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.

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.

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.”

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?