remains completely unclear. Friday afternoons after I teach English, I'll be teaching violin to one student...so I guess I have to brush up!

In general every challenge has seemed minor, probably because I am so happy to be back at school and at a "real" (and steady) job.

We also had our first KKEI meeting last week. Besides Lukas and me, I think KKEI is extremely fortunate to have two new volunteer members -- P'Goong, an organizer with experience in education, and Jennifer, a Philipino with experience in training and an education in psychology.

P'Goong has agreed to take on our KKEI "action research" as she knows someone who can help us structure it, and who can train us over a day. It was exciting to see all KKEI members leaning forward for that discussion -- a complete win!

I'm off to school; see you next week.