last day at Municipality school
(1st graders and their lovely teacher Porn)
I am finishing my last week at the schools I have been teaching at for the past seven weeks. For my last three weeks I will be moving around to different schools. I am surprised at how attached I have become to the schools and the students I've been working with. I can easily recognize the students' faces and personalities and most of them address me by name. I can hardly communicate with them, but I feel connected with them and it's an amazing feeling. I can confidently say that I have taught these students a lot of English words and simple sentences that they will retain with practice, but what's more is that they have taught me so much about Thai culture and teaching children in general. I will be more than ready to begin my teacher education program when I return home. I master classroom management a little more each day -- the art of timing and the magic of fun learning are becoming much clearer. I usually teach with one or two other volunteers, but I have become the "leader" since I have been here for 7 weeks and most other volunteers have been coming and going every 2, 3, or 4 weeks. Today concludes my "BTEC" course in Leadership Development, and I do feel like I have developed my leadership skills in the past couple of weeks. Two volunteers from Sweden arrived this past Saturday, so Emma (the intern who is in training to eventually lead the project) and I gave them their training sessions and led them in the schools this week. The Swedish girls are so much fun, and it was a perfect team to lead because English is their second language, so they enjoyed the extra guidance.
Yesterday was my last day at Ao Luk Primary School, the school where Pi Rai and Pi Nui teach. I definitely got a little frog in my stomach when I realized it was my last day. The school is chaotic, unorganized, and way behind in their English compared to the other schools. It is the school I would come home from exhausted, and the place I learned to make my most intimidating faces. But it's the craziness of the school and the informal, silly nature of the staff that makes it so appealing. So yesterday when I left my classes I made sure to shake every student's hand that was thrown in my face, and hug every little munchkin that cuddled up next to me. I even signed some autographs which I usually refuse to do :).
Today was my last day at a school called Ram Daecha, one of the more structured schools. I enjoyed this school very much because since the students were muched more advanced in their English skills, I was able to teach them more than just words, which is a lot more rewarding than yelling the word "toilet" over and over again. Today was full of surprises. Normally I teach mostly older children at Ram Daecha, but today when I arrived with my little teaching group, the principle informed us that we'd be teaching preschool and kindergarden all day long. We looked at each other and laughed, and thanked the lord we had brought a bag full of bright colored cardboard shapes. So we proceeded to teach SEVEN classes full of 3 and 4 year old children, yelling the colors of the rainbow more times than you can ever imagine, and singing the rainbow song until we nearly had no voices. When the seventh lesson came around, I was becoming delirious. Halfway through the rainbow song, I had a realization about how funny the whole situation was, and had an extreme laugh attack, which then became contagious. So there we were...Olivia, Sara, and I, laughing uncontrollably with colored shapes in our hands in front of dozens of teeny Thai children looking at us like we were crazy (which we were). I had to walk out of the room for a moment and when I came back in I made up a game as fast as I could...anything to stop singing that damn song! The game ended up being the biggest hit, and had Olivia, Sara, me, and even the Thai teacher jumping around and getting so excited about stars and squares.
P.S. This little kitten in the internet cafe has been a part of this blogging experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment