Teaching the Multitudes

I am not actually singing

The school that we work at is very beautiful and our department has nice teachers that can speak English fluently. I start my day by doing something extraordinarily strange. I walk to school. The Thai people cannot understand why I would do this, but they do get a good laugh out if it.

Walking is more eventful than in Canada. Almost everywhere you go dogs will chase you barking wildly. The dogs charge but don’t bite you, they just make you feel very unwelcome until you leave their territory and move on to the territory of other dogs, which might charge as well.

Does there really have to be that many dogs
in the middle of the road?

  

Every morning the monks walk by the neighbourhood to collect food. It is customary to give the monks some of your food as they pass by your house. Similarly, the same people now see me walk by everyday and one of them gave me some food as well! It made me feel great.

I only realized just how many students I am teaching when I walked up to the man in charge of copying and printing worksheets and said without a moment of hesitation. “I would like 400 double-sided copies of this worksheet.” Then I realized that was for only half of my students. I’m teaching 800 people a week!

The school system here is completely different! A typical class has between 30 and 50 students whose names I cannot pronounce! The school ranks its students between 1 and 12 for each grade. The number 1’s are all the best students and are all in the same class. So teaching a 1, 2, or 3 class is unreal. They are often the fewest students and they stop speaking if you breathe in then they hang on your every word. Since they are the best they get taught in the best rooms with the best learning environments. Then there are the other classes where the entire class is a bunch of troublemakers. These are typically the bigger classes with 50 or more students and the majority are rebellious boys with no knowledge of English or any real desire to learn. They are taught in the worst rooms; the ones without air conditioning and often times without enough desks so a bunch of them have to sit on the floor. One of the toughest classes that I teach has lots of nails hammered into the chalk board.

I had a tough Friday with a bunch of the difficult classes but then I listened to “By Your Side” by Tenth Avenue North afterwards and that cheered me up. I hope to cheer you up with these photos.

PS: I schooled a bunch of Thai kids at ping pong.

That guy's awesome!

School Auditorium

School grounds

No idea what this sign says

Street signs thankfully are in
 Thai and English

View from near the apartment

Beautiful photo of the Thai flag.
Someone is a great photographer!