School days in May

IT STARTED! The first few days reminded me of when I used to go downhill skiing. I was not too good at it, so I would always start out on the Bunny Slope. Once I fell there, and got used to it being not so bad, I would go on up to the intermediate slopes. In the same way, after some parts of some classes went not so well for me, and it was ok, I felt less anxious about the rest of the classes.

God provided well for me as I am learning to go with the flow of the Thai management. The English curriculum books came the Friday before school was to start. However, each class was short a few books, only two out of the six teachers’ guides came, and those two were in Thai. When I helped “watch” the school on Saturday, though, the administrators meeting that afternoon asked if I would like a young lady learning to teach English (Noot) to come help in my classroom for two weeks.

I said that would be great, especially if she could interpret the Thai teachers’ guides for me. I didn’t tell them I wasn’t sure if she would learn any good things about teaching from me, since I hadn’t run a classroom before. Noot did come and did interpret some of the teachers’ guides for me. She was really helpful in a lot of other ways too. She taught one grammar class for me and took over in a phonics lesson when the oversight committee for the school wanted to meet all the teachers for 5 minutes in the middle of our classes. I hope she learned something useful from me!

We had teacher meetings in the afternoon for a couple of days before school started and every day after that for most of the first week. They lasted over an hour and were all in Thai. Kru (that’s the title for a teacher in Thai) Malee interpreted for me, in summary, what they were talking about. The first meeting like that, on a hot afternoon, I nearly fell asleep after an hour or so. That helps me understand when the students sometimes kind of nod off when I’m talking on a hot afternoon. Now I’ve gotten more used to hearing with little or no understanding. Sometimes I think I understand what they are talking about and then Kru Malee tells me, and I’m way off. When they talked about what the teachers should wear on Mondays and Tuesdays, I understood. White shirt and black skirt, and pink shirt and black skirt were words I know. Then they went on to exercise wear for Wednesday and lost me. Scout day on Thursday wasn't any better. Traditional Thai day for Friday I already knew about. I asked some friends to pray for shorter meetings one day, and they stopped having them for about a week!

The first week I stayed at BSF, just up the road 5 min walking. I thought I would work in the classroom in the evenings to get things organized. I found out they close the roll up doors at

about 6 pm, though, and don’t want to have teachers out there by themselves. I did bring work back to BSF to work on, and I was able to get there in the mornings when the roll up door went up at about 6:30. Now I am going home every afternoon, but getting up earlier so I can get my bike ride and my shower and clothes change at BSF done and still get there at about 6:30. I’m getting my exercise from my two ½ hour bike rides every day.

God has also provided a great assistant teacher in Lauren. She taught English at BSF in April during the break from her year of teaching in the south of Thailand. When she went back down there, she decided she liked her work at BSF much better than her work down there, so she quit there to come back up here. She plans on going to graduate school in October. She will be

with us for the first term, anyway. It’s wonderful to have her assistance when the students at different levels need to be split up. She also does a good job teaching the younger ones their grammar curriculum. She knows more about English grammar than I do since her college major had to do with teaching English at a high school or middle school level.

The children here are taught to be polite, so they are much more respectful than American students. Still, I’ve been blessed by the eagerness of most of the children to learn English beyond their habitual respectfulness. One girl chose to sit in the one extra desk I put up in the

front. I was planning on using that one for students who have trouble staying focused or in their seats, but her sitting there made it less of a negative for the other student I pulled up front. At least he was sitting opposite of Rachel then, and not up there by himself! Rachel and another student were the ones who said, “Can we write in our journals today?" when they first got them. At lunchtime, the room fills up with students wanting to play the English games we have.

It was Tuesday when I found out we would have a holiday today, Friday. Then, Thursday evening, at a teacher’s meeting, it was confirmed that we wouldn’t have school Monday either. The teachers are going to a seminar that goes from Saturday through Monday. Also, I agreed to “watch” the school with Lauren on Saturday since the Thai teachers will be at the seminar. That means I will have Saturday to work on the room and two days to rework my planning! It will be good to review everything at this point and work on my record keeping. I have been asking Meaw, the school secretary, for a schedule for the year, but she keeps telling me it isn’t ready yet.

So far so good!

:J

Rides

The Thai people seem really concerned about how we are getting places. They are really concerned when they find out we are going to walk somewhere. Often they hurry around to give us a ride, usually on the back of a motor scooter. We’ve both had a few rides sitting behind the driver, usually without a helmet. Once we both squished in behind the driver. They were a little concerned about how low the motor scooter was riding after Gary got on that time, and he has

lost a lot of weight!

You can tell we are inexperienced in this riding on the back, though, because we hold on to the rail that goes around the back of the seat. The people used to riding that way don’t hold on to anything! Even their dogs know how to ride on the motor scooters. They don’t ride on the back, though.

Some ride in the front basket. One I saw in the space in front of the driver, standing on his back legs with

his front paws on the handle bars.

At first, when I would leave BSF after working on school things, I would tell someone I was going out to the road to catch a songtaew. Either one of the teachers would offer me a ride right away,

or one would come after me on her motor scooter to give me a ride. I never did catch a songtaew home. Gary caught one a few times, but he was much better at sneaking out. Once, one of the helpers at BSF saw Gary walking off and asked if she should go give him a ride on a motor scooter. She thought it was a long way to walk out to the road to catch the songtaew. I told her that walk wasn’t too long, and that Gary probably wouldn’t accept the ride anyway.

Other times we have been waiting to catch a songtaew to go out to BSF and someone has given us a ride. One day it was the housefather returning from taking one of the 7th graders to her new school. He recognized me waiting and stopped to pick me up. Another day it was the PE teacher seeing Gary waiting and stopped. Gary thought he went awfully fast. I was surprised when a local man we have talked to a few times insisted on giving me a ride one morning so I wouldn’t have to wait. He didn’t realize how far I was going when we started, but insisted on taking me where I needed to go anyway. Finally we passed a songtaew I could take, so he was willing to let me off there and not go the whole way.

They have a much greater appreciation for the power of the sun here, and are concerned that we are walking or standing in it too much. One morning we had ridden a songtaew and then walked 40 minutes to a department store to do some shopping. After eating lunch there, we were lugging our purchases back out the 40-minute walk to the songtaew route. We were feeling how hot the day was after about 20 min, of walking when a van pulls over just ahead of us. It was the old man who had been supervising the sheet rocking of the ceilings in our house, along with his crew. He had directed the van driver to come pick us up when he recognized us walking. He gave us a ride the whole 5 k or so back home in his air-conditioned van.

There is an old saying, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” It’s probably from the time the English were in India. That saying makes a lot more sense to me now. That’s probably why these Thai people keep giving us rides too. They realize how crazy we are to be out in the sun too much.

:J