Wednesday, May 21, 2014

First Day of Class 5/16/17

Our first day of work was on a Friday, an odd day to start the school year, but nice to have the weekend to assess the classes and create lesson plans. The workday began at 7:45am, we clocked in, I went to the staff room in the Prathom building (elementary), and Ryan went to the Mathom building (middle/high school). When I got to the staff room I immediately found the fellow foreign teachers. There were three guys, one from Canada and two from England. They had all been working there a few years or more, so they knew the system. I would be working with Daniel. We had the same schedule, except he taught social studies and I taught health. The way it worked, we would both walk to the homeroom of each class we had, and we would divide the class in half. I would take students 1-24 (group A), and he would take students 24-50 (group B). There are four classes to each grade level, and there are six grade levels, all of them which we split in half, which means I only see each class once every two weeks. As far as lesson planning goes, this makes it easy on me, since I only have to plan a lesson every two weeks, but for the students it doesn’t seem like a very good strategy. How are students suppose to remember what they are taught in a fifty minute lesson if they only see me once every two weeks? Some aspects of Thai teaching re very different from the United States. For example, because I work at a private school and parents pay for their children education, they expect their students to receive all passing grades. So it is against the rules of the administration to give any students below passing grades, even if the student refuses to do any work. The laid back life style of Thai culture is also very prevalent in the school system. It is so laid back that it can definitely be seen as unorganized and not prepared. On the first day my classroom changed three times. At first I was to move classrooms every time I taught, and then I was told I would be teaching in the staff office, and finally I was placed in my own room. I was so grateful for this. The room was large, with plenty of desks, an open area, and whiteboards. The only downside was there was no air conditioning, but I wasn’t going to complain because I had my own room, which was a lot more than most of the other foreign teachers got. The first Friday of teaching I was suppose to have taught five classes, but only ended up teaching one. Every class I went to to pick up my students their Thai teacher said that they were behind schedule with their class, and that they wouldn’t have time to make it to my class. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to teach, but was also happy for that time to clean up the classroom and perfect my lessons. One of the things that is definitely different about teaching in Thailand is the resources. I went to the office to ask for paper, and they were hesitant to give me any. Finally they gave me a small stack of white paper from the photocopy machine. I got the impression that if I needed any materials I would have to buy them myself. While I was in the office getting paper, the head of administration for Pathom greeted me. She looked at my outfit; a long blue skirt that went down to my ankles, and a white long sleeve button up blouse, and told me that my skirt was too long. I thought this was funny, because I wore the exact same outfit when I saw her a week ago in the interview, and she told me my outfit was fine. The school is an all girls catholic school, and I knew that they would be finicky about dress code, but I never thought they would have told me my skirt was too long. Almost all of the staff at the school don’t know a word of English, so communication is difficult and nearly impossible. For that reason, I am happy there are other foreign teachers who have been there a while who can answer some of my questions. When lunch time came around I made my way over to the Mathom building with the other teachers where we went to the staff cafeteria and were served a free lunch. The lunch was rice, chicken, and cucumbers. I found an open table and sat down. Ryan joined me shortly after and we told each other about our day. Like me, he hadn’t taught any classes yet. Earlier in the morning there was a school assembly that I didn’t know about, but Ryan went to. He said that in the assembly all of the new teachers got up on stage to introduce himself, and he was the only white person among a line of Thai people. One by one they passed the microphone, everyone spoke in Thai, and when Ryan got the microphone he introduced himself and said what grades he was teaching. When he did this, the girls in all of his grade levels, began to scream and cheer, like he was a celebrity. When he told me this I was so disappointed that I wasn't there to see, or to be on stage and introduce myself as well, but the foreign teachers in the prathom building didn’t go to the assembly, so I was unaware that there was one. When we finished lunch we washed our dishes. This is one aspect of Thai culture that I think should be in American culture. All of the students and teachers wash their own dishes after their meals. Outside the cafeteria there is a washing station where you wash, rinse, and leave your dishes on a rack to dry. When we finished I said bye to Ryan and made my way back to the Prathom building where I taught my first and only class of the day, fifth graders. They were a fun group, and because they were older they understood enough English where I could play games with them. We played musical chairs, four corners, and introduced ourselves. At 3:30pm we clocked out, and made the short walk back to our apartment. Although Ryan and I only taught one class each, we had a great day, and know we will enjoy our teaching experience. 

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