9.27.12

Although I don’t have any experience teaching in the States, I was a student there at one point (won’t say how long ago). The educational system is entirely different in Thailand.

Now, I have my beef with America’s emphasis on athletics over academics, however, at least there is still a desire that the students learn and you CAN actually fail out of school.

Unfortunately, in Thailand, there is no such standard. There is no fail. Which means there is little to no motivation for them to learn or care or do their homework or participate in class or even show up. There are students who truly do want to learn. They have a desire to be something and do something with their lives. I have future lawyers and pilots and doctors. They do buckle down and really learn the material. And then there are the students who show up to one class the entire term and then still get to take the final (although we were told that anyone with less than 80% attendance wouldn’t be eligible to write the final). The things the students get away with here would get them expelled or, at the very least, suspended from an American school. Discipline here generally comes in some form of ‘losing face’. Making them wear a red sheet like a diaper over their uniform if they have worn the wrong one that day. Making them crouch and bounce in place when taken to the disciplinarian for disrespecting a teacher. Having them hold a bridge position in front of the morning assembly for sleeping in the ‘nurse’s office’ when they aren’t sick. None of this does anything to correct the behavior.

Our classes are supplementary to their English classes with the Thai teachers and don’t count at all towards their grade at the school. It has definitely been an exercise in patience and grace under pressure. I have had to smile and accept the disrespect of the students who don’t give a toss about being in class and are only there in order to fill a slot in their schedule (reporting it doesn’t make a difference, so I stopped trying). I have had to grin and bear it when we are told the day before (usually the day of) that there won’t be class or that there is some special assembly that we had no idea about. I breath through the constant changes to procedure with regard to attendance and the databases that they don’t communicate to us until long after we should have been implementing them.

But it was all worth it. While grading final exams, I got to read messages from my students at the end of almost every final. Over a hundred wonderful, encouraging notes from them saying how much they love me and want me to be their teacher next term. How much they enjoy English and that I make it fun for them. I admit that I got a little misty.

And it bolsters me for another term.

I remain optimistic that the growing pains with regard to the school and procedure will have been worked out a little by November. I look forward to seeing my students again after the break.

After being refreshed from a 3-week vacation on Kwajalein Atoll, two days in Guam and three in Bangkok, I will be ready to dive back in and get them to care about English all over again…hopefully.