A Month's Evaluation

Before I came to Thailand, people would ask if I had any goals in mind, some aspirations perhaps, to direct and shape my experience here. And for quite some time, I was stumped. True, I had these larger hopes to devote this experience sharing my knowledge, expanding the worlds of some 90 students, invoking a deeper interest in learning the language. And hopefully the work that I do here can have socio-economic implications too. Being able to access English can be huge here, especially for these kids whose families are mainly agrarian and whose hopes for better jobs are limited. However, these are somewhat abstract, and somewhat divorced from what I see everyday.

For goals that are more specific, I understood that it would take time. And now that I've had about two months here, after a hectic and packed orientation, some emotional, physical and psychological adjustment (which, I imagine would reach no discernible terminus), after about three weeks of teaching, I have some things in mind that I want to accomplish.

I realize, that given the design of my contract and the way that the Thai public education here is structured may not yield the most effective teaching and learning circumstances, I have a unique opportunity here to be creative, to be persistent, and to be patient. I have a unique opportunity to do something good every day. And while I have to continually adjust my expectations, I know, and understand now, that I can challenge these students every day.

More than anything, I feel that students here need structure. Right now, and for the next week, the schools in which I teach in, Na Bpong and Thai Samakee, are involved with their annual sports week. While I would normally endorse the investment on kids and sports, for the most part, the schools have no classes in preparation for this week-long competition. In fact, I am the only teacher holding classes as of right now, and when not in class, the students roam free around the campus, occasionally engaged in some form of fleeting organized activity. Thus, when I am teaching classes, I can tell that my kids are completely off of school-mode. They are frenzied. The only way that I can hold their attention and engagement is to have a pretty rigid lesson plan, where I go from topic to topic seamlessly, with a quick transition. Of course this does not always happen :)

Therefore, goal number one: is to provide students with structure, at least in my class. What I do in the classroom has to be intentional and deliberate and reeking with purpose. In my english class, random and chaos and neglect are big no no's . Of course, I expect the more than occasional anarchy from the students. But I want them to feel like someone is personally invested in what they do and what they learn.

In my daily lesson plans, there's a warm-up activity and a daily activity that kick-start the period. One of them is continually going over the ABC letters AND sounds. I have to review all the letters and sounds with everyone because they are continually mixed up, or they learn it by rote memorization and can only conjure the letters sequentially. But, really, they mean nothing to them. An A could very well be an R. And you have to realize, it's not their fault--most of the time, it's how they are taught. The "v" as I've mentioned before, does not really exist, or is really a "wee." It is, as I've mentioned to a friend, a phonetic equivalent of Mt. Everest or ... Mount Kilimanjaro. "l's" and "r's" are either mixed or blended. I understand that the "r" and "l" sounds will require some tongue muscle memory that will have need daily exercise, and I definitely understand that English is a difficult language to learn. So everyday is a milestone achieved. But this brings me to goal number two.

By the end of my service, I really hope to be able to have taught kids how to read, or to instill an intuition for reading. For students to be able to see a word, to be able to recognize and isolate the sounds, and eventually read the entire word and understand what it means will be a dream come true. It's a pretty empowering experience to encounter a set of symbols (signifiers, really) from a different culture and be able to read and access it. Furthermore, the ability to read and understand a word engages a form of critical thinking that Thai students are not used to--most of the time, teachers will teach how to read by spelling a word out loud (speeding through the letters) and then saying the word so the students can repeat it. The flaws of this method are immediate and overt. The only time that the students really need to know any word is from the second in which the teach pronounces the word to the second in which the student recalls the word. Also, saying the letters out loud aren't as effective as phonetically breaking a word to a syllable. So learning, most of the time, is complacent and passive. And then they get real bored--and while boredom can sometimes inspire a learner to find something challenging, here, they just don't have the kind of resources available that US students have privileged access to. It's saddening sometimes, to see students fighting over crayons or rulers or pencils because they just don't have them. I've brought in my own supplies, "stolen" some of the school's hidden pastel crayons, and used part of my stipend to buy things for them to remedy these daily reminders of inequality.

It's hard to imagine what kind of lasting and significant work I'll be doing. In terms of teaching the language, if i accomplish these two aforementioned goals, I will be more than ecstatic. But still, one can hope that my daily efforts are also small contributions to things that have larger implications to these kids. For some cases, and I know I have to accept this--probably not. But also, I will never really know the full extent of my work here. All I can do is try, and to try really hard-one day at a time, one letter at a time.

I will be frank, there are some frustrating things here: finding alcohol in the supplies cabinet, witnessing and hearing of corporal punishment, seeing Thai teachers get massages from their students, getting their hairs searched meticulously for grays or lice, a very unpredictable schedule, and so on. Dwelling on these negative things, however, can only prove to be obstructive. I have to believe every day, and to remind myself every day that these challenges are just incentives to try harder, and being a novice at this whole thing--I hope this optimism can last! I'm sure it will. Every day, the work pays off--sure, the gratifications are small, but they resonate deep. :)

Until the next long entry.