BACON BACON BACON!

(Nov 2-6) It's weird to think that only 2 weeks of teaching have gone by, because some days it feels like I've been here for 2 years. Each day gets a little better and a little easier (depending on how the kids decide to act), but I'm kinda getting the hang of it all.

Some frustrations include, but are not limited to:

-We still have no internet at the dorms which we were told we were going to have (and some do have) the first day, but like most things in Thailand it takes multiple times of asking/telling/reminding, etc before anything gets done. So we'll keep at it.

-People here are very passive aggressive, so if something is wrong or someone has something to tell you, it will go through like 4-5 people before anyone lets you know (instead of coming straight to you and being direct)

-Two of the other american teachers were in Laos renewing a visa and some complications arose, so they missed Mon-Wed of school. This meant the the 5 of us other teachers had to cover all of their classes during the week in addition to ours. So, I was teaching about 6 classes a day, sometimes in a row. I am more than willing to help and know they would do the same for me, but there are like 5 other non-native english speaking teachers at our school who they didn't even bother to ask to help lighten our load.

Sometimes we feel a little exploited here for the sheer fact that we speak English natively. Like we have to stand at morning assembly (when the non-native english speakers don't) so that parents of the students can see that the school has american teacher and we have to teach/coach some classes outside of school which is fine, but they present it as an option to us, then without hearing if we can or not go ahead and get students to sign up and then tell us we have to do it. I don't know it'll all be fine it's just hard to deal with this mentality when we are always taught to be straight-to-the-point.


Sorry bout the rant! Now for some lighter stuff

English Day Competition: Like I mentioned earlier we are asked to teach some after school things I've kinda come to enjoy them though, because you get more one-on-one time with the kids and I'm getting to know some pretty well. We are judging an English competition next week where kids from area school compete in different categories (spelling, scrabble, speech, skit, storytelling, quiz, multiskill) and we all are helping in a certain area. I helped with skit on friday which was awesome. It's girls from 4th grade who are acting out a story of poor street sellers who are robbed and so they have no money, so their sick mother dies, but the robber gets hit by a car (aka KARMA--which is huge here because of buddhism). They had already rehearsed it a bunch (and were really good), so I just helped them with pronuncation and how they should act/face the stage...putting that HUMO to work I suppose :)

I try to get my lessons planned the night (if not 2 nights) before the class so that I don't have to stress about what I'm going to do. I'll tell ya I wasn't planning on this whole teaching math/science/health thing, so I've actually had to dig pretty deep into the old thinker to recall some of the info these kids are learning:

4th grade health: right now we're doing muscular and skeletal system so I have a lot of worksheets and word finds and am going to try to download "the head bone's connected to the neck bone, etc." to play along with the kids. I love my 4th graders--they are so smart, good at english and generally excited to learn. However, I did find out I'm responsible for teaching them about drugs, alcohol, disease prevention and self-esteem, so that should be a real treat in the next coming months.

6th grade math: We're working on area, circumference, radius and diameter of circles which I've also had to relearn. We do a lot of practice with measuring different objects in class and they seem to get it pretty well (after a couple lessons). It's amazing how smart these kids are when it comes to math. A few of my students go to an outside math class called KUMON where they learn about higher level math.

The other day Bam, one of my kids, was like 'teacher I want to learn more about algebra' and I was like 'well, maybe after we finish everything in the book we can look more at algebra' while in my head I was like 'absolutely not! I didn't do so hot in algebra in college and will be of noooo help to you!' haha. It's interesting though, because the students (5th and 6th grade) are so good at algebra or multplying/dividing 4- or 5- digit numbers with no work, but its hard for them to grasp measuring radii or that all you have to do when you multiply by 10, 100 or 1000 is move the decimal place 1, 2, or 3 places to the right. I guess it must have part to do with the language barrier, but the great thing about numbers is that they can transcend language. I think part of it is is that these kids are sort of trained to be memorization robots, but when you give them something they have to apply or think about critically it is very difficult for them. So hopefully I'll be good enough to get them to where they should be with the material in the book!

6th grade science: we're learning about organisms and habitats which is taking kind of a long time, but they are starting to get the differences between things and that some species live in some habitats/communities but not others. I think later this week we are going to try a terrarium or at least go down by the river and observe the organisms that live there. It's pretty fun though, because we're doing a lot with biology this semester so we'll be able to head outside and explore once they get the concepts down. The other day we learned about different names for animal groups and they thought gaggle of geese was one of the funniest things they'd ever heard.

3rd grade health: to be honest I don't have curriculum yet for this class, so I'm kind of making it up on the fly. we did the food pyramid last week (which they already knew) so I've gotta think about stuff that isn't too much for them, but be sure that they are still learning good things. I think we'll do stuff with body parts and systems this week.

7th grade/9th grade convo: these classes are pretty stress free as I basically just come in to class with a few questions/topics and we literally just talk. My 7th graders aren't as good at english so I kind of have to pull teeth to get some answers, but I'm helping them to use the correct tenses and sentence structure. My 9th graders rock and I can have pretty much any type of conversation with them (last week we talked about music and movies). I don't know if one girl understood the question, because she started talking about a fish, but i was just happy she was using her English so I just smiled and nodded.

5th grade math: we're learning about multiplying and dividing decimals...without a calculator. let's just say I've had to study up for this one. I prayed they wouldn't have questions, but of course they do and I have to be on my stuff. This is my class of heathens, but they are generally getting better. I'm learning to really teach the ones who listen and find that the ones who don't listen ask for help when they get behind or realize their friends are finishing their work faster and get free time. It was really awesome the other day when the worst kid in the class came up to me and said "teacher you can help me?" and I sat down with him one on one while the class worked and walked him through some exercises. I've never seen a kid so happy when he finally was able to do the problems on his own (and I won't lie it felt pretty good to know that I made that possible!)

In class on friday Mac stood up in class and started singing Beyonce's All my single ladies and like a movie, the rest of the kids got up and started singing the chorus and dancing around the room. It was out of no where and I had to sit down I was laughing so hard. They don't understand some decimals, but they know a song and dance in English.

5th grade science: We're learning about simple circuits and electricity which is kinda cool, but we don't have any hands on resources for the kids which is a bummer. Like I want to do the experiment where you connect a battery to a light bulb and light it up, but instead I have to just print off pictures and draw examples. I'm going to talk to my director about this, because I remember loving science so much when I was little because I got to actually do/test things on my own.

Even funnier than the Beyonce episode, we were talking about circuits and one of the parts is a light bulb. If you ever want to laugh yourself stupid try getting seven 5th grade asians to pronounce the word 'Light Bulb.' I can't even describe what sound comes out, but its something jumbled along the lines of 'right burrrlllrb' (I know I'm a bad person, but some days I just need a little pick me up!)

Even funnier still, we were talking about energy sources on Wed. and food came up as an answer. So, I asked everyone what their favorite food was to kill time and one of the kids goes Bah-Kohn and I was like what? and he goes Bah-Kohn. I had no idea what he was saying so I had him draw it on the board and it turned out it was Bacon, so I told them it was pronounced Baay-Kin and they said Bay-Cone. I was like 'you're getting closer, but its baaay-kiiin' so they go 'baaaaaay-kiiiiin.' I said 'Yes yes! you got it, way to go!' They literally threw their hands in the air and started chanting BACON, BACON, BACON, BACON. I wish I'd had a video camera because I think they cheered the word 1000 times--i had tears rolling down my face it was so funny.