As with Jules' previous entry, this one was written over a week ago, but we never posted it because we thought we'd add to it. Here are the details of what we teach, so maybe our "Jumble of Thoughts" entries will become clearer.
Our first week of teaching was an interesting one. I teach grades 1st through 8th in the morning, while Julia teaches three different Kindergarten levels, and in the afternoon we both teach 9th through 12th. I have each class for one hour a week, which as you will find, has its pros and cons. The way they set up many schools in Thailand is, they have an A track and a B track for every level. This turns out to be more important than the grade level they're in, as our Secondary 2/1 or 3/1 (which is like 9th and 10th grade) know more and are smarter than our 4/2 or 5/2 (which is like 11th and 12th grade). At first, this system seems to be the opposite of what we'd want for students. If the levels aren't mixed, then those who are right on the cusp who end up in the lower class, will only end up sinking down. Or those who are put in the lower class might feel they shouldn't try because they've already been labeled and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We thought about it though, and developed many theories as to why they might feel this is the best system for the kids. For one, the classes are large, so they already had to split them up in order to have a maximum of 40 in every class. They might have tried randomizing it, but soon found that the smarter/more hard-working kids were prevented from learning because of the trouble-makers and class clowns. Additionally, as with most schools in and around Chiang Mai, foreigners come, teach 6 months to a year, then leave. So every year these students are subjected to a new foreigner who has come to change the world in a White Man's Burden type of way (not dancing around the fact that we're slightly guilty in this). After a conversation with one of the better English speakers, we learned that they tell the students the "1" or "A" track is for science, while the "2" or "B" track is for language (aka, they want their smarter students to go into the hard sciences, while they leave the floofly arts and humanities to their lower-level kids. Because who in their right mind would study Psychology or English or Art right?). An interesting approach to say the least. I'm just glad they're at least telling the kids the difference between 1 and 2 is what they study, even if some of them do figure out that the 1 class is technically better. Additionally, similar to Western Education, the kids are placed in their track and pretty much stay on that course for the rest of their grade-school education. Once you're in advanced math, you stay on the advanced math course. So track "A" or "1" kids have been track 1 kids since the very beginning.
With this schedule, Julia and I think of a combined total of about 4 lesson plans in a week. Julia thinks of two for the morning classes, because she sees many of her classes twice a week. I think of one for all of my morning classes for the week, because though I'm teaching different grade levels, I teach the same thing. It's just a matter of making the activity or conversation or vocabulary more complex or simple depending on their level and age. And then in the afternoon, we teach the same lesson plan to each of our classes, again varying the level of difficulty. As you may guess, this is one major pro of having each class for one hour once a week.
More PROS about our teaching schedule:
CONS about our teaching schedule:
Our first week of teaching was an interesting one. I teach grades 1st through 8th in the morning, while Julia teaches three different Kindergarten levels, and in the afternoon we both teach 9th through 12th. I have each class for one hour a week, which as you will find, has its pros and cons. The way they set up many schools in Thailand is, they have an A track and a B track for every level. This turns out to be more important than the grade level they're in, as our Secondary 2/1 or 3/1 (which is like 9th and 10th grade) know more and are smarter than our 4/2 or 5/2 (which is like 11th and 12th grade). At first, this system seems to be the opposite of what we'd want for students. If the levels aren't mixed, then those who are right on the cusp who end up in the lower class, will only end up sinking down. Or those who are put in the lower class might feel they shouldn't try because they've already been labeled and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We thought about it though, and developed many theories as to why they might feel this is the best system for the kids. For one, the classes are large, so they already had to split them up in order to have a maximum of 40 in every class. They might have tried randomizing it, but soon found that the smarter/more hard-working kids were prevented from learning because of the trouble-makers and class clowns. Additionally, as with most schools in and around Chiang Mai, foreigners come, teach 6 months to a year, then leave. So every year these students are subjected to a new foreigner who has come to change the world in a White Man's Burden type of way (not dancing around the fact that we're slightly guilty in this). After a conversation with one of the better English speakers, we learned that they tell the students the "1" or "A" track is for science, while the "2" or "B" track is for language (aka, they want their smarter students to go into the hard sciences, while they leave the floofly arts and humanities to their lower-level kids. Because who in their right mind would study Psychology or English or Art right?). An interesting approach to say the least. I'm just glad they're at least telling the kids the difference between 1 and 2 is what they study, even if some of them do figure out that the 1 class is technically better. Additionally, similar to Western Education, the kids are placed in their track and pretty much stay on that course for the rest of their grade-school education. Once you're in advanced math, you stay on the advanced math course. So track "A" or "1" kids have been track 1 kids since the very beginning.
With this schedule, Julia and I think of a combined total of about 4 lesson plans in a week. Julia thinks of two for the morning classes, because she sees many of her classes twice a week. I think of one for all of my morning classes for the week, because though I'm teaching different grade levels, I teach the same thing. It's just a matter of making the activity or conversation or vocabulary more complex or simple depending on their level and age. And then in the afternoon, we teach the same lesson plan to each of our classes, again varying the level of difficulty. As you may guess, this is one major pro of having each class for one hour once a week.
More PROS about our teaching schedule:
- Two part-time jobs actually have higher pay and fewer work hours when compared to a full-time job (BUT, see number 2 in the CONS).
- The first school provides lunch for us before we have to go off to the second school. THIS. IS. GLORIOUS. Not only are the lunches plentiful and DELICIOUS (in Thai: aroi), they're (technically) FREE! So we collapse after three straight hours of teaching, and enjoy an authentic Thai lunch of chicken or curry or noodles with some sort of fruit and some sort of soup. Not having to worry about our lunches saves us so much time and stress AND money. What's not to like? (Well, the ONE thing not to like is that we only get about 15 minutes to eat it (J. during which time we normally must make strained conversation with the very nice principal, which is pretty much another English lesson) before we have to go to our next job)
- The commute is not too bad because we have a driver who does most of the commute for us. We drive our motorbike (which I actually love doing) about 20 minutes to a school, then we have a driver to take us from that school to our morning school (another half hour), then our afternoon school (15 more minutes), and then back to the first school (15 minutes), where we take our motorbike home (20 minutes). Total, the commute is about an hour to our first school, but we don't have to be up until 8, and we can sometimes get home as early as 2, or more often 3:30.
- J: Our new "bosses" at each school are very friendly and reasonable. They're constantly giving us snacks and coffee and water and telling us to sit down with them and relax. Often at bizarre times, like when our driver is late so we are five minutes late and come in rushing off to class. The teachers and aides are also very friendly and polite, and we have offers for guides and facebook friends. It's a very comfortable working atmosphere and we feel valued and accepted by the administration, which is a huge bonus. In a way, it's nice to be the only English teachers at a faraway school, because they appreciate that you exist at all, not to mention commute an hour each way to work for them. They have much more reasonable standards than our main boss (which is good and bad). We were prepared to make different lesson plans for each level of our high school classes, but hastily backpedaled when the principal told us "Oh, yeah, you can do one lesson plan for the whole week, that will be great!".
CONS about our teaching schedule:
- An obvious con is that we don't actually get to cover much in the time that we have. And it's harder to review the information the next time we see them, because they've already had a week of other classes. As I mentioned in the last post, it seems like we're more of the fun break that the kids have than the actual teacher coming in with a set curriculum.
- Because we have two part-time jobs instead of a full-time job, we don't get many benefits. Besides not having medical insurance, we don't get paid holiday (and there are a lot this semester). We also have very few breaks as we get to the first school, teach three classes, eat a quick lunch, and then hurry off to the second school to teach.
- J: It doesn't seem like we are expected to grade our students in any way, which is 1. bizarre 2. time-saving 3. very annoying. There is no motivation for the kids to do anything if they aren't at the very least having their papers graded or studying for some sort of test. We can only give positive reinforcement.
So for now, we are going to enjoy this wild ride of our first job(s) in Thailand. But in the long term, we're hoping to secure a more permanent job that is closer to Chiang Mai. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I think it's great that you have what you have now and can take a little time to find that more ideal situation! So there is such a thing as a (mostly) free lunch. :)
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