Outside Learning

I remember my elementary school days being full of creative projects and hands-on experiments. We watched butterflies emerge from cocoons, constructed geometric kites, listened to stories read in character voices. We turned the room into a paper Amazon jungle (surely a fire hazard), held silent auctions of our old toys, feasted as Robin Hood and his Merry Men, made our own story books. Of course, we also memorized multiplication tables, practiced writing in cursive, learned all those basics. But it wasn’t only sitting and listening to the teacher; it was learning through discovery and experience.

As an elementary and kindergarten teacher in a foreign country, I am witnessing firsthand just how varied the approaches to education can be from culture to culture. As young as first grade, Thai students are expected to spend a great portion of their school day sitting in a desk and being taught lecture-style. From the age of three up through high school graduation, copying and repeating are the standard methods for information transfer. Math, science, English, students copy the answers off the board. It is assumed that they have then learned said information. There will be a test. I hope you were listening.

Of course, the enjoyable part of school for most students is all the extras – art, dance, gym, swimming – and the Thai school system has those in spades. In this department, the Thais go far beyond, holding special events, activities, camps, and holiday celebrations on a regular basis.

Over the course of the past semester, the classroom sitting has been interspersed with more holidays than you would think could fit into four months. Before Christmas, not a single week passed without some special event or activity to prepare for a special event; since Christmas, we have had two undisrupted weeks of class (though I, personally, have had at least three classes per week cancelled to rehearse for a play for next week’s special event); through the remainder of the school year, only one week has nothing special or cancelled.

Between Thai holidays, American holidays, and school events, the activities list is pretty impressive. So far we have had:

•  A Halloween party -- a wonderful way to have first graders come up, hold out their hand, and say “Teacher, candy” or “Trick-or-treat” for months to come
•  Sports Days – from football to chair ball to tug of war, plus a fairly impressive parade
• Three weeks of shortened days to prep for the Sports Days
•  A field trip to the local science discovery center, complete with a busload of students dancing to Thai pop songs
• Loy Kratong
•  The King’s birthday, which doubles as Father's Day
•  Constitution Day – tinted with irony this year, as parliament was dissolved just days prior
• An open house for the kindergarten
• Christmas – literally weeks of activities and parties

• New Year’s Eve/Day – huge holiday in Thai culture
• Midterms – okay, not really an event, but definitely an interruption to regular classes
• Children’s Day – let’s dance, eat free ice cream, and drink free Fanta
• Boy and Girl Scout Camp – walking field trip, camping at school (for the 6^th grade), lessons in knot-tying, first aid, crawling through tunnels, and generally getting prepared
• Teachers’ Day – One of multiple days to honor teachers, for this one school is closed. Best way to reward teachers for their hard work

Which brings us to this week, during which time everyone is preparing for next week’s Open House. My January has been packed with rehearsals of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, which my 63 first graders will perform for the evening portion of the Open House.

The only remaining activities are:

• The aforementioned Open House and evening Khantoke dinner for parents (traditional Northern Thai Lanna dishes in endless portions, shared among the table, while watching performances)
• Promotional Drive for CVK – literally a drive, as we foreign teachers join other faculty members in driving to other districts to hand out pamphlets and try to increase enrollment
• Valentine’s Day – the Thais love love. And they love giving gifts. It’s the perfect storm of a holiday
• Makha Bucha (Magha Puja) – Theravada Buddhist holiday celebrating the arrival of 1250 monks to listen to the teachings of the Buddha.
• Final Exams – the end.

Between all of the reasons to cancel class and the fact that class is mostly spent zoning out while the teacher talks (even the best student can only listen for so long), the difference between Thai school and American school is stark.

Through the activities they learn how to become members of a team, how to dance, how to do craft projects, how to be a member of Thai society, but they do not necessarily learn how to be good students. After all, we were all, in some manner, taught how to learn and how to work hard. I have greatly enjoyed being a part of the Thai school system, but I think they could bring some of that spice and variety, seen so heavily in their activities, into the classroom.

That being said, fault them for what you will, but the Thais sure do know how to throw one helluva party.

Frying Frenzy

My students love to try to share their food with me. Unfortunately, many of their food choices make me sick to even think about eating. Uncooked ramen noodles, french fries with a quarter inch layer of salt, weird fried crackers that taste like fish, gross jelly candy that has to be sucked from its plastic container. Many classes start with me saying repeatedly in Thai, “No thanks, I’m full, I already ate” just to avoid having to put unclassifiable foods in my mouth.

And in front of the school and in the cafeteria, stands cater to the students’ every whim. My least favorite is the vats of boiling oil filled with a mixture of mystery meats, similar to hot dogs and baloney (as if they weren’t unhealthy enough when microwaved or boiled). Skewered and tossed into a plastic bag with sauce – sweet chili sauce, ketchup, or (gag) mayonnaise, your choice – these fried meats are then devoured right off the stick.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the students who partake in all the fried foods. Win and another co-worker, Stephen, have taken to eating massive amounts of fried chicken and baloney during snack breaks (the school has two, aside from lunch). It has gotten to the point that these lunch ladies not only brag about the foreign teachers buying their fried meats, but also about the frequency with which the two of them show up. On the bright side, Win and Stephen don’t attempt to force-share their food with me. 

Team Spirit

After a month of preparation – practice, tournaments, sweat, injuries, construction, choreography, and three weeks of half-days of class – C.V.K. was ready for Sports Day. And they were gonna do it right. The students were split into five color-specific teams, spread over the entire age range of the school: red, blue, green, white, and yellow, representing pre-K through high school seniors. And, Sports “Day” was really two days made up of all sorts of (very) different events.

Day One:

The full-sized football (yes, I do mean soccer) field was divided widthwise, allowing four games to be played simultaneously. In one game, the sixth graders, decked out in fancy gear, played an intense game of soccer. They played like their legos depended on it, the whole weight of their color resting on their shoulders.

At the same time, three games of handball were occurring. As an American, I had never seen handball before; seemingly handball is just soccer for those who prefer throwing and bouncing instead of kicking (with a little bit of monkey-in-the-middle mixed in for good measure). It also uses basketball rules, preventing players from simply grabbing the ball and running. With three games being played at once, balls were flying into other games, evoking a sense of pure chaos for spectators.

Practiced during the class-less, lawless afternoons preceding Sports Day, but seemingly absent from the festivities (and surely deserving of mention) was Chairball. Resembling short-range basketball, chairball has one big twist. The traditional basketball hoop is replaced by a team member standing on a chair, holding a laundry basket over his or her head. Clearly, they can do their best to assist their team by moving to catch the ball, but they face much more pressure than a stoic, metal basketball hoop has ever known. Popular with the elementary school kids, chairball is far more entertaining than your typical basketball game.

Not to be left out, the kindergarten carried on Sports Day activities of its own. The main event: tug-of-war! There might be nothing cuter than eighty toddlers, donning hats made from recycled milk cartons, flower headbands, sequins and makeup, playing a massive game of tug-of-war. Unless of course, after so many games, all that tension and tugging, the rope, pulled taut, snaps directly in the middle, sending each side’s tiny tuggers flying into a flat, domino-ed pile. The way they all bounced up, made of rubber, brushed off their knees and ran to the canteen for lunch, was equally adorable.

Day Two:

Friday was the real deal: official Sports Day. Cheer stands had been constructed. The band and junior band were prepped and ready to play. A parade had been planned: floats built, costumes rented, faces painted, and hair elaborately styled.

The parade was painstakingly elaborate, the student-powered floats massive. Each team color had come up with their own individual theme, ranging from Victorian Era, to traditional Thai, to something showcasing a massive, red demon. Confusing, delightful and bizarre, the students mixed in costumes and props as they saw fit. There were costumes including what I can only assume were colorful condoms, Thai slaves, some gender-swapping prince/princess combos, and hill tribe-themed dancers.

Each team had not only its own parade section, but a cheer stand, with color-coordinated decorations and two sets of cheerleaders, one elementary and one senior high. The choreography, with crowd participation, was impressively mastered, the costumes flashy and loud. It seemed to be more about team spirit, screaming, shouting, glittery team spirit, than about the sporting events themselves.

The events leading up to the grand finale football game were mostly toddler-oriented. There was a relay race in which adults ran while carrying pre-schoolers, a three-legged race where adults were tied to small children, and a big-wheel race that mostly ended with the little kids riding around in circles.

Despite the oddity of all the sporting events, Sports Day was a huge success. Win and I, both on the blue team, represented our color proudly. Blue sunglasses, bubble necklace, dragon crocs, skirt, shoes, earrings, and hats. We rocked blue hard.

Blue vs. Green. Red vs. White. Yellow vs. Blue. Red vs. Yellow. White vs. Green. The whole thing was a chaotic jumble of running, screaming, and pom-poms. It was a high-energy, high-excitement day, but I have absolutely no idea who won any of the games.

Markets of Thailand: Student Market

Like many countries, a vast portion of Thailand’s economy revolves around consumerism. With the abundance of shops, restaurants, markets (street, night, produce, floating), and even stores selling nothing but temple-sized Buddha statues, Thais earn a living (or at least a supplemental income) selling goods to tourists and their fellow Thais.

Since it is such a big part of Thai adulthood, the schools (or at least the two where we have taught) allow students to host a market for their teachers and fellow classmates once a year. Everything is either student-made or student-cooked (possibly student-purchased instead). The kids practice at playing vendors and merchants, and I’m sure they don’t mind missing a half-day of classes.

Last year, while teaching at Benchamarachutit in Ratchaburi, the students had a market with an environmental theme. Old bottles had been turned into lamps, flowers and animals; pictures and decorations were made from re-purposed straws; hats had been made from braided banana leaves and old soda bottles. There was a full traditional Thai band, complete with a massive bamboo organ. And the best part, they were all so excited that foreigners had showed up, they kept giving us things for free, refusing to take our money.

At C.V.K.’s 2011 Student Market, the fare was simple. Students made pressed sandwiches, cookies, cakes, ice cream sundaes, milk shakes, meat on a stick and various fried foods (although the deep frier did require teacher supervision). There were also keychains, bows, comic books, and burned copies of movies.

Over the course of an hour and a half hanging around with my students, I sampled an array of foods, tasty and not-so-great. I was talked into eating something with a consistency somewhere between Jello and gummy bears, full of pieces of corn and topped with coconut, I tipped my older students in (useless) half baht coins, and students kept trying to sell me their used Thai comic books knowing that I can’t read Thai. The highlight: when the kindergarteners were paraded across the street to spend what little baht they had; even the middle-schoolers, so tough, cool and above it all, thought it was adorable.

The food might not have been the best, and many of their goods were overpriced (let’s hope that they were raising money for some school function), but it was a nice experience. Not only was it fun to spend time with them outside of class, mixing English, Thai and a boatload of miming to form a conversation, but it was lovely to see some of the quieter kids out in full bloom, vying for the best compliments from Teacher.

The Duties of an Ajarn

In Thailand, being a teacher (“ajarn” in Thai) is a position deserving of respect. On the respect totem pole, only monks and the king are higher. There is even a national holiday for paying respect to teachers, during which every student makes a bouquet and must wai (bow), forehead to the floor, and present it to their teachers. On a regular basis, students are always supposed to be, literally, lower than teachers, so they duck when we walk past. They also crawl up to Thai teachers’ desks on their knees. And, although being a foreign teacher will certainly diminish the amount of respect we receive in actuality, it in no way lessens the cultural expectations imposed on us. This can be an intimidating situation to walk into as a foreigner. 

Having no official rulebook, we are just left blindly feeling our way through the cultural differences. And, from what we can figure out, the rules make no sense. We have been scolded for: wearing non-collared shirts, wearing flipflops, drinking directly out of a big water bottle at morning flag raising ceremony, eating while standing, not using a straw, eating while walking, eating popsicles, not eating food that was offered to us. The list goes on and includes, primarily, things that we see Thai teachers doing on a regular basis. 

The list of don’ts also extends to any personal life you may have in public. What you wear, what you do, what you eat, can all potentially be witnessed by an unseen student, or worse, parent. My piercings are a disruption in almost every class, and if I wear my hair up I can be sure that the constellation tattoo on my neck will serve as a major distraction. Bumping into students on the weekends while wearing my nose ring and potentially showing bits of my shoulder tattoo pumps fodder into the gossip mill. And, as it isn’t naturally occurring in Thailand, cleavage is a big no-no. 

We gain a bit of celebrity. Thais know where we teach. In Ratchaburi, our laundry ladies tracked down where we lived when they ruined some of our clothes. The director of our current school called us on the guesthouse phone one morning, without our telling him where we were staying. Word gets around. We stand out. Drinking beer? Smoking cigarettes? We do it at home or where there are only adults: bars, not restaurants. 

Luckily, in more-touristy Chiang Rai, we stand out less than we did last term. And the school seems a bit more lax overall. But, we still are expected to finish our afternoon popsicles before going back to school, and the students do freak out a little bit when we crouch down to their level.

The Coolest Thing Since Doraemon

A new craze has hit CVK. All the coolest middle schoolers are doing it. The official toy of the season: yo-yos. There must have been a yo-yo sale nearby; they appeared in droves and have invaded every classroom.

Never a yo-yo-er myself, I still remember how cool yo-yos were around the time I was in middle school. The tricks were limitless. Clearly, time and patience had been dedicated to learning, practicing, and then mastering each one. Though, this isn’t necessarily the case with our Thai students.

Just getting the yo-yo to do the stall-at-the-end-while-spinning thing is enough to provide them with endless entertainment. Half of the kids are so short that not hitting the ground is a trick in itself.

Was this a problem that we also had in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade? I cannot remember ever being that tiny. Were we technically too short to be using a yo-yo, or are the Thais just smaller by nature? I suppose it’s somewhere in the middle. But one thing is for sure: yo-yos are apparently destined to be popular in middle school, forever. 

We Are Glorified Babysitters: Adventures as Wranglers of Tiny Children

 

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.

Creativity Nurtured

At the end of our Cambodia excursion, we decided to go to Battambang. Cambodia’s second largest city, though by no means actually a large city, Battambang isn’t exactly jam-packed with sights and activities. But, our aim was mostly to relax and spend as little money as possible before heading back into Thailand. However, fliers for the local circus certainly caught our eye; knowing that the circus was also a school for children made the money worth spending. 

Phare Ponleu Selpak, meaning “the brightness of art,” is a Cambodian NGO aimed at helping the children of Cambodia with education, life skills, as well as creative and performance skills through their art centers. Originally opened at a refugee camp near the Thai border in the 80s, PPS began as a way to help children deal with the psychological impact of war. They then moved to their current locale in Battambang and continued their efforts, as well as opened a public school, a circus school, and housing for children who were victims of child trafficking, poverty, street begging and the like. The organization helps to renew Cambodian culture through its children, and to foster learning on an individual level. 

We opted to go during their Community Day, a showcase of all things PPS, rather than simply paying to see only the circus. The event was promoting a coffee table book published by one of their circus troupes that was about to go on a European tour. The books, while beautiful, were expensive by Southeast Asian standards. At $1 a glass, the beer was more reasonable, so we did our part to contribute financially. 

Scattered about the grounds, children worked on drawings and watercolors, set up easels for paintings, and paper-maché’d masks. The public school got out of session around 4 pm and throngs of elementary children flooded the area around the arts buildings. As the only foreigners, we stood out from, as well as towered over, everyone there. This distinction also meant we were the proud recipients of limitless high fives and hellos.

There was a toddler fashion show, a live painting, and a break dance performance. The circus school was open for spectators, red, yellow, and blue mats lining the floors. We took off our shoes and watched them flip, spin and fly, contort and bend, juggle and climb. They balanced, lifted, and actrobatted. It was more diverse than an entire circus, and all happening simultaneously.

Before the actual circus performance, they had live ice painting, pretty much the last medium you would expect to see in Cambodia. By layering color after color of paint across the tops of large blocks of ice, the blocks began to slowly melt away. Very slowly. As it did, the paint seeped into cracks, gaps, and little tunnels in the ice, slowly causing elaborate designs to spider through the clear white ice. 

Eventually it was time for the circus, and we filed into the tent. Seats were full, so we stood off to the side, children seated around our feet, perched and leaning for a better view. The performers clowned, tightrope walked and unicycled to the delight of the audience. But in the late afternoon, the heat under the big top became stifling, driving us out before the performance was over. Having seen the full showcase of the day, the circus wasn’t the main event anymore. Missing a little of it was okay. Not only did we feel good about where our money was going, but we were excited to get back to teaching and spending all of our time playing with kids.