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I am pleased to announce that today I was a member of a crack team involved in translating innovative local government policy:
Public policy from Muang district group
The creative policy is:
1. Do not drink soft drinks, including Pepsi and Coca Cola.
2. Do not add extra sugar to food.
3. Do not eat junk food.
4. The Health Ministry advises children to eat fruit every day.
5. Exercise for good health.
The Health and Education Ministries needs help from all Thai people for healthy children.
Children should not eat junk food. Not quite the caliber I was expecting from a lofty title like creative policy.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
A Dog of High Intelligence, a Dog With Eyebrows
The Buddha is a big softy, and because he frowns upon killing them, stray dogs are a nuisance in Thailand. They hang around every Soi, or street, cheerfully knocking over rubbish bins, fornicating, chasing motorcyclist, and occasionally catching them.
If that’s not enough reason to buy a pistol, street dogs are not much to look at either. Nothing like going out for a game of tennis and spying an emaciated, mange ridden street dog that has a tail that looks like an old wrinkly sausage and a single tuft of filthy hair limping about a sand pile littered with feces.
The learning curve to life as a street dog is fairly simple. If you’re a dumb street dog, you’ve already been hit by a car and are stone dead. If you are a street dog of average intelligence, you have already been hit by a car, but perhaps you’ve survived to enjoy a life of limping around feebly on the brink of starvation. If you are a street dog of high intelligence you may look like this.
Fat and happy, sleeping outside of a 7/11, you have even convinced someone to put your make up on for you…
If that’s not enough reason to buy a pistol, street dogs are not much to look at either. Nothing like going out for a game of tennis and spying an emaciated, mange ridden street dog that has a tail that looks like an old wrinkly sausage and a single tuft of filthy hair limping about a sand pile littered with feces.
The learning curve to life as a street dog is fairly simple. If you’re a dumb street dog, you’ve already been hit by a car and are stone dead. If you are a street dog of average intelligence, you have already been hit by a car, but perhaps you’ve survived to enjoy a life of limping around feebly on the brink of starvation. If you are a street dog of high intelligence you may look like this.
Fat and happy, sleeping outside of a 7/11, you have even convinced someone to put your make up on for you…
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
To P.E. or Not to Be
I co-teach physical education to grade 1 and 2. When I started two years ago we had two footballs and three basketballs. Back then, we were not allowed to use the big open field in front of school. The director had just spent a large sum of money having new grass planted, and he wasn’t about to have it used by the students.
We were fairly creative in those days so we found other places to conduct our activities. Places like the school auditorium or the outdoor basketball court which had no hoops and had been converted into a storage area for old tables and chairs. In times of desperation we used the access roads for relays, stopping the race for the occasional truck or car.
Two years later and we are down to one football, and as of today it’s missing. The field in front of school is barren of grass along the edges and the last bastion of yellowish grass is making a heroic stand against a merciless sun. Only Ajarn Franco is creative with his activities, and even he can’t be asked most of the time, and as for Ajarn Carlsberg and me, well, we’ve played football for the entire year.
We were fairly creative in those days so we found other places to conduct our activities. Places like the school auditorium or the outdoor basketball court which had no hoops and had been converted into a storage area for old tables and chairs. In times of desperation we used the access roads for relays, stopping the race for the occasional truck or car.
Two years later and we are down to one football, and as of today it’s missing. The field in front of school is barren of grass along the edges and the last bastion of yellowish grass is making a heroic stand against a merciless sun. Only Ajarn Franco is creative with his activities, and even he can’t be asked most of the time, and as for Ajarn Carlsberg and me, well, we’ve played football for the entire year.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Downward Momentum and Predatory Instinct of the Sixth Grade
The Thai school year breaks for summer in about a month, and teaching momentum is not so much grinding to a halt as it is coasting to a gentle stop.
Kru Kiat is normally one of my favorite Thai teachers. Although our conversations are limited by my meager command of the Thai language she is always polite, punctual, and commands respect. She is also one of the few Thai teachers I have seen that is willing to exert the effort required to control my P-6 class.
The students in p-6 are amongst the oldest and biggest in the school, and seem to believe this grants them special immunity from normal school rules. They can easily transition from a normal class of students into a rioting mob at the first sign of teacher weakness.
Today Kru Kiat casually entered her P-6 math class 10 minutes late. She sat down, opened the book and started talking at the students as they completed their assignments. I stayed in the classroom and wasted time on the internet while pretending to do work.
Ten minutes into class her cell phone rang and she stepped outside to take the call. I watched on from my desk as the students quickly began flagrantly copying each others work. A few of the boys got out of their chairs and began wondering around. The mob consciousness was probing for weakness.
Kru Kiat finished her call and returned to the room, and a degree of order was restored, but in a reduced capacity. The students were talking quietly to each other now, and some had simply closed their math books and stopped working altogether.
I looked over at Kru Kiat to gauge her reaction but she was preoccupied with her digital camera. She was clearly scrolling through her memory card looking at pictures. She kept at it for awhile and the students became more rambunctious.
With ten minutes left in the class period, Kru Kiat, still in her chair, was showing her pictures to a small crowd of students. The rest of the class was completely out of control. Jumping around, standing on chairs, and chasing one another about while seemingly taking turns slapping each other as hard as they could on the back. I tried not to look and went out for a coffee.
Kru Kiat is normally one of my favorite Thai teachers. Although our conversations are limited by my meager command of the Thai language she is always polite, punctual, and commands respect. She is also one of the few Thai teachers I have seen that is willing to exert the effort required to control my P-6 class.
The students in p-6 are amongst the oldest and biggest in the school, and seem to believe this grants them special immunity from normal school rules. They can easily transition from a normal class of students into a rioting mob at the first sign of teacher weakness.
Today Kru Kiat casually entered her P-6 math class 10 minutes late. She sat down, opened the book and started talking at the students as they completed their assignments. I stayed in the classroom and wasted time on the internet while pretending to do work.
Ten minutes into class her cell phone rang and she stepped outside to take the call. I watched on from my desk as the students quickly began flagrantly copying each others work. A few of the boys got out of their chairs and began wondering around. The mob consciousness was probing for weakness.
Kru Kiat finished her call and returned to the room, and a degree of order was restored, but in a reduced capacity. The students were talking quietly to each other now, and some had simply closed their math books and stopped working altogether.
I looked over at Kru Kiat to gauge her reaction but she was preoccupied with her digital camera. She was clearly scrolling through her memory card looking at pictures. She kept at it for awhile and the students became more rambunctious.
With ten minutes left in the class period, Kru Kiat, still in her chair, was showing her pictures to a small crowd of students. The rest of the class was completely out of control. Jumping around, standing on chairs, and chasing one another about while seemingly taking turns slapping each other as hard as they could on the back. I tried not to look and went out for a coffee.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Post Apocalyptic School
It was Thursday morning, and though I didn’t know it, the entire school had been sent home. My new ally, h1n1, had made great strides in infecting the normal program population. Swine flu, it’s not just for rich kids.
I had gone to Bangkok on Wednesday to complete some paperwork, and was thus unaware of any school closure. Driving the motorcycle into the side gate, I was perplexed by the absence of students. The silence and stillness, was odd, pleasant. Post apocalyptic school.
A year ago, I would have been angry that I hadn’t been informed, but now I was merely happy to make my way to the parking lot without having to avoid suicidal 3rd graders darting in front of the bike. I signed in at the office and went to my classroom. No students yelled out,
“Hello,”
Or
“Good morning”
Or popular amongst some boys,
“Fox you.”
I wasted time on the internet and went to lunch early with Ajarn Franco and Ajarn Stolidity. A few beers and a papaya salad later I decided I didn’t really feel like going back. Instead I went home and took a nap. A good day.
I had gone to Bangkok on Wednesday to complete some paperwork, and was thus unaware of any school closure. Driving the motorcycle into the side gate, I was perplexed by the absence of students. The silence and stillness, was odd, pleasant. Post apocalyptic school.
A year ago, I would have been angry that I hadn’t been informed, but now I was merely happy to make my way to the parking lot without having to avoid suicidal 3rd graders darting in front of the bike. I signed in at the office and went to my classroom. No students yelled out,
“Hello,”
Or
“Good morning”
Or popular amongst some boys,
“Fox you.”
I wasted time on the internet and went to lunch early with Ajarn Franco and Ajarn Stolidity. A few beers and a papaya salad later I decided I didn’t really feel like going back. Instead I went home and took a nap. A good day.
Monday, February 1, 2010
H1n1 Decimates English Program. Air Conditioners held Responsible.
H1n1 has had its infectious way with the English Program, and as a result the entire EP wing has been sent packing. In the children’s wake a skeleton crew of bored and sweaty teachers, spinning around in swivel chairs to kill time between visits to facebook.
Why are the teachers sweaty? Well that is an easy one, as of today, the air conditioners have been deemed unsafe and likely to facilitate contamination of the virus. They are an enemy to public health.
However I am curious about whom this policy is meant to protect. The students are at home, either disabled by the mild effects of the virus, or chocking on snacks hastily shoved in their mouths between bouts of laughter at their good fortune.
With the students out of the equation, there are only teachers and our health conscious administrator present in the building. Often with only a single person present in a single room. We have been protected from our own germs….
Sunday, January 31, 2010
English camp, h1n1, and a breakdown in the lines of communication
There are only 11 students present in my Prathom 6 EP class today. EP stands for English Program, today is Monday, and there are normally 22 students in my class. Now, before we delve any further into why only 50 percent of the class is at school lets talk a bit about what EP is.
EP denotes certain things in Thailand. The first is the presence of native English speakers such as myself that teach about 60 percent of the curriculum in English. Some others are government funding, smaller classes, air-conditioning, resources such as paper and computers, and most importantly, the families of EP students almost always have money.
To give you an idea of what this means, a normal classroom in Thailand may have as many as 50 students jammed into 15 year old blackened desks stuffed into a normal sized classroom. Add 3 feeble fans panting out heavy tropical air and a bored Thai teacher talking through a microphone and you have a recipe for the Thai education system.
Ok, back to the cause behind the diminished population in my classroom, or as I like to call it, h1n1 strikes back. After an overnight English immersion camp which took place last week, several students that shared the same room took ill. Two days later at least one boy in the fifth grade had a verified case of the swine flu. That afternoon, for the first time in at least one month, the cleaners used a chemical disinfectant on the floors. My co-teacher brought out a bottle of hand cleanser and squirted a little glob into every waiting hand. The air-conditioner went off and the windows were open. The entire 5th grade class was sent home and told not to return for 10 days.
The next day I came into school to an empty classroom. The director of the school had sent my class home, but no one thought to inform me, nor did I know how long they were meant to stay home. I learned from colleagues that both the Thai and foreign teachers in the fifth grade had taken ill in the night. Without much to do, I spent the day screwing around on the internet and as a token effort, graded some exams. It was Friday, so I wasn’t fussed about losing the day.
At lunch today, the senior Thai teacher for p-6 confided that 4 more students had confirmed cases of the virus. Lemon face turned up for her 1 o’clock class and abruptly left, leaving the students unattended. No one turned up to teach at 2pm either. I haven’t a clue why teachers are running out of my classroom, and my crystal ball isn’t revealing any secrets no matter how many times I wave my hands around it. This is what communication is like in a Thai school, this is par for the course.
EP denotes certain things in Thailand. The first is the presence of native English speakers such as myself that teach about 60 percent of the curriculum in English. Some others are government funding, smaller classes, air-conditioning, resources such as paper and computers, and most importantly, the families of EP students almost always have money.
To give you an idea of what this means, a normal classroom in Thailand may have as many as 50 students jammed into 15 year old blackened desks stuffed into a normal sized classroom. Add 3 feeble fans panting out heavy tropical air and a bored Thai teacher talking through a microphone and you have a recipe for the Thai education system.
Ok, back to the cause behind the diminished population in my classroom, or as I like to call it, h1n1 strikes back. After an overnight English immersion camp which took place last week, several students that shared the same room took ill. Two days later at least one boy in the fifth grade had a verified case of the swine flu. That afternoon, for the first time in at least one month, the cleaners used a chemical disinfectant on the floors. My co-teacher brought out a bottle of hand cleanser and squirted a little glob into every waiting hand. The air-conditioner went off and the windows were open. The entire 5th grade class was sent home and told not to return for 10 days.
The next day I came into school to an empty classroom. The director of the school had sent my class home, but no one thought to inform me, nor did I know how long they were meant to stay home. I learned from colleagues that both the Thai and foreign teachers in the fifth grade had taken ill in the night. Without much to do, I spent the day screwing around on the internet and as a token effort, graded some exams. It was Friday, so I wasn’t fussed about losing the day.
At lunch today, the senior Thai teacher for p-6 confided that 4 more students had confirmed cases of the virus. Lemon face turned up for her 1 o’clock class and abruptly left, leaving the students unattended. No one turned up to teach at 2pm either. I haven’t a clue why teachers are running out of my classroom, and my crystal ball isn’t revealing any secrets no matter how many times I wave my hands around it. This is what communication is like in a Thai school, this is par for the course.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Old Lemon Face, and Trickle Down Education
One thirty-two in the afternoon and I’m sitting in my classroom watching a lemon faced Thai teacher not teach a class. Her back is turned to the students and she is clearly devoting at least ninety two percent of her concentration to her cell phone. The boys are clumped in the back, sitting on desks in a circle. One boy has a rubik's cube and is making a go at solving it at fast as he can. The rest of them have their heads together, plotting.
The girls are clumped together on the other side of the room copying each others work. It is trickle down education. The two clever girls have completed the assignment and now the rest of them are copying it. Copying is a big part of Thai education, but I don’t want to talk about that just yet, what I want to point out is the difference between the sexes.
The boys don’t give a toss. They don’t even care to pretend that they are doing the work. At the age of twelve they have identified and capitalized on the apathy inherent in the Thai education system and personified by old lemon.
The girls on the other hand, while not wanting to actually work, not particularly interested in learning, are perfectly happy to take part in the charade.
Old lemon face looks like she might once have been spry and attractive, that there may once have been a time she didn’t suck on a grapefruit right after brushing her teeth every morning. Aside from her puckered face, she has what can only be described as a drinkers stomach. It looks like she tosses back a whiskey with a beer chaser as a snack after school and goes on to have a bottle of wine or two for dinner. She is just waiting out the clock until this class, and her entire career is over.
Having spent two years in the school system here, I can't say that I blame her.
The girls are clumped together on the other side of the room copying each others work. It is trickle down education. The two clever girls have completed the assignment and now the rest of them are copying it. Copying is a big part of Thai education, but I don’t want to talk about that just yet, what I want to point out is the difference between the sexes.
The boys don’t give a toss. They don’t even care to pretend that they are doing the work. At the age of twelve they have identified and capitalized on the apathy inherent in the Thai education system and personified by old lemon.
The girls on the other hand, while not wanting to actually work, not particularly interested in learning, are perfectly happy to take part in the charade.
Old lemon face looks like she might once have been spry and attractive, that there may once have been a time she didn’t suck on a grapefruit right after brushing her teeth every morning. Aside from her puckered face, she has what can only be described as a drinkers stomach. It looks like she tosses back a whiskey with a beer chaser as a snack after school and goes on to have a bottle of wine or two for dinner. She is just waiting out the clock until this class, and her entire career is over.
Having spent two years in the school system here, I can't say that I blame her.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Avoiding Extra Work and the Mechanics of a Good Excuse in Thailand.
In many Thai schools there is a heavy emphasis on quantity over quality and what I mean by this is that ones physical presence at work is preferred, or at least exchanged for competency and efficiency. Now, before it is indignantly pointed out to me what a gross generalization I’m making I would like to invite anyone to tell me what else working six days a week could possibly be.
However, this isn’t an inspection of the Thai work ethic and its effect on society. This is about how to properly shirk your additional duties.
The most potent weapon in your arsenal is to always have a valid excuse ready. Most Thai’s, including the ones that don’t work in a school, often work 6 days a week. Having two days off isn’t Thai style so when your friendly Thai administrator approaches you out of the blue and asks if you might want to teach a few hours on Saturday mornings for some extra money you need to be ready. The first thing you need to know is that the ‘extra money,’ is going to be low, so low that it likely isn’t worth rolling out of bed Saturday morning, or for that matter any morning.
If your administrator is like mine, you’ve been caught completely off guard. A conversation regarding your opinion on the importance of reading comprehension has violently changed course and your typical hung-over Saturday mornings watching Korean dramas are now in jeopardy.
Enter the excuse, something involving family is great because Thai’s value family obligation, but if you’re a disreputable person like myself, and have openly bragged about how long it has been since you have spoken to your father you’ll need to think of something else. You don’t want to get caught in a lie, so be creative and make sure your obligation is outside of town. If you can’t do that, throw one of your colleagues under the bus. Here are some examples:
“Oh no, I’d love the extra money but I’m taking a class on Thai language in Bangkok for the next 4 Saturdays.”
Or,
“Sorry, I play tennis Saturday mornings, maybe you could ask Ajarn Franco, I think he is free.”
However, this isn’t an inspection of the Thai work ethic and its effect on society. This is about how to properly shirk your additional duties.
The most potent weapon in your arsenal is to always have a valid excuse ready. Most Thai’s, including the ones that don’t work in a school, often work 6 days a week. Having two days off isn’t Thai style so when your friendly Thai administrator approaches you out of the blue and asks if you might want to teach a few hours on Saturday mornings for some extra money you need to be ready. The first thing you need to know is that the ‘extra money,’ is going to be low, so low that it likely isn’t worth rolling out of bed Saturday morning, or for that matter any morning.
If your administrator is like mine, you’ve been caught completely off guard. A conversation regarding your opinion on the importance of reading comprehension has violently changed course and your typical hung-over Saturday mornings watching Korean dramas are now in jeopardy.
Enter the excuse, something involving family is great because Thai’s value family obligation, but if you’re a disreputable person like myself, and have openly bragged about how long it has been since you have spoken to your father you’ll need to think of something else. You don’t want to get caught in a lie, so be creative and make sure your obligation is outside of town. If you can’t do that, throw one of your colleagues under the bus. Here are some examples:
“Oh no, I’d love the extra money but I’m taking a class on Thai language in Bangkok for the next 4 Saturdays.”
Or,
“Sorry, I play tennis Saturday mornings, maybe you could ask Ajarn Franco, I think he is free.”
Friday, January 22, 2010
Skillet or Oven
P-1 Health class with Ajarn Franco is arguably the slowest hour of my week. P-1, for those of you that don’t know stands for Prathom 1, or first grade, and Ajarn is about the same as teacher. I say arguably because measuring boredom at school is like trying to decide if being fried in a giant skillet would hurt more than say, being baked in a conventional oven.
Today we’re leaning some new vocabulary. Family, beautiful, litter, and something else which I can’t remember because I’m standing in the back staring at the number chart. I’m looking at three frogs, and next to the frogs is the number three. I am thinking about ways to cut corners and save money. I am thinking about what I can cut out of the monthly equation without also compromising my quality of life. I need more money because once I can unlatch the escape hatch from Thailand, I want to be as cashed up as possible for my return to the world. All I can think of is, spend less.
I walk around the classroom and look down at the students work. They are coloring in pictures of a family, and every once in a while, I’ll stop, take a students pencil off their desk and draw a line across their workbooks. Thai’s are very meticulous creatures and they like for things to look beautiful, so this almost always gets a bit of a rise and a smile.
Walking around is a great trick because it makes me appear interactive and attentive just in case a Thai teacher or my manager walks in. Teasing the students is fun and it breaks up the monotony of co-teaching. Co-teaching can be a lot of fun if you are working with a like minded teacher. Then it becomes more like comedy hour with an audience of kids that may only understand 40 percent of what you are saying. However, it is much more common for one person to do all the work while the other one sleeps in the back, or doesn’t even bother to show up at all. Skillet or oven?
Today we’re leaning some new vocabulary. Family, beautiful, litter, and something else which I can’t remember because I’m standing in the back staring at the number chart. I’m looking at three frogs, and next to the frogs is the number three. I am thinking about ways to cut corners and save money. I am thinking about what I can cut out of the monthly equation without also compromising my quality of life. I need more money because once I can unlatch the escape hatch from Thailand, I want to be as cashed up as possible for my return to the world. All I can think of is, spend less.
I walk around the classroom and look down at the students work. They are coloring in pictures of a family, and every once in a while, I’ll stop, take a students pencil off their desk and draw a line across their workbooks. Thai’s are very meticulous creatures and they like for things to look beautiful, so this almost always gets a bit of a rise and a smile.
Walking around is a great trick because it makes me appear interactive and attentive just in case a Thai teacher or my manager walks in. Teasing the students is fun and it breaks up the monotony of co-teaching. Co-teaching can be a lot of fun if you are working with a like minded teacher. Then it becomes more like comedy hour with an audience of kids that may only understand 40 percent of what you are saying. However, it is much more common for one person to do all the work while the other one sleeps in the back, or doesn’t even bother to show up at all. Skillet or oven?
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