Teaching and Dolphin Legs

May 23, 2014

Today I woke up feeling really, really dizzy!  I stood up to go to the bathroom and everything was spinning.  I had to lean against the fall so I didn’t fall over.  I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to teach in the state I was in.  I logged onto Facebook for a minute and the head teacher had messaged me saying there was no school today!  That was a little blessing because of how crummy I felt.  I talked to a couple Thai teachers and confirmed that that was true.  Words like “martial law” and “military coup” have been thrown around.  I guess school was off due to the national peace and order council...

I don’t care for (read: hate) politics, so I don’t really want to know all the details.  I’m safe and the stuff that’s going down is mostly happening in Bangkok, which is about 4 hours away.  I don’t feel like I am in danger or anything—just grateful that I have today off to try and feel better.   I went back to sleep for a few hours and ate a really good lunch and I’m feeling 85% better!  Hooray!  It’s amazing how just a little bit of feeling yucky can make me so grateful for my health.

It’s been about a week since I wrote last and I have a lot to catch up on!  I started teaching, went to church, went out with the Thai teachers, and had my birthday. I’ve had the most requests for details about teaching so I’ll start with that. 

Here I am teaching.  I'm wearing my school uniform.  The shirt has their school logo and was tailor made for me.

Those are Elementary 2 kids 

Elementary 1 kids

They come in every day and take pictures.  Those are from the school’s Facebook page.    Yesterday Tang's mom and dad came by to bring us some fruit and wanted to see me teach.  So the two of them came in for about 20 minutes with a couple strangers and sat in the back of the room watching me, taking pictures, and filming.  

Tang came in and we team taught that lesson and it was really good!  It was nice to watch her a little bit and feed of each other’s energy. 

On to the nitty gritty!  So… I started teaching last Wednesday.  The first day was a little bit crazy.  They are building a new building where I will have my own classroom and the students will come to me for their English classes.  The building isn’t done, so I am currently going into the 2 classes when I teach.  That means I feel like a wanderer without a home J.  I have a tub that I put my supplies in and carry around, but it’ll be nice to have my own pace soon.  They think it’ll be ready at the end of the month—so just another week. 

The morning wasn’t great, but I think the day got better as it went on.  It’s REALLY noisy in the classrooms. All the windows were open because it was so hot and they weren’t using the air.  The construction workers were cutting things and it was so noisy.  Then the white board installers came and were drilling into the block walls as we were trying to have a lesson.  We were able to use the situation to talk about what they were doing and the tools they were using.  It wasn’t a terrible day, it was just different that I was expecting.  Not the first time that’s happened! J

I have been trying really hard to focus on the good things, but to be honest the first few days were really tough and had me feeling pretty insecure about my teaching abilities.  I learned a lot those first few days and I am starting to get the hang of the new style of teaching.  I am remembering to laugh and try to be fun with the kids.  We had a science lesson a couple days ago and the kids said "That was so fun!"  It was nice to hear that right from their 6 year old mouths.

While teaching in the states the big focus is to teach higher-level thinking.  Get the kids to really think and work through problems.  Promote group work and collaboration.  Here I’m teaching language and NOT content.  I’m supposed to do everything opposite of what I am used to.  They aren’t supposed to have to think in a problem-solving mode.  I’m supposed to ask questions that are so easy that they don’t have to think at all to come up with an answer—that way they can answer quickly and use more language.  The content has already been taught in their native language and now they just need to learn how to talk about it in a new language.  It isn’t good to have them do a lot of group work because I need to be able to correct and model proper language.  Each student is supposed to talk every 1-2 minutes!  It’s a big shift from what I’m used to and it’s taking some adjusting.  I am already starting to get the feel for it and I think that soon it’ll feel more natural.  It already feels SO much easier and the lesson planning is getting easier.  It’s been stretching me as a teacher and I know this whole experience is going to make me a better teacher and person.

The kids (as all kids do) have been pushing their limits to see what they can get away with.  I didn’t start out as structured as I would have liked, but yesterday I set up a new reward/consequence plan and it worked well.  I am hopeful that it’ll continue to work well and we will get in a good groove. 

The kids are really cute!  They have dynamic personalities and I am getting to know them better.  They are a smart bunch and I know that in the next year I’m going to love them so much!  I already love a lot of them! (Some are harder to love than others... haha)

Here’s a funny story from a couple days ago.  I was in a chair and I had the students on the floor around me as we were having part of our lesson.  It was hot and humid (like always) and I was sweaty (like always).  I was wearing a skirt and one of the kids felt my leg.  I had shaved that morning and I was sweaty, so I imagine I felt a little bit like a dolphin… Pordee felt my leg a couple times and them this conversation happened:

Pordee: Teacher, why your legs like that?

Me: Like what?

Prodee:  I have (he lifts his leg up and pulls on his leg hair), why you not have?

Me:  I don’t like the hair so I cut it off.

Pordee: (with a disgusted face) I don’t like that.

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It's weird to think that as I am starting school, summer vacation is just beginning back in the states! Head on over here to read what my mom and I have to say about summer vacation.