School Daze

School has been in session for a few weeks now, and I'm loving it so far. It's a little hectic, and there are still some kinks to be ironed out, but for the most part, I'm happy with the way everything is going. As a Youth Development Volunteer, my role is to work with youth in the community, and with the community itself, to help the upcoming generation develop skills and habits that will help them to mature into healthy, productive, positively contributing adults in society. I felt that the best and most effective way for me to connect with youth would be to meet with them in their schools since that's where they spend most of their time. All of the schools in my community have welcomed me with arms wide open, however, despite having explained my role several times, I'm mistaken for an English Teacher and tasked to teach English (the biggest kink), but one step at a time. 



I attended an English Camp with some of my high-schoolers

 

I've gone from basically just going with the flow of everything around me to having a very rigid schedule. I spend Mondays and Fridays at the Sub-district Administrative Organization (SAO, which operates as the City Hall) working on my lessons and/or participating in community events/activities with my counterparts. Tuesday through Thursday, I work at six schools in the community, five primary schools and one secondary school. I spend a half day at each school (three to four hours) and so far I've been doing a combination of teaching English as it relates to self identity and emotions, and just general English vocabulary, and having the students do activities or have mock conversations using the vocabulary. As time goes on, I will incorporate more activities pertinent to youth development.

 

 

As much as I'd like to distinguish and work in the capacity of my true role, I appreciate and enjoy the level of respect shown to teachers here in Thailand. There is even a tradition near the beginning of the school year when every student makes little floral offerings for their teachers and present them in a near reverent ceremony for Wan Wai Kruu, which is basically Teacher Respect Day.  

 

Here is a video another Peace Corps Volunteer made of the Wan Wai Kruu ceremony at her school

 

 

Here are a few pictures from the Wan Wai Kruu ceremony that I participated in

 

All of the students assembled together with their mini bouquets

Every student comes on stage to present their individual tokens

A representative from each class presents teachers
with an arrangement made by the class

A couple of the mini arrangements that I received



All made by the students 



One made by each class, from Pre-K to Sixth Grade





Aren't they cute?

Outside of this special day, teachers are very highly respected by students and community members alike. A couple other cultural contrasts I've noticed are that Thai students do not challenge or question teachers, at all, the answer to "Do you have any questions?" is always "No" while the answer to "Do you understand?" is always "Yes" (which is not always the truth), and the response to corporal punishment (which I do not practice) is a wai/bow and a thank you. I try to make my time in the classroom fun, and I encourage the students to ask questions and give opinions and suggestions (although I don't always have the language to understand or respond).

 

Here are some photos from an activity that I did with one of my classes. We did an English lesson about animals (which they requested) after which, I challenged them to demonstrate their comprehension through a little competitive game of "telephone" - this is how it went:



The students lined up into two teams, they love boy vs girl
competitions, and I let em have it since it's near equal



I whispered an animal name to one person from each team,
then they passed the word along to the front of the line.

The person at the front of the line runs to the board to draw the animal

Points were first awarded for speed and then for accuracy.
No surprise when duck turned into dog,
but somehow elephant became telephone :-/

I did the same activity at another school, I'm also learning as I go,
notice the less jumbled chalkboard?

After the activity, they wrote their "Today I learned about" sentence





I think I'm settling into my schools quite nicely, and I believe that sooner than later, I'll be well settled into my role as well. For right now though, my school days are off to a pretty good start.