Teaching the Gods How to Speak English

(Taken from the TUSEF Facebook page)

The purple shirts: Fulbright teachers

The two women: Fulbright Executive Directors

The 20 men: school directors

During orientation with Fulbright, we were taught that school directors (aka principals) are the gods. I could not agree on a better descriptor.  Nothing is done without their say, their presence is noted immediately, and they are the ones required to present students with any sort of honor.

Last week, accompanied by four other teachers in my program, we set out to teach the gods how to present about themselves and their school in English. As South East Asia is further interconnecting through ASEAN, directors want to be able to travel to schools in other foreign countries and be able to give a comprehensible presentation about their school, Thailand, and Thai education. On the drive there, we learned that a good majority of our 20 pupils had google-translated the homework our program had asked them to prepare. Good start.

Have low expectations and be flexible and you will be successful as a foreign teacher. We switched up our game-plan and presented only about presentation skills. We followed by asking the directors to respond to these two questions:

-How much did you understand when the teachers presented their material in English?

-What is your stress level right now?

Here is a photo of their respective answers.

Low comprehension/ high stress

Swell. We’ve got our work cut out for us.

After lunch we broke into groups; I took four directors, sat them down, and taught them just a few phrases:

Good afternoon. My name’s ____________. I’m the director of _______ School. I’ve been teaching there for _____ years. Before becoming director I was a ______ teacher. My school is known for _________.

Once establishing everyone’s response, we repeated the words over, and over, and over, and over….and over. Five, Social Studies, deputy [directory], health, and academics were particularly difficult words for them. I am extremely proud of these directors for allowing their guards down and learning from us. As directors, they are the top. They tell others what to do. We asked them to listen to a couple 20-something-year-olds for two days about a subject that Thai people are particularly intimidated by. I am very impressed. They were determined. When they stood up one by one to give their rehearsed speeches, my pupils would look to me for approval after that last breath of relief. As they waited their turns, I could see their lips moving at their seats rehearsing in their head for their turn.

The paper fish gifted to me by my ride to the restaurant.

That evening, we all enjoyed a Thai dinner, and karaoke of course, together at a restaurant in town. The teachers split up in cars among the directors. I went along with one of the directors from my group. As it was just the two of us, it was a bit awkward as I attempted to continue conversations in English and realized his English level was even lower than he fooled me to think in the group setting. I pulled out some of my basic Thai and we talked about coffee. I pointed to a paper fish that hung from his rear-view mirror and used it as a conversation piece until he almost crashed the truck trying to untie it to give it to me. Despite my best efforts we still spent majority of the ride in silence, which was honestly a necessary break from a day of repeating the words “social studies” back and forth for an hour.

The next day, the directors strut in the room with smiles and enthusiastic exclaims of “good morning, teacher!” I hadn’t realized that the day prior when they walked in how quiet they were because of their nerves.

We spent the morning working in groups to provide the directors with better vocabulary for common situations if they go abroad. After lunch we sat in a circle to reflect on the two days and discuss future plans. During the group reflections, one of the deputy directors from my group commented that he was really dreading coming to the workshop; his director had forced him to go. However, after the workshop on introductions with me when Fulbright asked for drivers he was the first to volunteer and said “I want Kendra in my car.” I was shocked that this moment that I had chalked-up as super-awkward was one he was reciting to the group as rewarding.

Finally, we asked them to repeat the previous days exercise:

-How much did you understand when the teachers presented their material in English?

-What is your stress level right now?

Higher comprehension/ very little stress

Much more pleased with these results.

We’ll see the gods again next month for round two!

Why is He Holding Scissors?

In most aspects of my life here, I am a participant observer. I imitate as I see and I do my best to understand later. I try not to judge but reflect internally that there are loads of aspects about American culture for which I am equally vulnerable of being judged.

Conformity in Thailand is the way of life in the school system. The students wear uniforms, walk, talk, pray, and sing in unison. Students are most comfortable in the classroom repeating after the teacher, and given any example on the white board students will copy it word for word. When 41 students tell you on Thanksgiving “I am thankful for my students because they make me smile” you know something is askew.

In the classroom it is a constant struggle to encourage students to think independently because they are afraid of being wrong and being embarrassed and scolded for it. I gave three different versions of a quiz last week and the stream of expressions that moved from confusion to anger to contemplation as they actually read through their test was truly fantastic to watch.

As I struggle on a daily basis to break this conformist mentality in my classroom, the school has been working harder to enforce it everywhere else. During morning assembly, we have spent several morning re-aligning the students to make sure the rows are perfectly straight.  And I mean perfectly. More and more often the students are instructed to re-sing the school song because they didn’t sing loud enough the first time or not everyone participated.

This morning I learned that the boys in the younger grades must have very short hair; only the older boys are allowed to grow it out longer (and by longer I mean an inch or two). The assistant principal disciplined these particular boys by cutting chunks of their hair off at morning assembly. Those boys had not complied with the dress code, with the rules of representing themselves at school.  It seemed very degrading that these boys submissively let the assistant principal chop off their hair with desk scissors, and they were forced to bear their punishment in front of their classmates for the rest of the day. This incident left me extremely unsettled throughout the day, particularly because it involves other cultural aspects that I still don’t fully grasp, and likely never will as a foreigner. The head is the most sacred part of the body in Buddhist culture. I have been reminded on multiple occasions to be careful not to touch a child’s head. I know the other Thai teachers at the school have a special right because they are almost like parental figures. However, to then see the AP disfiguring what I have learnt to be an untouchable part of the body is extremely confusing. Moreover, appearance is extremely important in Thai (and from what I understand most Asian) culture. They are very concerned with appearances and will comment quite bluntly on how you look. The students are expected to have fresh, neat, tucked-in uniforms every day. Now these particular boys are walking around looking as if their little sister surprised them with the scissors.

I couldn’t help but make a few inquiries to try and better understand the situation. Thinking about some private schools back home that have rules about boys’ hair-length and facial hair, I know those boys might receive detention or demerits or something along those lines of discipline. It’s thinking within these boundaries that I have made myself so upset by this situation. Had this happened in the U.S.A, parents would have thrown a fit. We are an extremely individualistic nation and we consider appearance a personal expression of identity. Even in private schools we would feel violated if administrators came at us with scissors rather than a detention slip. However, in Thailand the people have a completely different set of values that flow through their culture. The parents of these boys will likely be upset with their children for not following the rules and getting in trouble with the AP. However, this is not the case across the board; I teach in a more rural setting where families hold strong to these traditional values and practices, whereas schools in the major Thai cities are moving away from traditional support from parents and producing a more sensitive parent concerning discipline issues. Although, I am sure there is still a cultural gap between “city parents” in Thailand and the common American parent who comes in fighting tooth and nail insisting that their child did no wrong.

Due to these unfamiliar values, it is still very difficult to properly understand the complexities of the situation, but I understand the importance of uniformity in the school. It comes into play in many aspects that thoroughly confuse me, and I am grateful to have several months still to ask questions and observe. 

I Really Don’t Like Watching Sports…

(I have a few short videos to upload but not strong enough wifi to do so at the moment. To be posted later.)

It’s Sports Day at Sansai Wittayakom. Don’t be fooled: Sports Day is actually three days long (Thai doesn’t have plurals and they are often left out when they speak English).

Sports Day One:

Aerobics competition

As I have mentioned earlier, at my school (not every Thai school) each student is assigned a color which corresponds to a day of the week for which they are responsible to come in early and clean. These colors are also how they divide into teams for Sports day. Day One consisted of soccer (boys only), volleyball (boys and girls separately), and aerobics (boys and girls together). I was lucky not to have any responsibilities for the day and got to wander from one sport to the next to observe and take pictures. Thank goodness because Sports Day was far too colorful for me to capture in my spirited writing alone.

The levels of athleticism really varied simply depending on the class. Some games were competitive, but for others even the refs from the local university couldn’t help but laugh at the students head-butting the volleyball.

Aerobics was my favorite of the day, each group put together a soundtrack and started their performance by stretching out, then breaking into aerobic-like activities. They periodically changed places to make different formations which reminded me of synchronized swimming. Then they finished with a cool down. All the while, they count out loud to ten together. I would love to know what the criteria was for scoring.

Sports Day Two:

Cheerleaders

I have heard a lot about Thai cheerleaders, I have seen them practice and been thoroughly confused. I have tried to ask questions only to discover my coworkers often don’t really get it either. The morning was kicked off by each color group dividing in their section of the soccer field and putting on a short “performance” I suppose you could call it. The cheerleaders danced, yelled out numbers, and strutted in front of their perspective bleachers. The rest of the color group sat in the stands assisting with the counting and singing while doing these tutting-like moves in unison. Each group had a theme:

Blue: Under the sea

Pink: Witches

Green: ASEAN

Yellow: Egypt

Orange: Respect your teachers (cough cough, suck ups..)

I was hoping a few days would help me process the oddity that I had witnessed (five times over), but no great understanding has come with time. Gaudy was the word of the morning. Inappropriate followed closed. I asked my teacher if this existed when she was in school to which she burst out laughing and said it was nothing like this.

Once each group had a chance to perform, the students again broke off into their teams for soccer and volleyball playoffs.

Sports Day Three:
On the third day we had the privilege of using the stadium at the local university, Mae Jo (home of the Cowboys!), as our school does not have a track. We kicked off the morning with a parade in which the students were divided by color. The pictures have a lot more to say than I do:

Once in the stadium, we held opening ceremonies and raised the Thai and school flag. The only events for the day were running races: various distances, ages, boys and girls, relays etc. I sat behind the director and vice director in the special box. Not sure if I really should have been there but I was happy to have a seat with a back for the day. The director sat on his traveling couch: wherever he goes, it goes to keep him comfy for the day. As the day went on and grew warm the extremely unfortunate phenomenon of students passing out started to become standard of a race. There were many comments about how the students didn’t run and didn’t prepare for the race. The only students I’ve seen running are part of the boys’ soccer team. Luckily no serious injuries occurred.

Not all students have the money for sneakers.

Once all races were completed, the students were lined up on the field again. After several long minutes of the administrators reorganizing the students so that they are lined up straight, the director handed out awards for overall best runners, best soccer team, best parade, etc. by color. The excitement and pride to win these awards was fantastic to see in the students.

The director handing out the awards from his traveling couch.

Students cheering on their color-mates!

One note I would like to make about the week in general is that the school has found a way to instill great school spirit in its students. I remember students wearing our rival school’s colors on school spirit day at my high school in the States. During sports day and the cheerleading competitions the students sang their school song multiple times in one day. They consistently cheered on their classmates and went all-out getting dressed up for the day of the parade. I did my best too, although I was never assigned a color group so I sported one for each group. But I will admit, going home on Friday night to a quiet house was never more welcome. 

Representing the pink, yellow, orange, green, and blue team.