Children are exhausting. Put thirty to fifty of them in one room and the exhaustion factor increases exponentially. Add the fact that they speak little to no English, and we speak no functional Thai, and you have pure chaos. Twenty to twenty-two hours a week of absolute unbridled chaos, complete with yelling, hitting, rolling on the floor, dumping water on each other, and (in some of Win’s fourth grade classes) riding each other around the classroom.
Last semester we taught high school, where they want to talk about boyfriends and girlfriends and listen to Lady Gaga or Justin Beiber. Now we are getting a crash course on teaching elementary and middle school. First lesson: They are tiny balls of energy who need constant entertainment.
Luckily, when it comes down to it, our job (officially teaching speaking and listening) is just to play with kids. This typically involves speaking like a caveman while gesturing like a mime on drugs, hoping we are loud enough that the trouble kids in the back are distracted enough to stop hitting each other, and encouraging kids to speak above a whisper (a lot of clapping helps), all while sweating and getting chalk everywhere. And laughing. A lot of laughing.
Four to five classes a day is nearly unbearable. In the post-work collapse, we can hardly do more than shower and eat before falling asleep. But it’s worth it to have a job where the main job requirement is making sure the kids have fun.
