Today was day one of my life as a teacher.

The school’s administration welcomed us into their school with speeches (despite the fact we couldn’t understand as they spoke in Thai), and with wreaths of flowers during Thursday’s morning assembly. We were introduced to the entire school – over 3000 students, and 100 or so teachers, and man was it intimidating. Every person is staring at you like an alien, and I guess in some ways we are. We dress, act, and speak differently from everyone around us.

When the assembly was over, we were directed to our classrooms. (Thank goodness Nu gave us a walk through of all the buildings the day before or I would of gotten lost). I had only 2 classes to teach on my first day as my other 2 were cancelled (the 8^th and 9^th period) for a teachers meeting we just learned about that morning. The Thai way of life/teaching - go by the flow. The meeting appeared to be planned last minute or possibly just last minute to us since they only told us that morning, but it was to update everyone on everything since school only began that week. (To clarify, U-Thong School started Oct 18, but Elana, Jenny, and I were still with OEG. We began teaching on Thursday one full day after we arrived).

As I began teaching, it wasn’t that I didn’t realize that there are simply just too many students for myself to teach, it was that if this is how Thai students learn, how much do they really learn? I have 20 classes to teach each week. I see each class once a week for about 50 minutes each if that. Every class has about 45 – 60 students. There are no books, no course outline, no nothing. I question my role as teacher, and what I can really provide for these kids.

I am responsible for the Mat-tha-yom 1 and 4 kids. My Mat-tha-yom 1 (lower secondary) kids are cute, but as other Thai teachers say they are “naughty” as well. It appears they understand English, but are unwilling to speak it. Not everyone is like this of course, but the majority are quiet. For those other kids, they can be loud and rambunctious, running from their seat to sit with a friend across the room. They’ll scream the answers, or say something else entirely. I’ll definitely be bouncing ideas with Elana and Jenny as we learn the ins and outs of how to teach Thai children. Of course asking for advice from Thai teachers is a must as well. I haven’t seen my Mat-tha-yom 4 (upper secondary) kids, but hopefully their level of English will be higher, and they’ll be willing to speak it.

We left to explore the town via our bikes and even rode on the left side of the road. No accidents this time like Amsterdam. Phew… We met some interesting people as we were shopping. We had a small but insightful conversation with the people who sold us new comforters for 200 baht (B) since the one the school provided was not something I wanted to really use. We met one of the fruit stall ladies and bought a plateful of pomelo for 20B. YUM!!! Got this strange but delicious sweet deep-fried pretzel from this older lady, hard to ask her what it was, but using key words we learned helped us make sense of it eventually – 3 pieces for 20B. When it came close to 6:30 P.M., we went back home luckily before it began raining.

So even though it rained once we entered, we decided to leave again. I haven’t used the internet for about a week now, and decided to go to the school’s English department with our special key (surprised they trusted us but then again we can’t go very far with just our bikes and hardly anyone is on the school site) to use the internet. Running through the rain to use the internet…. that is how desperate we are. Although I must say running through the rain felt great. I definitely like the rain now more than I did before because I don’t have to go to class in it. Sorry Santa Cruz folks.