Scholarly things

Considering I am 2 months behind on my blog I'm going to skip to our FIRST MONTH OF SCHOOL.

^this was me. 

Even though I student taught in Pattaya for two weeks, I was still shitting my pants at the thought of teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th grade Thai students MATH (did I mention I was teaching math?) Will they be able to understand me? How do you do long division again? What is the communicative property? How do I use a protractor? How do I figure out the area of a triangle? These were all very real concerns I had, and I did indeed google them the night before. For the record, long division is hard and stupid and you will never use it in real life (I'm going to be such a good teacher!)

I'm trying to think back on the first week of school and honestly I think I blocked it out of my memory. I know I made the students make name tags with their nicknames on them because Thai names are no joke. A few examples of my students' names: 

Jirasak Jangjorn

Jittakorn Pothong

Papangkorn Rungpattaranakul 

Theerapat Rakusueadej 

Jirarat Wattanagasemtham 

Huschaporn Keawkajang

Punyaporn Prachayanonta

So instead of that^, they all have nicknames given to them by their parents which include, but are not limited to:

O-zone

Peepo 

Ah-ngoon

Lumpsum (Lump. Sum. A sum of lump)

Un-Seen (In the beginning she went by Seen, and now goes by Un-Seen...sooo much more fourth grade)

Goofy

Cooky

Kabtan

Pink

Blue (formerly known as BooBoo, but when someone told him booboo meant mistake, he changed his name to Blue- pictured below)

^stunna

Golf

Jedi

Ong

Piano (I wonder if her parents just looked around the room and saw a piano and thought wow, that's what I want my daughter to be named)

Zanta 

Smart

Pear

Can

Can't (pronounced with a British accent...)

G-yoon (her parents couldn't have named her June? G-yoon.)

I also have a Pang, a Pong (pronounced Bong, but I also have someone named Boong), a Pangpond, Mae Mae and Moe Moe (Mae Mae and Moe Moe sit next to each other and look identical, yet are not related) Poom and Pum (Poom's name is pronounced with a slightly longer "oo" sound than Pum) and a Clinton. Why is Clinton's name so normal?! So the first week was dedicated solely to name games.

The second and third weeks of school were probably the lowest I have felt so far. 

^this was me

I looked up flights home more than once (that would have cost a pretty penny) and cried more times than I do when I'm watching Ellen Degeneres' 12 days of Christmas Giveaways, which is saying a lot.

It's funny, coming here I heard nothing but good things about teaching in Thailand. 

"Oh my gosh it is LIFE CHANGING. Seriously, my life. Has. Been. Changed."

"I am a better person after knowing these kids. I hope I have taught them just as much as they have taught me" *cue glistening eyes*

"Thai students respect their teachers SO much"

"I basically played games with the kids all day, it's like I was at camp"

"It was less of a job, and more of a calling"

Some of these are paraphrased, but you get the point. Everyone makes it seem like a walk in the park. No one talks about the hard stuff. No one tells you that your kids WILL. NOT. LISTEN. TO. YOU. Mostly because they know you can't/won't hit them, unlike the Thai teachers. I have had to leave the room because my Thai teacher was beating the students.

 You will have classes where you will do nothing but scream, but no one can even hear you because they are all talking so loud screaming at each other. You will have classes where you want to storm out of the room (I have done that once or twice...). You will have classes where you break a kid's ruler because you hit it on the desk so hard to get their attention (ask Chelsea about that one). You will have classes that are cancelled and you don't realize it until you show up to the classroom and are the only person there because NO ONE TELLS FOREIGN TEACHERS ANYTHING. You will have classes where you are trying to explain something and no one understands because you are speaking in English, and you need one of the better English speakers to translate to Thai. 

You will have classes where you want to go like this:

And this:

And this:

You will have classes where all the kids run up to you with their books when they are finished their work, shoving it in your face while you are trying to explain something to another student (because they weren't paying attention, surprise surprise), yelling "TEACHA TEACHA CORRECT OR NO?!?!? CORRECT OR NO TEACHA?!?!?!?!? TEACHAAAAAAAAA" *eyes bulging out of their sockets*

Do kids do this in America?!?! It is ridiculous.

You will have classes where you are so tired you think you are going to quit your job if that means you won't have to teach another class that day. Especially because the kids are in school from 7:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. with a quick 45 minute break for lunch, as well as a 10 minute break where they chug milk and then about 10% of them proceed to throw it up. Throwing up here is about as normal as sneezing. I wish I was joking. 100% of them need to be put on ADHD medicine. Again I wish I was joking. Maybe I'll slip some into all of their milk?!

You will have classes where you have to make your students write "I will listen to Teacher Laura when she tells me to stop talking" 100 times.

You will have classes where you get up to the front of the room and talk to yourself because the kids DO NOT CARE. A fun fact about the Thai education system: all students pass each grade regardless if they know anything. And I mean anything. I have students in sixth grade who couldn't even tell me their name if I asked it in English. I have students in fourth grade who barely know what 5+2 is. But at the end of the year they are still going to go on to the next grade. So why should they listen to anything you have to say? It doesn't matter to them. Lack of incentive is one of the most frustrating things about teaching in Thailand. You can't threaten them with a 0 on a homework assignment, or on a quiz, or on a test, because at the end of the year they know they are still going to get whatever grade is needed to pass. If a student fails an assignment/quiz/test, you as the teacher have to keep giving it to them until they pass. If they can't pass it as is, you have to make it easier for them until they can pass. Even if you try to fail students, the administration will change the grades you have given them, to a passing grade. Why does anyone think this is a good idea?!

But.

You will also have classes where a student finally understands something and you can tell on their face they are so proud. You will have classes where you are laughing so hard you are crying because your students say the most ridiculous things. You will have classes where you explain something and the kids actually listen and are interested (this is few and far between, but it has happened!!!). You will have classes when you walk into the room and all the kids scream yay because they are so excited to see you (even though it's sometimes too early and you haven't had your coffee so you don't exactly reciprocate the warm and fuzzy feelings).

Phew.

Glad I got that off my chest.

I am happy to say after probably the worst month of my life (it was a very emotional time for me, I believe I went through an entire jar of Jiff my mom sent me in 3 weeks) teaching has gotten a lot better. Do the kids listen to me? No. Do they understand me? Sometimes. Is their math better? Yes! (Am I just saying that to make myself feel better? Possibly) Am I tired? Always. Have I crashed my moto bike yet? I've only hit a pedestrian once so I'm going to go with a no.

Shminterviews

After that nice little wake up call from Phillip, we moved into our hostel that unbeknownst to us would become our home for the next 13 days. Oh Joy (which ironically is the name of our hostel owner).

Our days consisted of waking up, applying to jobs, wandering Thonburi for something to eat, checking gmail for threatening emails from Phillip, eating a thimbleful of peanut butter, going to sleep, repeat.

After a couple of days of searching, Chelsea and I were talking to a placement agency, and when asked when we would be able to start, Chelsea responded "ASAP!", while I am trying to telepathically tell her to shut up.

"Oh wonderful! We actually have a school that needs two teachers to start tomorrow!"

Goooooood.

We get dressed in interview attire in 100 degree heat and after wandering the streets of Thailand looking for this school, slowly melting to death, some nice Thai man took pity on us and put us on the back of a moto taxi and off we go (not an easy feat to ride a moto while in a skirt).

Don't we look happy?? Little did we know we were about to enter into the worst interview of our entire lives thus far. When we walk into the school we are led to a waiting area where we are placed onto a couch for about 20 minutes. When someone finally acknowledges us, we are taken into a back room with a Turkish man who speaks little to no English, and after looking at my resume for about 15 minutes (in dead silence) he finally informs me I will start tomorrow. Excuse me sir but 1) What classes am I going to teach? 2) What are your school hours? 3) What grade will I be teaching? 4) Do you have textbooks? 5) How much am I going to be paid? 6) Is this you formally offering me the job?
7) Can I have a tour of the school? 8) Do you even know my name?

After telling him I would need at least a day to think it over (not fully sure if he understood me), I walked back into the "waiting area" and tried to signal to Chelsea with my eyes that we need to leave now.

After another 20 minutes I am told my interviewer is summoning me. I walk into the room where the interviewer tells me to tell Chelsea that I have accepted the job. Now we have to explain to this man that no, I have not accepted the job (was it even offered to me??) and in fact will not be starting tomorrow. Interesting that I majored in Communication yet this man has no idea what I am saying. Lots of hand motions. Anyway. We got a "tour" of the school where we walked into the classrooms and the children were literal zombies sitting at their desks while a movie played, and the teachers were all on their phones. Every single class was like that. The kids couldn't even say hello in English. No thanks. We hightailed it out of there, telling them we would "think about it".

A few days later we had another interview at a Christian school. This school seemed much nicer, but since it was still summer break we didn't get a chance to see the students. Emily went first. TWO HOURS LATER she emerged from the room. Next was my turn. AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER it was over. I would say it was generally pretty normal except for the part where my interviewer asked me what I would do if a student drew a picture of himself and said, "Look, that's me smoking crack!"

Apparently he did not like my answer because I did not get offered the job. God bless. Chelsea did indeed get offered the job but naturally she declined because she would have been babysitting teaching 2-3 year olds. 

Next interview. I actually wouldn't even call it an interview, more like they looked at mine and Chelsea's pictures resumes and offered us the job because we have blonde hair (this is not an exaggeration). We went out to the school which turned out to be MASSIVE. It was very nice and there was free breakfast/coffee (BIG pro...we almost accepted right on the spot) but one of us would have had to teach 7-9th grade and one of us would have had to teach 3rd-5th grade. There is arguably nothing worse than 7th-9th graders. Body odor. Braces. Acne. 

^8th grade graduation. Peep that dress and that hairdo that I spent 3 hours at a salon for, to end up looking like Shirley Temple. I thought I was hot shit. And those cap sleeves?! Fashion forward.

While we were deliberating on that school, we got a different offer from a placement agency that contacted us. We went out to look at the school and right when Chelsea and I walked in we knew this was it (funny thinking back on that moment when I was in love with the school, as I write this blog post 2 months later...). 

^pure joy...

We decided to decline the previous school's offer and that is how we ended up at Anubaan Nonthaburi! We came home to tell Emily about it and she eventually signed with the same school as us, as well as another girl, Nicole, who we met through Language Corps (trend setters). 

After living in a hostel for 13 days we were finally employed and ready to find a place to live! Which is an entirely different long and drawn out story and one that I don't feel like telling.