Dont Look Back In Anger Part 3

Like a lot of people who turn up on these shores each year green, naïve and lets face it, stupid, I had a few encounters before I got street wise – well ok, street wiser.

Among the jobs I went to interview for were jobs down on Sukhimwit 101. Which from where I was staying would men a minimum of 60 minutes travel – that was in ideal conditions – up to maybe 3 hours if it happened during a downpour. Part of the problem at that time was that I didn’t have a good idea geographically where everything was in Bangkok and around the country.

Another job I went to interview for was a Sarasas school up near the new airport. Basically turn left at Sukhimwit 71 and keep going for 15 miles. That was a day trip and a half to say the least. In the end it was about the fifth taxi I flagged down who took me as all the other drivers turned me down. The fare was just short of 200 baht, which takes some doing and that tells you just how far out of town it was. The guy who did the interview laughingly described it as 15 minutes from Bangkok on the phone and I believed him! I suppose that if you got the road empty and a fast car it would be 15 minutes, otherwise you could be looking at a minimum of 40 minutes up to maybe two hours. The area itself could either be described as quiet and local or boring and dull. Add into the mix that the accommodation that they were offering was a building that was owned by the school and that you were bussed to and from the school in a minibus each day with all the other teachers. So if you lost the job you lost the apartment, he reluctantly said they would give a housing allowance if I didn’t stay there but he said the staff building was great and really friendly etc etc. Even as a newbie, it was a situation that I didn’t really want to be in. Just as well I suppose they didn’t offer me the job.

On another interview - down towards hua Hin - I got on the train assuming the school name was the name of the town and station – they had said the school was 5 minutes walk from the towns station, but they would meet me there and pick me up. I arrived at the train station and waited and waited until one of the station staff said there was a phone call for me. Turns out I had gone one station too far and that I had overshot by 15 miles. Now back in the west that would not be too much of a problem, just get the next train back up the line, oops only three trains a day on this line so I had to be rescued by a teacher who was sent to get me. In the end I didn’t get the job, I don’t know why as it wasn’t a Geography teacher they wanted!

Those two instances did make me realise that to turn up relatively on time I had to start looking at maps to check where the school was when arranging the interview and if possible do a dry run and find out exactly how long it takes to get there.

During the first few weeks of interviews I was actually staying in a hotel as I didn’t want to commit myself to a flat in one area then find a job that took me two hours to get to and from every day, I had enough of that back home.

Other jobs within 2 minutes of the phone interview starting I got bad feelings about, no details being given, vague assurances and so on and so on, others it was a case of sitting through an interview thinking “What am I doing here? I don’t want to be here.” And yet at some point I had to commit, take the plunge and get a job as I was burning through my savings. Granted if I had wanted to, I could have taken three months to live off savings but that was something I didn’t want to do in case I had to buy something big or go into hospital, give up Thailand and move to Korea or…………….

In the end I got the job through someone who was completing the Diploma stage of the TESOL. One lesson each week for 45 minutes. The rate of pay was 400 Baht an hour which I thought was pretty good, teaching 16 hours a week and I didn’t have to be there unless I was teaching. Pretty good package overall I thought.

In the end it was not. As there were only two other farang teachers at the school and we had different timetables I rarely saw them. Between us we covered from Kindy up to Prathom 6. We saw the kids once a week for 1 lesson, which as I was soon to discover was basically a waste of time. We taught the entire Thai class which means I had between 38 and 52 kids in the class. In theory I also had a Thai assistant but if they were there all they did was sit at the back of the class and do their own work. In other words I was on my own.

I very quickly realised that what I was doing wasn’t teaching but crowd control – sometimes riot control. I had a zone of silence about 4 feet round me and outside of that it would be noise at best chaos at worst. One class in particular was just totally mental. I would throw a kid out of class and lock the door to keep him out, as soon as my back was turned one of his friends would sneak up and unlock the door and either let him in or go out himself. The girls weren’t that much better if they were naughty but generally they were nicer to teach as they did at least pretend to pay a bit more attention.

There were only a couple of Thai teachers there who could speak English and the head of the department could hardly speak it all which meant some interesting conversations – or not.

One Monday I walked in and she said today you teach lab. Lab, I thought, what is lab? She lead me up the stairs to a language lab and unlocked the doors and walked off. How the fuck do I use this? I didn’t even know the school had one never mind that I was going to use one. It was truly a case of the blind leading the blind as I didn’t know how to use one, the kids didn’t really know how to use one but we muddled along somehow. I have no idea how much money was spent getting this lab with all the desks, speakers, headsets etc etc kitted out, but it would have been better spent in reducing the class size and getting more native speakers in to teach.

Another problem I had was trying to get legal. I started on a 60 day tourist visa but I wanted to do things properly. However, it was virtually impossible to get straight answers from the school about whether they would pay for my visa and they would provide all the letters needed. In the end I took the plunge and virtually bullied them into giving me all the letters.

The other main problem was trying to persuade them to give me time off to get the visa. No way, so it was all at my own expense, sheesh. Like many others I made my way up to Vientienne in Laos to get my Non Imm B. In theory it’s a simple process, arrive, give the documents to the consulate in the morning and get the visa the next afternoon.

I arrived with few problems to find that my school wasn’t listed in the consulates folder. ??? If it wasn’t in the folder I needed to get more documents from the school. If I got more documents I would get the B, otherwise they would give me another tourist visa. At the time I hadn’t yet got a mobile phone which meant I had to use the ( comparatively ) expensive international phone services there. The only person who I knew the number of was the Greek girl who got me the job. I tried to phone her a couple of times and ask her to speak to the head of department and explain the situation. I figured that as it was difficult to speak to the head face to face and understand the replies it would be impossible to do it over the phone. Given that this was now Thursday afternoon I was getting more and more frantic, a few hours delay would mean I would have to either stay a whole weekend in Laos or return with just a tourist visa. She promised she would speak to the head and sort it out.

This was one of my first lessons in don’t rely on anyone but yourself. After a second phone call to my colleague she turned round and said she couldn’t speak to the head as she was too busy and didn’t want to be involved. Why the fuck didn’t she say that an hour ago when I explained the situation? Bitch. So I tried without success to phone the head myself and I spent the night worried and stressed out.

The next morning I was ready to throw myself on the mercy of the consulate to get my B visa only to discover they had given it to me anyway! After all the song and dance they gave yesterday about needing this and that they gave me the visa. Aw for fecks sake, knowing that would have saved me a lot of grief and worry.

So I duly got back to Bangkok an tried to get the work permit and teachers licence to discover….. the school wasn’t registered with the Ministry of Education so I wouldn’t be able to get either. How a school attached to a Wat could not be registered is one of these mysteries that only Thailand can generate. So basically I needed to do visa runs or move schools. In the end I did both.

A large problem I quickly discovered was that although the hourly rate was good, any holidays or activities meant my teaching hours were cut and of course my pay as well. The first month wasn’t bad but the 2nd month with the trip to Laos and holidays meant I got less than 20k for the month. Yikes. The consequence of that was that I started doing corporate work in the evenings and language school classes on Saturdays. I ended up working Mon - Fri evenings, Mon – Thursdays and Saturday morning to get enough money to have a basic lifestyle. Things had to change, so they did.


Onto the next job.

Dont Look Back In Anger Part 2

Well, it seems that there have been various rumours being circulated around the school about me. Its great to have secret sources :) A top white house aide said today.... :)

The way in which I left probably gave a good launch point certainly. But, unfortunately again I am not going to comment, just yet, to give the school another chance to write back to me and reply to the fax and letters that have been sent about the money they owe me.

So to quote Laurie Anderson

"just pay me what you owe me"

Dont Look Back In Anger Part 1

I suppose as the time draws near for returning home a little retrospective is called for.

Why did I choose to come here and teach? Well, basically I wanted to work abroad somewhere before I got too tied down, too old, too scared, too trapped. For a lot of people the thought of moving job is scary. It is ranked as one of the most stressful things a person can do in their life. Add in moving – which is also one of the most stressful add in moving halfway round the world and you can see why a lot of people wont do it.

Why did I start writing the blog? Basically I just needed an outlet to get rid of some frustrations. It wasn’t intended to be for a mass audience, it wasn’t intended to please others, it was just a way for me to keep calm. I already was writing on my web site about work but wanted another site where I could say what I wanted and use sweary words without folks at home getting too upset.

Does this tale have a happy ending or did I just steal the Oasis song for the hell of it? You will need to wait and see, as will I, because it may or may not depending on certain people. Cryptic? You bet. Maybe I will tell all, maybe I wont.

Four and a bit years ago, I was looking to see which course I wanted to do I looked around and basically came down to two choices. One was the CELTA which meant Bangkok and the TEFL International TESOL down in Ban Phe opposite Ko Samet. At the time my thinking was that if I was going to do this thing, give up my good job at home and move away from my friends and family, I was going to do it properly. I was going to do the course in Thailand and see what it was like – the country, the work and living there.

I had been to Thailand before on holiday and had an idea of what it would be like, but of course, living somewhere and being on holiday are two different things. So, I did all the research, looked at all the internet pages – just how on earth people research this sort of stuff before the internet? – and got scared. This was the time of the TEFL flame wars on ajarn.com, Daves eslcafe.com and a few other sites. The wars were brutal, I mean no holds barred downright brutal between the two main protagonists, Bruce from TEFL International on one side and Leigh and James from Text n Talk on the other. I ended up asking Bruce to cut out some of this and for both sides to calm down and have intelligent discussion and was basically told to piss off to another web site that was more civilised!

Surprisingly after that, I still went ahead and booked a place in Bruces course. I figured as much as the CELTA name was well known it was based in Bangkok and had and still has a reputation of being a serious, driven course with not much fun. You learn a lot but it’s a slog. The TEFL Int course seemed to be a course that although hard and needed serious attention was still fun to do. Add in the thought that if I stayed in Bangkok the possibilities of distractions at night- ok, yes that sort but I was also thinking of cinemas, pubs, shopping etc etc could deflect my attention from the course. I figured that in a small place like Ban Phe I would be there and concentrate only on the course. Oh how innocent I was. It turns out that there could be just as many distractions in that small town as Bangkok. Oh well.

The course itself was really good and I learnt a lot. The course obviously covered all the main areas like class management, teaching techniques, phonology, grammar etc etc The size of the course was twelve people including me which I think is about the right size. Its big enough to get a decent group dynamic, get lively discussions, allow everyone a chance to take art in activities, a mix of partners ( which if you don’t like someone is very important! ) yet small enough to feel you are a group without splintering into cliques. A big group could mean you never get to really talk to a lot of people, some activities take far longer allowing boredom to creep in and of course there is less attention from the trainer. So twelve was about right.

Of the original twelve, I think I am the last one to actually work as an English teacher. There is still one person working in Bangkok, but they are in a non teaching job. Four went home after a year, one went to New Zealand to do EFL ( yes really ), one went back to Japan and the others I lost touch with directly but every now and again bumped into people that knew what was happening and said they had gone home or moved to another country to work.

The job hunting support wasn’t as big as they advertised – it mostly consisted of a folder in the common area with cut outs of the Bangkok Post and a few faxes from schools looking for people - but it was still enough for me and a couple of others to organise a job while we were still there.

So onto my first job….

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

And thats it. The final week has gone and finished.

In the end all I did was play games and a little bit of a prize giving to the good kids. But to the bad ones all that happened was the Activity Book!

I had decided in my heart, maybe as long ago as November last year, that I would be going home after this year and wouldnt stay for another year.

In some ways, I will be sad to leave Thailand and in others I will be glad. I wouldnt say there is one particular thing that made up my mind but just a gradual increment of various issues. The lack of respect from students, from Thai teachers, from administration, the no fail policy, the everyday hassles of living, family issues at home, personal timing ( sounds a bit strange I know, but a lot of what I decide to do is when something feels right - buying a flat of my own, moving jobs, changing habits, whatever. It just felt the right time to move back.

As much as I moaned about the various kids, I will miss Beer, Oil, Boss, Benz, Jame, James, Big, Ken, Jack, Golf, Pong, Bill, Fond, Ice, Big, Ford, Babe and all the others.

Whether I made as much of an impression on them as they did on me, I have no idea. Hopefully, I have made a difference. Hopefully, I have made them think I was a fair teacher and applied all the rules equally. Hopefully, I have made some kids reach their potential. Hopefully, I have made the kids stretch themselves and start to actually think instead of being spoonfed. Hopefully, they learnt something.

And that is all you can hope for out here.

Counting Down The Moments

Jjust like a tropical sunset, the sun is dipping to the horizon and the sands of time slip by faster and faster to the end of term.

The exams have now passed and we are moving into the spare week where we are supposed to be doing "farewell activities" and other exciting things to keep the kids occupied.

Although I have got lessons planned, the reality will probably be that I will mostly play games with them or whatever they and Ii am in the mood for. If they are good they will get team games - english language based and if they are bad, the dreaded Activity Books and worksheets - the original lesson plan.

The exam week was reasonably uneventfull was remarkably little cheating going on. They seemed to have learnt their lesson and became a bit more sophisticated. There was no getting up out of their seats, no trying to open their books in their bags and so on. Of course there was some looking at others answers and quietly asking each other questions but even that was seemingly restrained.

Had I finally got though to them? Where they finally beginning to realise that they could use their brains to think and do it for themselves? Heaven knows. If I could leave them with just one impression, one thing they have learned in their year with me I would choose that.

Now that I have got the marking started, a few patterns are emerging. The smarter ones have noticed that some of the questions were answered by some displays and posters around the room and the err others didnt. Even though the marking scheme is quite relaxed I have quite pleased with the general results and of a couple of kids in particular that have in the last few weeks started taking the smart pills insted of the stupid ones.

Quite why they only started doing it in the last few weeks I am not sure. Maybe they learn a little like I do, sit, observe, think then understand. No matter, from being in the 30% range these two kids suddenly reached up into the 60%s. Good on ya kiddos!

The last week or so has seen a flurry of memos about how to have our end of year partys, how to enter the scores in the worksheets and this that and the other. But basically we now know the timetable for remaining few weeks of term time Unfortunately it seems that its there is a bit of work involved, by that I mean a few of the deadlines are quite tight. By the end of this week we have to mark all the exams and enter them into the spreadsheets and then by the end of next week type out all the reports and then a few days later proof read and correct and then sign. Ah, not that bad I hear you cry but at the same time, we are supposed to be invigilating the Thai exams and then help doing summer camps. So, its going to be a bit tight and more rushed than the end of the first semester for example.

It seems on this occasion I have come out a bit ahead of the game - at least me and my learning group. This week we only have a couple of tests to do fr those kids who were off sick or whatever. But another group have got two full weeks of the normal tests and the exams. It seems that someone somewhere miscalculated or was told the wrong information. Whatever, the end result is the two solid weeks of testing and more importantly - from the teachers point of view - marking and then entering the marks into the spreadsheet.

One of the more interesting memos was about the payments, as usual everything will get back to us at the end of the contract. The final salary, the remaining bonus ( half of which we got In december ), our flight/travel bonus and our runner deposit. All in all a tidy sum assuming we get it all. As well as this, any deductions will be taken off. By this they seem to be indicating the days taken off sick over our allocation, the times we were late, went homm early and so on. The cynical are pointing out that of course by paying it at the end by which time many people would be away or travelling etc any mistakes in the schools favour wouldnt be corrected!

This was one memo that wasnt put on everyones desk surprisingly. After all thats why we work - for the money. Some might love to do the job but if we aint got no money we dont eat! Another reason why it was suprising that it wasnt given out to everyone was that it was talking about the contracts for next year and when they would be issued! A few people have apparently been talked to about coming back but a lot havent.

What is strange is that they seem to be giving everyone a letter about "the invitation" to come back next year. Seems a bit strange. Why give an invitation to someone who is not going to come back? I would have thought that a little chat first of all would have done the trick better. Some already know 100% that they are not. Why bother sending them a letter? ( Of course, this assumes that all the letters include an invitation to return and not one to go forth and never darken our door again! ) Ah well. Whatever. Just another case of TIT and resource management in thailand.

Whats that light...........

at the end of the tunnel?

Knowing my luck its the light of an oncoming train wreck. This week is a review week for the kids to ahem review and revise for the exams next week. Of course in most cases its just the opportunity for me to remind myself of the differing levels in the classes from the finished in 5 minutes and 100% right good kids right down to the end of the lesson and they have managed to write their name at the top of the practice test.

I have absolutely no doubt about who will get the good scores and who wont. I reckon after 2 weeks at the start of term I had got 95% of the classes pegged. There are some who drift in and out, up and down but you tend to know who are the smart kids and who are the waste of fried pork very soon.

One of the constant battles you have is trying to keep the kids just below the middle level doing the work you give them - hopefully on their own - without you standing over their shoulder the whole time. Some teachers like to stand the whole class, some like to sit, some floorwalk the whole time, some dont let the kids out of the chairs and go to the kids to correct, some have them lined up at the teachers' desk. There is no right way as no matter what works one day for one class their is no guarantee it will work for the next class in the next lesson.

Today I was doing a bit of a mix, hand out the practice test, wander at the start to see they were doing it right and then sit when they start to finish and mark / correct and give them new work. Of course, the disdvantage is that the kids sitting think my mind is distracted and start to muck around or the ones on the queue start to push and shove each other and so on. Anyway, in this class is the kid who is beyond redemption as far as learning goes. He just doesnt want to be there and do anything that the rest of the class do, he has been disruptive, unresponsive etc etc. ( this is the kid, I was warned about for being like this at the start of the year so wasnt too worried or surprised ) I looked over at one point and he was asleep, good. I dont mind that in the least because that way he doesnt distract anyone else.

Unfortunately I noticed another kid hadnt yet been up and his head was in a bit of a strange angle. I got up - leaving the queue of kids going "TEACHER FINISHED ,TEACHER FINISHED" sixteen times in my ear and all waving their bit of paper in front of my face in case I hadnt heard them - and walked over. Aha, thats why he was so quiet as well. He was asleep. Sound asleep. I dont see why if I cant sleep, he should be allowed to get away with it. I gave him a little prod in the ribs and nothing. Another prod and he slowly stirs, he rubs his eyes and looks at me and then puts his head back down on the desk to sleep some more! WTF??? One of the other kids actually came over and shook him until he woke up and paying attention again.

If I had done that at my school, I am not sure if my feet would have touched the ground on the way to the headmasters office and from school all the way home. Oh what it is to be a respected teacher in Bangkok. I reckon last year at this time I would have slapped the kid a good one round the back of the head and bawled him out. Today, I just couldnt be arsed. One week of exams and one week of doing something to keep them occupied until we dont see them again. Anyway, what would happen if I did something? At this time of year, nothing in all probability, so why bother.

By the way the little sods are doing not bad, only a couple more dead. So as so many people asked, I have put a picture of them on for you :)

The Grassy Knoll

Well, its that time of semester were we are obviously nearing some bigwigs visit or a football tournament.

Why do I know that? Well, they are relaying the turf on the pitch. Again. At the start of the year, it was in pretty good nick but of course with all the games and functions on it, it started to go bare down the middle. Would they returf or reseed the whole pitch? But of course not.

The solution was to returf the middle bit. So, afterwards you had this green strip of grass down the middle of the pitch and then the semi bare wing areas. The trouble was the sods they were laying looked as though they had been stolen from a public park a lot of the sods were dead before they had been laid, the actual sods were maybe about 3 feet by 2 feet big, the depth of the sod was barely an inch. This meant holes started to appear when they were being transfered. As well as that you had the usual high tech approach of the workers, instead of putting the sods as closely togther as possible like a jigsaw puzzle they left quite big gaps. The end result was that after only a month or so - which in itself is far too short a time for the grass to lay proper roots - they were playing on it and pulling the grass out. Not only that they had only lightweight rollers which gave the nominally flat surface the same gradients as Nepal.

Within 3 months the effect was that the newly turfed pitch was bare and the original side area still had grass! DOH!!

So they are now returfing it again. Watching the process, you can see why the grass cant hold, the underlying soil is not soil, it looks like either hard compacted earth or an earthy clay combination. I would imagine that to get the pitch right, you would need to import proper soil to get decent drainage and then look after it properly etc etc. Which means obviously it will never happen.

As you can guess, not a lot else is happening just the same old same old.

We are starting to get the papers ready for the final end of year exams that we wont let the kids fail and doing finishing off the weekly tests. One of the kids got my special attention today as I discovered what he did with his test paper. After the class he scrunched it up and left it in the desk. Wow, big deal you think.

Left at that I wouldnt even have blinked but combined with the fact that he had scored out my corrections, marks, and awarded himself full marks just pushed the wrong button. Its bad enough that we have to let them pass - which we think the kids know - but when they display such a total lack of respect in rolling up a test into a paper ball, changing a teachers comments and test score then it just goes beyond the pale, actually beyond the trough and small lake as well.

As time goes by.......

Another week goes by and another week nearer the end of term.

Just 4 weeks to go before we dont see our little ahem angels again until next year or forever. One week of teaching, one week of revision, one week of exams and then one week that is described in the book as "Carnival". Whoop de friggin whoop, what does that mean to kids here? NOTHING! The end result will probably be a combination of giving the kids colouring in, worksheets and videos.

True to form, the mattayom lot stop 2 weeks before we do and they teach less through the year because of camps, trips, cheerleading rehearsal.................... jammy ******.

And then its marking, report writing and down time for some and summer camps for others. After that on March 20, we say goodbye for the last time.

The atmosphere in the office is beginning to reflect that as well with people making plans to go on holiday, go home, get new jobs in Thailand or Korea or Japan, starting to push limits on what they are doing in the office and so on.

This week has been pretty average with a mix of good classes and bad classes. As usual my first and last class of the week ( the same mob ) were among the worst with the Spider Monkey being hit repeatedly by my mental baseball bat. How that kid has survived so far I dont know, he is so fecking annoying.

One of the strangest kids I have is, at times a smart kid, at times totally unresponsive moody little shite and at others totally psycho. He managed to pull a real moody today because I caught him throwing a worksheet he found onto the floor. I asked him to pick it up and put it back in the desk or in the bin, not unreasonable I would have thought but no, totally unreasonable for him. It took about about four tries to get him to pick it up and then he slammed it down on the desk and put the hood of his jacket over his head and crossed his arms. Ooohh boy, now was that the wrong thing to do with me! Three times I took the hood off and he put it on again, a fourth time I took it off I had to physically stop him putting it back up. You should have seen this guys face, talk about a face like thunder! Anyway, finally he seemed to admit defeat and because we were doing a test, I passed the papers out and everyone completedly them ( apart from a couple of wasters who shouldnt be in the program ) except sulky boy. No amount of prodding or reminding or encouragement or whatever you like to call it worked. He just sat there sulking and didnt get past writing his name - even that took 15 minutes.

Ah well, sod him. I tried but i cant force him to do it and after all he is still going to get a pass mark no matter if he did that through the entire year.

Gosh thats a good use of a teachers time, get a kid in your class who will do nothing all year - apart from play games, disrupt the class, annoy others who are trying to learn ............... and then pass him anyway. Why cant they just put all these kids into one class and give them colouring in or videos to watch and do away with all the pretence that we are actually teaching them something?

From the realms of Hmmm thats a bit strange. For a long time we had been complaining that no one was coming into our rooms to clean them and finally after months, we got cleaners in at least once a week to sweep the place. Not as good as a proper clean but at least a start. Now the thing is that I have normally had a bottle of water in the class - for the usual reasons - and then kept on refilling it as needs be from the various water fountains in the school. And then a few weeks ago, my bottles started disappearing. Ok, I thought, I had left them out on my desk at the end of the week and the cleaner thought they were for the bin. Then I put it on my shelf and same thing - gone. Then I put it in a box and left it on my desk, gone. Then
I put them in a box and put some paper over them and it still disappeared. What has she got? A magic bottle detector!!?? This is costing my 6 baht a week buying a new one!!!!!! I wonder if she will find it if I take it back to the staffroom :)

Yup

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Another week crawls by

And so another week starts. Its been the usual start after a holiday, the kids were all hyper and chatty and not wanting to listen. So it was the usual quiet! Quiet! QUIet! routine until they settled down somewhat. We've started doing a unit about the home and things in the home. I had quietly steeled myself for all the laughs and comments about the toilet but surprisingly only a couple. Maybe they were growing up? Of course not. For some reason they focused on the kitchen - especially one class in particular. The kitchen became chicken which became chicken room which became chicken little room. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

What does chicken little have to do with houses and rooms!!!!!!!!????? Add in the random shouts - you know the ones, the ones where the kids just shouts out an english word at random. Sometimes its because they dont know the right word and think if they shout out something its better than nothing, sometimes of course they do it deliberately just to see the reaction of others as a joke and maybe even to wind up the teacher. Of course sometimes you just cant help yourself and bite the bait. Even when you know its bait, you bite. So some of the lessons were frustrating to say the least and others went smoothly.

I just wish if they werent interested they would shut up and let the ones who are interested get on with it. It must be so frustrating for the kids who want to learn - as well as for me of course. If only we could put all the trouble makers into one class. Then again, there is no way in hell I would like to teach that class!

Continuing on from the Childrens Day activities, all the kids got special t shirts to commemorate the day. Unfortunately they dished some of them out before lunch. Pristine in colour quickly turned to grubby and in need of a good wash with various ketchup, ice cream, saliva, dirt stains...! You would think that with the amount of practice these kids have eating, that they would have perfected the art of putting the food actually into the mouth rather than the shirt or hair or whatever! But obviusly not.

To quickly reply to some of the comments.

Yes, it sometimes feels like a factory swiping in and out but all the staff do it and we had to sign in and out in my old school so no real biggie. At least for me, I know some get really upset about it but different strokes and all that. Yeh, it would be nice to go home after the last class or when you have a big break to bog off somewhere for a few hours. On the other hand it does mean I get up to date with all the necessary paperwork and lesson planning. And as for grassing folk up to the bosses, nahhh, its just not worth it.

Onward ever onward

One of the things that we were told at the start of the year were virtual sacking offences was swiping in a time card for someone else. ( this of course is done so people ‘appear” to be working when they are tucked up in bed sleeping or whatever)

But of course, its happening. This week I saw someone swipe in 3 ( in addition to their own ) cards, now that’s what I call totally taking the piss. Ive seen someone swipe 2 before but 4???? Ive even seen Head of Years do it. One rule for them and one rule for us.

Sometimes you really have to wonder about the level of respect these kids offer the outside world. Of course, its different if their parents are there but on their own they are little shits. Outside of most classrooms there are displays of student work, to mark special occasions like Xmas, the King & Queens birthdays etc. But you can guarantee that within hours of someone putting it up, parts of it will be hanging down, ripped off or pulled off by these little freaks. It wont matter how it was attached, thumbtacks, staples, glue….. whatever

They just dont think, as they walk buy they run their hands, their rulers and even sometimes their bags over the displays and every time they are amazed that it falls apart. That is if they even notice that they have damaged it. Of course, normally they are so bound up in their own little bubble of existence that they have no clue. Its even got to the stage that some teachers effectively laminate anything that goes on a display board by covering it with sellotape.

It now seems that a few more folk are taking the casual dress approach as the lesser spotted training shoe is becoming less and less rare as well as the total ignoring of the required uniform of black trousers and white shirts on Mondays. It will be interesting to see just how far it goes in the next few weeks as the bosses are still clamping down on some stuff as much as they were at the start of the year.

You would think the point of having a cover teacher is that he will be able to cover the Teachers who are absent. But the guy we have seems to be absent more times that he is here. He was off again this week which meant, yup you guessed it, another cover for me and yet another week where another person received none.

Well, next week is a short week as Monday is a holiday. Someone mentioned that we have only something like 5 more weeks to suffer err........... I mean enjoy the kids company before its over and the decision making over whether we are retained for next year or not. I wonder when that will happen. I know a few folk are definately not coming back, a few are humming and hawing, a few want to and a few are saying they will only teach higher levels and if they don’t get them, they will walk.

New Year New Minds? - Censored

Naaaa

Course not. They are still as thick as ever. And thats just the teachers :)

The kids? Well, lets be honest, if 6 months of teaching didnt get them to realise the difference between what is the day today and what is the weather today then there is no hope a few days off over Xmas.

It seems that we are finally getting our uniforms to wear for the remaining 6 or so weeks of teaching, which could mean that we get to wear the full rig out twice. By the full rig out I mean the white shirt, the tie, the black trousers - which most people wear anyway - and the horrendous jacket that will be kept in the cupboard somewhere in the dark recesses until he HAS to be worn. Well most people, there is a select number that dont bother with even a white shirt and black trousers. But then, hey they are likeable folk with smiles on their faces so it doesnt matter if they dont follow the rules or dont get many cover lessons.

Its not so much the style of jacket, its the colour. At least the women could wear their uniform outside and mix and match, even with the jacket. But the guy? Nah!!! Maybe about 0.05% of the male population could carry it off and almost all of them would be gay - even if you took the school badge off the jacket.

The saga of the id badges seems to be finally remembered as we are getting the uniforms. Apparently it wasnt enough just to pass probation, we needed the uniforms as well to get the proper school id badge. So again we are getting something that we should have had back in June but will now use for only a couple of months. Why they could have had a couple of stock jackets and ties the guys could borrow and use I dont know. The photo is only 1 inch tall and its a head and shoulders shot anyway!! Same idea for the ladies.

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End of a yeara

Well, the last couple of days at school went by without too much hassle as basically no one was trying too hard. Almost all the teachers were giving the kids Xmas activities or letting them run around in "English focused games" ahem.

Me? Well I was hard at work slogging away at the Xmas section of the book trying to teach them Xmas vocab. Like Santa, christmas tree, presents ( hint hint!) and so on.

Well, sort of. One period out of 4 and the rest was spent letting them choose whether to do a wordsearch or colouring in some cartoon picture off the internet. At least I didnt write up on my whiteboard when to bring presents in.

On that subject, again it seems to be the lower Prathom who are missing out in the present list. The older kids are smart enough to get the hints or know that giving their teacher a present at Xmas is what you do. Until Thursday I hadnt received one! Others were waltzing in with scarfes, ties, biscuits and the rest.

The last "work" day was a doddle as it was a basically a case of going round the individual home rooms and saying hi to the kids then going away. Now, hands up those of you who want McDonalds hamburgers at 9am? Pizza? KFC? crisps, biscuits, cake, ice cream and the like were all on offer. I have to admit I did eat some of it to be polite, after all when you get it shoved into your hand by a parent or kid you at least have to try - just not too hard though. I was tempted to pocket a few things for eating later but my pockets werent big enough :)

Oh yes, I picked up my first presents, a clock ( obviously a freebie from daddies bank ) and a pack of M & S Jaffa Cakes. Oh well, at least the Jaffa Cakes were nice.

The main reason for not eating so much was actually that we were going out for lunch paid for by the bosses. Now to be fair, the meal was nice and we got a Xmas present too - a pen. Whooo. The pen was just stupid, it spoilt the meal as it just reminded us of how high in regard they hold us .

And the hits just keep on rolling in!

It seems like over the holidays that the other program in the school got mentioned heavily on thaischoolwatch. Unfortunately, by the time I got there all the juicy posts had been deleted with a very strange change of opinion by one poster. I wonder if there was any behind the scenes pressure? Without that I couldnt see any reason why he would change his mind 180 degrees.

Melly Cwismass

As is usual in many schools, ( though not all ) things are winding down as teachers near that special time of year when they are expected to perform like seals in front of other teachers and or parents at Xmas concerts or parties.

Some run for the hills, some approach it head on like an inevitable train wreck and some never get asked. So far I am in the third category YIPPPEEEEE.

Its also the time of year we inevitably end up trying to teach something about Santa and Xmas to a bunch of Thai kids who know nothing about the origins of the story and holiday and whose only thought is holidays and presents and ooops there's dad drunk with his Chivas again. Actually sounds a bit like home really.

The school is increasingly decked out with tinsel, Xmas trees and the like with this years slogan ( well, I assume its different every year ) FINDING CHRISTMAS. Why they dont just look in a diary under December 25 or in Google I dont know. But apparently its lost. So if you see Christmas, please return it to Paddington Station, London.

The usual things have been happening, cover lessons given - me getting them, others not getting them. The feedback from the observations has brought on some furrowed brows " how can they say that" " thats stupid" etc etc. and well probably the whole system is stupid, especially the fact that you have to make an appointment to discuss the observation. To my mind that is always the most important to both parties. To see a person do something is interesting but also to see and then find out WHY they did it is vital. Otherwise you are only pressing your bias , your behaviour etc onto another person and putting that into their "teachers record".

Day of Days

Ooooh, a nice dramatic title but still the same old same old.

Another week another Baht.

Teaching wise the kids have been more or less acceptable with the odd outburst of dissent but nothing too serious but today was just one of those days where it started wrong and just went downhill. The first lesson was one that basically consisted of my waiting for the kids to be quiet and when they couldnt be quiet for them to STAND still.

Of course, this eventually led to them standing the whole lesson. If it wasnt someone discovering that their shoe lace needed tying or that they wanted to dance or move about in some stupid way or play with their metal pencil case and drop it on the floor or something that.. The original intention had been to keep them quiet for a couple of minutes while I took the attendence, that escalated up to 5 minutes then up to them standing in silence then up and up and up to the full lesson. At every stage I told them why, that he was talking, that he was making noises, that he was playing and so on and giving them another deadline to aim for ( and fail to achieve ).

We then get to the end of the lesson and I think, OK, just one more time, telling them that if I say quiet, that means no talking and if I say stand still that means stand still. In the middle of this, one little git - ironically one of the more intelligent ones - decides to pack up all his things and get ready to leave. Aw for fecks sake! Not listening, not taking in anything that has gone on for the first 7 months of the year or the previous 50 minutes. What are you doing? Did I tell you to get your bag ready? Did I? Did I tell you to pack your bag? I think, he will reply with a yes or no, at that point I dont really care,any response and I would have shoved them out the door ( with a quick correction of course ). But what does he decide to do? Just totally ignore me of course, so I repeat the question again in a different way and again and eventually he looks at me. If looks could kill!

At the same time the rest of the kids were putting pressure on him, as I said when he replies you all can go. So the kids round him were telling him to say no ( or indeed yes ) so they could get out and enjoy the rest of the break.

About ten minutes in, I thought I would defuse the issue as he was starting to threaten to punch the other kids. In some ways it was like watching the old Tom and Jerry cartoons as somebodys head turns gradually red and then a steam whistle blows to let off the excess! He started banging the bag against the desk and going uh! bang uh! BANG UH

It was one of these bizarre situations, on one hand I wanted to push it further and see if he would pop and have a stroke or something but on the other hand I was going, dont do anything stupid, he could flip out and hurt me or another kid or himself. In the end, the sensible thoughts won. DAMM! One of these days towards the end of term I am going to have to push it and see what happens.

Then the next lesson is about making a paper folding book but could they cut along the lines of the design? No, of course not. Could they colour trees green and brown? No, they had to be blue or purple or yellow with red stripes. Feck.

Then of course, they ( Der mangement ) decide to choose today of all days to do the surprise observation and oh dear. First of, I realised when I go into the class I had forgotten to bring my books - I thought I had left them in the class but I had taken them back to the staffroom where they now lay, along with my lesson plan and my attendence sheet. Wonderful. NOT! And of course, that knocked me off and them turning up knocked me off so I was really off for the next 10 - 15 minutes. Add to that, the lesson was an activity based on I have no idea what they made of it. I know it wasnt one of my best. As well as that they did not stay for the full lesson. One left with about 10 minutes to go and the other with 5 minutes to go.

As it was with the last observation, the result will be a written report not a chat to discuss what went right and wrong and talk about areas of improvement. It will be interesting to see what they make of it.

Now from the Department of Only in Thailand.

I was walking back to my class in the afternoon to see a scrum of kids on the football pitch. Aw, well, nothing too unusual. Then I notice a pink old fashioned VW Beatle and then some models and a team of people doing a wedding photoshoot! Of course the kids were loving it and were running round in and out of shot. The photographer was going mental but the models did seem to be enjoying it. Whether that good humour was maintained is another matter though :)

Moving towards Xmas

More odds and sods from the mad house coming up.

We all thought the rainy season had passed and we were now into the safe period where we could walk in complete safety. Yesterday proved us wrong again. With the late afternoon downpour, if you were wearing the wrong shoes you would be slipping and sliding all over the place as though you were on ice.

Most of the school is that typical shiny stone which turns to ice when wet and you see people walking around like they were 70 years old. Of course what really helps matters is that on the balconies the edge actually goes upwards trapping all the water on the walking area.

Add to that the way they contructed the walkway between the new building and the main section is another area of hazards, we should be getting danger money! They have got it set up so that there are two types of ground tiles. One is rough and provides loads of grip no matter what you wear and one is a lovely smooth one which will send you onto your arse if you dont watch out Now guess which stone they chose to make the floor of the pedestrian bridge Yup the shiny smooth one. So if it is raining, we have the choice of getting wet in between the staffroom andthe classroom or walking very slowly on the ice rink and be dry.

When you ask many people why they are here teaching and not somewhere else they say "its not the money" and yet it seems to be those not here for the money who as soon as they are offered extra work jump at the chance and work evenings and or weekends. Strange that.

As far as teaching goes its been much of a muchness. The same old story of mangement telling we cant do this to the kids and we cant do that. We have now been told we cant issue our yellow cards as often as we have! The original idea was of course one yellow card was a chat with our headie and a red meant a chat with the parents. But of course, that changed when the headie told the kids a red card meant expulsion!! Ho hum.

This week has actually been surprisingly good though. Today I just wasnt up to it so did a quick demo on what I wanted and got the couple of smart kids in the class to "teach". I thought it might be a train wreck but surprise surprise it worked out fine and the kids enjoyed it. Normally I would have thought you could have done it for about p3 maybe p4 up but not for p2. I will continue with the experiment as much as I can and see what happens.

As is common in most of the "better" schools they have a lot of stuff for alumni and we recently had the homecoming dinner. It was really a boring evening with lots of Frank Sinatra songs - doobie doobie doo,do doobi doobie doo...... Why is it he is so popular in these things here? To mark the occasion those who attended got a free tie pin from the alumni. Whoohooo! The dinner itself was the usual thai affair of about 8 dishes all coming seperately and then being shared in the middle of the table. If you had been to one of those before you went to one of the side stalls to load up on the entrees just in case the main meals werent to your liking.

Around the edge of the dining area there were stalls selling various stuff including a Merc dealer. Yup. Oh it must be nice to be connected in Thailand.

Rules & Regulations

Well, the big meeting today was a damp squib in some ways.

The usual story of making it out to be dramatic when it wasnt. But, they are cracking down on some things - some doesnt change things for me and some do.

The boss was disappointed to see that only a couple of people were wearing the full uniform at the directors ceremony. Glad to see they were only talking about people who had the full uniform from last year but even we poor mortals who havent had it made up yet didnt quite escape as we need to make sure we have as much on as possible black trousers, white shirt - no stripes or spots, school tie.... zzzzz

Its funny how they are cracking down in our section so much but other programs get away with so much. I saw a guy come in today with a casual cotton shirt and jeans with no tie! How come he gets away with it but we dont? Hmm

The other thing is that this week, the teachers who werent teaching disapeared off wherever because the classes were cancelled. Unfortunately, it was very noticable in the matayom room so guess what. They are cracking down on it and every fucker is going to suffer now. Thanks a bunch guys. I had only 1 period in the whole week where i could go home for a couple of hours because of a free period around lunch and now, I cant go.

They have said that unless we are having lunch or doing an occasional 30 minute task, we must be in the staffroom. if we want to work in our classrooms we can but we must inform the head or assistant head beforehand!

WTF?

Also, they dropped the bombshell that we are too have further observations. Now, you may be going observations, big deal. Well, yes, but they are going to do it unannounced. They are just going to turn up and observe you. No notice, they will just be there.

Oh how to make friends and improve moral amongst staff- chapter 3. Like most people, I am nervous at observations but accept them. But unnanounced? Despite them saying its all for our benefit and the school says they have to do it, it stinks of spying and distrust. Even if they gave you an hours notice or something like that it would be better.

And talking about the directors ceremony, it was as boring as something very boring indeed. IT was all in Thai and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz It was quite funny watching our lot against the thai teachers. They all had their heads up watching the ceremony, our lot almost all had heads down playing games on mobile phones, reading books, doing crosswords, marking exams, reading newspapers......

Time Of Our Lives

Or Not.

For the last three weeks I have been trying to get the little angels to learn how to tell time.

Not an easy job when only about 5% of them have a watch and of that 5% there is only one whose watch is not digital. So this concept of dials and hands and "past" and "to" is usually quite a difficult one for them to pick up. But it seemed to be going reasonable well. But today. Today.. Oh my god, today was just awful.

I was teaching the maximum of 5 lessons today and I came out a zombie. All reason and intelligence had left me. I felt it draining away during the day and there was nothing I could do. I have to finish this unit this week and get a test in, so it was a case of sit down such up and sleep so I could recover or grind my way through it. maybe i should have let them sleep and got some myself.

About which, I caught one of mine sleeping today. Little f***** . He had actually been much improved in this new semester and had been actually seen working - on more than one occasion! But he has now reverted to type this week. I actually let him sleep. i really couldnt be arsed waking him up properly. I just got a bit of paper and dangled it in his ear but that only made him swat away an imaginary mossie and turn over. The other kids thought it was great fun but...

By the way this was in the middle of a practice listening test. A quick 10 minutes at the start of the lesson and then more practice for the test. Quick 10 minutes my arse. 9 examples and it lasted between 30 to 40 minutes in getting them quiet enough to start, for them to get their pencils out, me quickly marking it and completing it. F*** ME!

Now, who invented those self propelling pencils and thought they old be good idea to give them to 8 year olds? Eh? Who was it? Own up! Because if its you, I am going to come round and smack you a few good ones with a basball bat. The amount of time wasted with them in class in unreal. Its funny how they always need to get new lead just at the start of my class. They never seem to do it at the end. I wonder why? Hmm.

And once again, my decision this year to try and get out of P2 have proved correct. Just a shame I wasnt successfull. The end of last week and this week has seen Prathom 4 - 6 and Matayom teach a vastly reduced timetable because of outings trips and whatnot. But, what do we get at the lower levels? Nada, zilch, zero, nothing, nil........... And we were still getting covers, yes, even with teachers not teaching, I still got a cover last week. Unreal.

We got a memo at lunchtime saying that we have a very important meeting first thing tomorrow. Not sure why. In fact it is the talk of the steamie! Is it anything to do with the appearance of the head of the english department in our office today, was it a coincidence? Nobody seems to know. But whatever it is, I doubt it will be good news. And speaking of that, I will need to post tomorrow about the other "good" news we got this week.

Material Boys & Girls

During the weekend, I went to a few different tailors to find out how much it would cost to make up the school uniform. I think my famous last words were I am not that bothered about the cost.

Well, my view changed. I was quoted anything for 1800B up to 4000B for just the making up of one jacket and one pair of trousers. 4000B !!! YIKES! Fortunately, the school is getting someone in to visit the school and measure everyone up. Apparently he does really good work and best of all he is cheap, around 1000B. Which is ok, thats the price of a pair of trousers out of Robinsons.

Unfortunately tomorrow we have one of our out of hours mandatory attendence ceremonies. This one is for confirmation of the new director. no dount it will be the usual opening prayer and blessing and hymn and then speeches saying how wonderful she is and how lucky the school is to have her ya da ya da ya. I wonder how much will be in english? Whoop de whoop. 90 bloody minutes we will have to endure taking us up to almost 5pm, after which there is going to be a buffet thing. It had better be bloody good after sitting through that.

So far this week I have been teaching my little Somchais all about time. Its been one of those weeks where you are sailing along and then hit a brick wall and think once again that the marker in your hand has an iq bigger than the collective iq of the class.

Three parts to the whiteboard. One is a clock with the hands at 3 o'clock then beside that "3:00" and beside that are the words "three o'clock". So the question goes out, whats the time? ( pointing to the clock) 3 o'clock is the reply. Whats the time? ( pointing to "3:00" ) 3 o'clock is the reply. So far so good. So the next question goes out - are these the same time? Are they the same? ( pointing to all 3 ) Silence. The question goes out again, silence. I try asking some individuals, silence, I try the smartest kid in the class. He pulls a stupid face and shakes his head. Yeesh.

So, another tack. I ask them are they the same,yes / no? Put your hands up if you think no. One puts his hand up. Put your hands up if you think yes. Every hand goes up. Aw for fecks sake. So back to the original question. Are they the same? Silence. DOH!

Why is it every kid is a drama queen when it comes to thunder and lightning? During the storm yesterday every time they saw lightning they all "jumped" out of their seats and of course when the thunder came they all shouted AHHHHH!!! like they were scared. Oh for petes sake, its not like europe where maybe you could see 3 or 4 storms in a year. It more like 4 months worth here. If they are still scared of thinder and lightning at this age, they are living in the wrong country and they will have a miserable lifetime ahead!

And oh yes, I havent had a cover lesson so far this week :)