Teacher teacher

Whew, what a ride! I arrived to my school on Tuesday evening and jumped right into teaching Wednesday morning with little to no instruction. We got our schedules Tuesday evening, our books Wednesday morning, and no other instructions. Thai classrooms are very different than American schools! Students barely stop talking while they are in class except when called, then you could hear a pin drop. Students walk in and out of the rooms as they please, not usually bothering to tell the teacher where they are going.

Here's a little run down on my classes:

The school is broken into two programs - English progam and regular school. I am only teaching English program students so all of their classes are in English.

My first graders are the most challenging because they are too young to understand English yet and I am supposed to be teaching them math and science. Needless to say, there is a huge language barrier. Every once and a while I will have a Thai teacher in my classroom which is extremely helpful! When she is not there the room turns into chaos because they don't understand simple commands like "sit down" or "be quiet." We are working on it though.

My second graders are great! It is a very small class with only six students and they are all fairly strong English speakers for their age. I have a lot of fun with them!

I also have one 7th grade class that I see 4 times a week. This is another small class with only seven students, but a wide variety of English levels. There are three students who understand very well and four who are too shy to answer a question.

About school:

My school is called Satit Bagna and has kindergarten through 12th grade. Each morning we have an assembly with a flag raising ceremony. The school has an open plaza in the middle where the students line up to sing the Thailand anthem, do morning exercises, and listen to announcements. Most of the time the American teachers have no idea what is going on because everything is in Thai- I am getting quite used to just ignoring the announcements.

The students are very friendly and always say hi when passing a teacher. They also wai (why) to teachers constantly. The wai is a sign of respect in Thailand and is when a person puts their hands flat in front of their chest (like praying) and bows, the higher the hands the more important the person. For, example Thai's put their thumbs on their forehead when passing a Buddha or the King. At the end of each class all the students stand up and say "Thank you teacher" then wai. I was thrown off the first time this happened but teachers are highly respected here.

The facilities at our school are decent, and I think very nice compared to the rural schools. Boys and girls share the same bathrooms (with out toilet paper- I have gotten used to bringing my own EVERYWHERE), we have a pool (female teachers must wear a t-shirt of long sleeve over their swimsuit), a tennis court (very very old), a basketball court, and more but I haven't toured the whole school yet.

Our dorms:

Hmm... how do I say this... they are all white, uncleaned, and very basic. For some reason there is an obscure amount of furniture in our rooms. Each room has two or three beds and some have three desks. I think they literally just threw furniture in to make them look better. The shower is only cold water (which I am finding okay because it is sooo hot here) and is just part of the bathroom- not enclosed at all.

We have no kitchen but a woman next door (named Pee Pen) has a little restuarant where I think we will be eating most nights. She charges 30 baht for pretty much anything and 35 baht if you want a fried egg with it. This translates to about $1 for dinner.

Well, I have to go teach a 2nd grade math lesson! I really hope I have a thai teacher guide today but I just never know!

Here is my address:

Satit Bagna School
Attn: Teacher Josie Faue
103 Teparak Rd.
Bangpla Bangplee, Samut Prakan 10540
Thailand

hint hint :)