Reposted from TravelPod.com
Pleum told me that he would be leaving school at lunchtime, as did some of the others. But then math class started and Pleum remembered something important. I was sitting at my desk in the back of the room while the math teacher taught when Pleum came up to me and said, "Teacher, my mother say that if students less than 20 I can go home. Students only 17." I asked him, “Aren’t you going home at lunchtime?” and he said, “Yes, but mother say I can go now. I will call her and you say there are less than 20.” I told him he should have thought to ask me before math class started, and now it was the math teacher’s call if Pleum could call home. Apparently he was okay with it because when it was time for me to teach, Pleum (and a few others) had gone home.
Part of Chinese New Year is that the children get money. I have no idea why, my kids wouldn’t explain it to me; they were too busy demanding I give them money. I told them it was funny that they thought I had money to give. One of my students came to school late and said that in the morning while she was at home, she had been given 600 baht.
One of my students gave me a little dessert as a gift. It was wrapped up in a banana leaf, and I didn’t know what was inside. I’ve had several of these banana wrapped treats before, sometimes full of sticky rice, most often full of mysterious gelatinous Thai desserts that I’m not too fond of (it’s the texture). So I asked the girl what was inside and she didn’t know what to call it in English. She got a few other students together to help her out and they were still struggling until one student said, “Uh, Teacher, it’s carbohydrate!”
The director walked by my room at one point during the day when the students were at P.E. and poked his head in. He said, “How many students today?” When I told him there were thirteen, he laughed and said, “Thirteen,” and then walked away. I wonder if he was reevaluating the point in holding school when literally half the population is gone.
On Tuesday, instead of club, we had training for the school wide Sports Day that’s coming up. Teacher Monta asked me to help out, so I got to watch the kids practicing their relay races, which was a lot of fun. The best part though, was the girls vs. boys relay. The kids had to run across the field, around a teacher (guess who got to be one of those lucky people) and then back across the field to pass the baton to a teammate. Whenever the girls were running towards my end of the field, I could hear Teacher Monta behind me frantically yelling in Thai, “Go! GO! GO! FASTER!” What made this hilarious though, was that when the boys approached, she would say, “Slow down, don’t worry, no need to hurry.” And then start the frantic yelling again as the girls drew near.
Yesterday at school, the principal came up to me and tried to explain something to me in English. She was getting frustrated so she asked if I spoke Thai. I said, “A very little bit.” Mistake. She went off on a rant in Thai and then asked if I understood. I told her I thought I did. From her bits of English at the beginning, I had gathered the words: director, periods 1 and 2, tomorrow, you teach, director sit, they learn. I figured this was some kind of observation, but I really wasn’t sure. Then first and second period passed and I forgot about it.
Unfortunately, in my sixth period class, the principal walked in with a woman. I thought she was a teacher from another school (there were a lot of them there touring the school today). Usually when there is a stranger in the room, the class dynamic changes and the kids are unbelievably quiet. This didn’t work out for me yesterday. My best-behaved class was having a chatty day. I also wasn’t really teaching; the kids had a test and then some book assignments to do (I was trying to get everyone caught up from the craziness of Chinese New Year). I still didn’t think much of it until I went into Teacher Monta’s room a little later to return a book and she said, “You know who that was?” When I said no, she said, “Little director.” So the deputy director observed me on what was definitely not my finest teaching day. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about a poor evaluation costing me the chance at renewing my contract.
Yesterday was ridiculously hot. It’s been relatively nice out lately, even in the afternoons it’s not too bad, but yesterday felt like I was back in the summer months. So of course we went out for an hour of sports day and Teacher Yuphin made me run laps with the kids. I don’t know why. She just told me I had to. After I did, I figured I was already hot and sweaty so I might as well have some fun and I played freeze tag with the kids, which they loved. When I came back in though, one of the P3 students said, “Oi, Teacher, you very hot. Very, very red.”
So now I’m getting ready to go teach my three Saturday classes and then I’m off to Khao Yai for English camp. Though I’m not looking forward to sleeping in a tent and I’m crossing my fingers for a grand total of at least 8 hours sleep in three nights, my biggest fear today is that I’m going to be sick all weekend. I’ve been up since 4:00 really sick. This is not going to work for me.
Read more: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/caiter/1/1296889510/tpod.html#ixzz1D5S8a86C
No comments:
Post a Comment