Day 20 Little Rascals 1/20/14

This morning we woke up bright and early to stream the niners game. Sadly it was the last one we would be watching for a while.After the game we went to school. We were suppose to be there  by 9:30 to allow us time to get to the elementary school, but we didnt end up leaving  until 9:50 because we were waiting on Jeff who was 20 minutes late.It was a short drive to the school. Moz rode his motorbike and met us there.At the school there were two classes, one of four year olds and one of five year olds. Nick went with the five year olds and I went with four year olds. I did my lesson from 10 to 10:30. Ryan stood nearby and watched.  Periodically Moz would poke his head in to see how I was doing. The kids were absolutely adorable.They greeted me with a bow and a huge smile. I taught them different parts of the body and had them dance to the song  head, shoulders, knees and toes. The next activity I had planned  was a poster game where they got in teams and pointed to the part of the body I called out. I never ended up doing this activity. After a minute of being with them I realized most of  them didnt know a single word of  English, and their attention span was that of a goldfish. Their Thai teacher remained in the room, but stayed in the corner the whole time, with her head immersed  in a stack of papers. The kids were rowdy. There were a few who would wander around the room and not participate, so I ended up improvising. My lesson consisted of thirty minutes of dancing, jumping, hopping, and yelling out the names of different parts of the body. When I finished my lesson Ryan entered the room and did his. After my time with them, their attention span grew even shorter, and some of them had behavior issues.If you have ever seen the movie kindergarten cop then you know what I'm talking about when I say it was a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger's first day of teaching. Ryan would  show the kids flashcards,and every time he put one down,a little boy would take the card and run around the room with it. He soon realized he needed to improvise since the children were wild, and the teacher wasn't offering any help. He taught the kids a motion to correlate to each animal on the note card. When he taught them "shark", he had all the kids put their hands on top of their heads to imitate a fin. The kids loved it, especially when Ryan did it,they would scream and run away in laughter. Next door  Jeff was doing his lesson, which  was going pretty well. Nick and Jeff got lucky with their group of kids. The older ones were more tamed, not to mention their Thai teacher was a lot more helpful. The teacher would intervene if there were behavior problems, and she would translate the directions of the activities for Jeff and Nick. When we were done we headed back to the school. Moz told us that we would go back on Thursday and switch classes; Ryan and I would have the older kids, and Jeff and Nick would get the younger ones. I was happy that Ryan and I got the more challenging group first. Moz dismissed us early from school, and Nick, Ryan, and I went to get lunch at the boomerang. We discussed how our lessons with the kids went, and gave each other advice for Thursday. At lunch, Nick updated us on the latest Jeff news. I guess over the weekend Jeff met with the police and the owner of the bar that ripped him off. He said that the owner told the police that Jeff was wasted and ordered many drinks. The owner even printed a picture that they had from the security camera of Jeff lying naked in the bar with his clothes next to him. In the end Jeff was not compensated for the money that was "lost". I didn't know what to think of the story. Whether it was true or not the situation didn't end the way he wanted it to. After lunch we headed home to read and relax. For dinner we decided to check out a new place. We were craving American food so we got a club sandwich with fries and a Hawaiian pizza. The food was good and cheap, two factors that are hard to come by when it comes to western food in Thailand. After dinner we went back to our apartment and did extensive planning for our month long island hopping excursion.