Every time I go to blog, I've tried
finishing up our Vietnam trip, but it's been slow going and I wanted to give
updates about how things are going right now for us. Plus, I miss
writing/story-telling in general.
The school year has started and we're now in our fourth week of
teaching. As you know, Thailand's school system breaks down into Prathom 1-6
(equivalent to grades 1st-6th), Lower Mattayom 1-3 (equivalent to 7th-9th), and
Upper Mattayom 4-6 (equivalent to 10th-12th). Julia and I co-teach Mattayom 1
(which was coincidental; originally I was supposed to teach Upper Mattayom, but
we walked in the first day of orientation and found out we were both teaching
M1). We teach 10 classes twice a week. The time slot for each class is supposed
to be 50 minutes, but of course the Thai way makes it so assemblies end late
and other teachers let out their classes late so that class can end up being
cut to be as short as 20 minutes. Luckily, this has made us more adaptable. We
can now come up with lessons that can still work in a 20 minute time period or
can be expanded to fill the full 50 minutes. Unlike in America, the children's
have classrooms and it's the teachers that move from class to class. This is
incredibly inconvenient because if we ever have any supplies (our main one
usually being a Powerpoint), we have to carry it and take time to set it up in
each classroom. This includes hoping the computer works, hoping the monitor
works, hoping it recognizes our flash drive, hoping the projector turns on
(trying to get a student to stand on a desk with a broom handle to physically
turn the projector on, since there's supposedly a remote, but it's impossible
to find), and hoping the keyboard and/or mouse work so that we can open and
actually use our Powerpoint. It's an adventure every time. Unlike our other
school, the classes don't seem to be organized according student intellect.
It's supposedly random, but there are definitely classes where it seems
students are of similar caliber. For the most part, we only have three classes
that are troublesome and difficult. This does however change from week to week,
depending on the time of day and how the students are feeling. Our favorite
classes (1/7 and 1/9) are ideal in every way. Lessons go perfectly and we
always leave them feeling like we're amazing teachers. For our troublesome
classes (1/1 and 1/3), we try to go in with the mindset that we'll be able to
teach them, but usually end up hoping we can make it through without losing our
voice from trying to talk over them or get them to quiet down. Because we don’t
speak Thai, we have had to come up with multiple strategies to communicate to
the kids what we want; saying “please quiet down” or “just give me 5 more
minutes” makes no sense. And a 7th grader’s natural reaction is to
ignore you and talk to their friend, somebody they do understand. Some of the
teachers have tried barking like a dog, which startles them into silence,
others have tried implementing a “yellow card,” “red card” system similar to
soccer, which ends in a child being ejected from the classroom. Julia and I
have started the silence game, which involves the kids being quiet for one full
minute. If anyone talks, the clock starts over. We believe that part of the
reason some of the classes can’t be quiet is because they don’t quite know what
quiet means. They think they can’t be heard or seen so if they continue to talk
to their friends, it won’t interrupt the class. So if we convey what actual
silence sounds like, then they’ll remain actually quiet for the lesson. This
surprisingly works, though it takes up about 5-10 minutes of class time, since
it takes four or five attempts before the kids can be quiet for a full minute.
Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to come up with something new soon since I have
a feeling this will wear off.
Outside of school, Jules and I have been going on lots of Chiang
Mai adventures. One of the things that makes Chiang Mai such a great place to
live is all of the wonderful things that are just an hour or two away right
outside the city. There’s a great rock climbing site that was built and is
maintained by Chiang Mai Rock Climbers. It’s a beautiful area that definitely
makes me want to pick up rock climbing as a hobby. We’ve also been to Huay Tung
Tao lake, which is a great relaxation picnic area. We have a membership (which
is really just a buy 9 get the 10th free punch card) for a swimming
pool. There’s also the floating houses, which is exactly as it sounds, where
people eat, drink, and are merry in a house on the water. Some other things I’m
looking forward to are the botanical gardens, the hot springs, Mae Sa
Waterfall, the Golden Triangle, and other beautiful scenic routes and hikes. We’re
going to start taking Thai language classes soon, which I’m super excited about
because as I’ve said before, it’s near impossible to learn the language by just
listening to it and trying to pick it up. We also volunteer at a nearby dog
shelter, Care For Dogs, though we haven’t been able to stop by in a while since
we can only go on weekends and things have been hectic with the school year
starting up.
It's monsoon season now, which is actually really fun, both getting caught in the rain (depending on where we're coming from) and being inside while it storms outside. Plus the nights are a cool 85 degrees sometimes.
Our big break will be in October and Julia are deciding whether we
should go home (since it will have been over a year since we’ve visited
America) or travel to more countries in Southeast Asia. We’ve also talked about
our various plans for after this year, since if either of us are looking into
grad school, we have to start researching, taking the GRE, and applying soon.
I’m sure there are things I’ve forgotten, but I hope this gives
you somewhat of an idea of how/where we are now. J
