I Teached English Now

Last week we began our new careers as teachers here in Thailand at Sisaket Wittayalai School (on the left if a photo from our first day). Not knowing what to fully expect, we dove right in! Right away we’ve noticed how different schools in Thailand are from those in the States.

Both at school and in the community, teachers are highly respected and students bow and “wai” (folding of the hands in front of/below the face and lowering the head as a sign of respect) at us. One of the most unusual experiences has been our weekly gate duty. Once a week we are expected to stand at the gate of the school in the morning as the children walk in. We are joined with a few Thai teachers as well, and students are expected to stop and wai us before walking in. Those students who are on motorbikes—which is a lot of them—must stop the bike at a designated spot, turn the bike off, lift their visors or take their helmet off, wai to us, walk their bikes past us, and then they are permitted to turn their bikes back on and continue.

The role of the Thai teachers out front with us is to ensure these steps are taken by each student, as well checking uniforms. The Thai teachers here are allowed to smack students without concern, especially if their shirt is not tucked in properly or if they are not wearing the correct uniform for the day. Each day here seems to have a different uniform regulation. Some days are dictated by gender, some by class level, some by participation in “Boy Scouts” or “Girl Scouts,” and sometimes it’s just a normal day. One day last week we were surprised by the very colorful uniform shirts each student was wearing—a different color for each class. To us it looked like a bunch of Easter eggs.

When we mention the unusual expectation of students bowing to us, we’re not talking about a class of 30 or a school of 300, there are 4,000 students at this school and they all assemble every morning outside for a morning assembly. It really hits you when you see all 4,000 students in front of you…it’s a lot!

The morning assembly involves the raising of the Thai flag, Buddhist prayers, and plenty of announcements in Thai. Since we can’t understand the announcements, the foreign teachers are excused once they begin. Being Thailand, 8:00 a.m. is hot enough to make you sweat and 10 to 15 minutes of standing outside is long enough.

We’ve been told that Thai culture has it’s own sense of time and planning. The other teachers have told us to expect classes not to show up, for a week here and there to not have any classes, or for students to have other commitments during the class period. Hey, we’re not complaining!

Each of us has the same teaching schedule of 18 hours per week (no more than 4 hours per day) and we’re always teaching the same grade level at the same time. Luckily for us, we have only 3 classes and each for 6 hours a week, with a max of 30 students. Other teachers may have 18 classes of 60 students each and only see them once a week. Amye and I are both teaching Matium 2’s and Matium 5’s which amount to 8th and 11th graders in the states.

So far we’re having a lot of fun but still trying to learn the ropes. Some classes surprise us with how much they know, while others look at us with blank stares. Sadly, students in this system are automatically given at least a 70% which is a 3.0, so not everyone is up to the same level, but there are always a few bright bulbs in the class. Parents pay 40,000 Baht (about $1,200 USD) a year for their students to be in these classes, so they continue on to the next level even if they don’t know how to say their name in English. This for sure poses a challenge for us. ☺

We’ll be sure to post more of our teaching experiences as we get into the swing of things, and post some photos of the school soon.

(Sunset at the small park across from our hotel)

Si Saket... Heads are turning!

from May 10, 2009:

We are now in Si Saket which is a city in the Northeast bordering Cambodia and Laos. The city has 30,000 people in it and very few are foreigners. We are living in the “city center” which is near the daily outdoor food market, and weekly Sunday street market. Although we’re living in a hotel, the room is quite spacious and has great accommodations, including daily change of sheets and towels!! We can’t beat the price either, one month’s rent is about 1 night at a city hotel in the States.

We have done a lot of walking the streets of Si Saket and have been to the ‘grocery store’ almost everyday but yesterday we decided to explore a bit further. We took a bike taxi to a local park called ‘Si Nakarin Garden.’ It was the most relaxing and refreshing area in the entire city. It was off the beaten track down a few gravel roads, but most definitely worth the trek to get there. We wandered around the many tree-lined paths in the park (in the park there are 50,000 Lamduan trees) and watched families as they picnicked and enjoyed the serene setting. We did a little research before going to the park and found out there was a little zoo if you crossed one of the bridges in the park. We wandered around and stumbled upon the zoo (which if we wouldn’t have known better we wouldn’t have known it was there), we paid our 15 baht (less than 50 cents) each and entered the zoo.

(The park)

The zoo isn’t quite the equivalent of a zoo in the states, we are finding most things don’t really compare so one must just learn to say ‘Ciest Le Vie’ and accept things as they are. The zoo had quite a variety of animals including: a camel, ostriches, monkeys, hippos, bears, cows, peacocks, pigs and piglets, and lots and lots of deer and birds. Tyler and I’s favorite animal was the cow with the protruding lower lip and teeth. The animals were in their natural, or somewhat natural habitats, but we unfortunately noticed that one of the monkeys was missing his eye and other things I will not mention here. All in all, the zoo was a fun place to visit. *One other note about the zoo: we had a nice little videotaped interview from some local Thai teenagers who wanted to practice their English, which was pretty entertaining!

No matter where we go in the city, we stand out. Thais will blatantly stare and stop what they’re doing when we walk by.

In the evening we sat down to a nice meal on the bottom level of our hotel. We decided to go out and see what kind of night life Thailand has to offer. On a Saturday night there were very few people out but we stumbled upon a bar called ‘SugarPub’ where we sat and listened to some live music. The main singer in the band was an evident hippie from the states and played Bob Marley amongst other American songs. So we sat and were entertained while drinking ‘Leo’ the local beer which would be equivalent to Budweiser. We have found much better beers here, mostly lagers but the bars only seem to serve Leo and Heineken.

Today has been a very low key day. Yesterday I was just telling Tyler how blessed we have been to have everything fall into place perfectly and how blessed we have been that neither of us have been ill. I spoke too soon! I was violently ill from the food last night and spent most of the day in bed. By the evening I was feeling better so we walked outside of our hotel and low and behold a flooding of people in the streets.

Every Sunday there is a night market in the street right outside of our hotel. The street was blocked off and everyone brought their local goods, clothing or food to sell. There was everything from baskets to unidentifiable meat (which we tried) to endless sweets to hamburgers in a baggie and there was even popcorn! I needed my fill of corn (being from Iowa and all) so we picked up a bag of popcorn and I also tried a cup of corn with vanilla sauce on the top, an interesting combination. We also tried a sweet rolled up crepe with coconut and cream in it, delicious! Tyler was feeling ambitions so he tried some fried meat of some sort, I don’t think we will eat it again but it was edible. We even had some delicious chicken satay. The food that we have eaten from carts and in the streets seems to be the freshest and best tasting.

(Amye enjoying some time by the water in the park)

Bangkok...Wetting Our Appetite

Well, after hours and hours of traveling, we’ve made it to Bangkok! Already we have had three and a half days of exploring and falling in love with Thailand. Right now we’re staying in the touristy area near Khaosan Road which is great for people watching, but also like swimming upstream when you walk through the streets. It’s a lively place with many street vendors, restaurants and some great pad thai carts (I’m partial to the lady right by our place, Amye is partial to the guy to the right about 50 ft.—we’ve eaten at both more than once).

Some of the best experiences we’ve had have been when we’ve traveled outside of the immediate Khaosan area. Two days ago, we were exploring the side streets and came across a guy who we expected to ask for money. Instead, he offered some great suggestions for Buddhist sites away from the tourists. This turned into our first Tuk Tuk experience. A Tuk Tuk is a local mode of transportation that would not fit into an American equivalent. It’s a 3-wheeled covered motor bike with a bench attached to the back. “Taxi” is a loose term but it’s an efficient mode of transportation and doesn’t need to stay within the lanes of traffic.

Our first stop was the giant standing Buddha (Wat Indharaviharn) which words cannot describe. A massive gold statue rose from in between buildings on side streets to reveal an incredible site where locals went to pray at the feet of Buddha. These feet are about 8 feet wide each.

The next stop on our Tuk Tuk journey, was at the “Lucky Buddha” garden (Wat Sakhet) where we met a very gracious Thai gentleman who not only took a moment to show us around but to also tell us some of the history and meanings behind the statues. The incredible thing was that he kept thanking us for coming to Thailand, for coming to the garden, and for allowing him a few moments to teach us. This gentleman did not work at the garden, he was just a visitor who was spending some of his day off to pray and talk with the monks.

Saturday we had a goal for our travels: a Typhoid shot for Amye and Japanese Encephalitis for both of us. We made our way via public transportation on a boat and then the sky train--which were great ways to see the river and new parts of the city. After some shots at the hospital (which looked more like a hotel) we spent some time at the Lumpini Park which is by far one of the best city parks either of us has experienced. In the middle of a busy city, a large public park with multiple bodies of water, outdoor exercise equipment, childrens play areas and many tree-lined paths made for a great afternoon.

We’ve also spent some time relaxing and taking it easy after our travels to Thailand. The downtime in the parks and walking through the streets has been great. We’re preparing now to move on to our new city and school. It sounds like the teaching positions in Chainat have been filled so we’re going to NE Thailand to a city called Si Sa Ket which is quite a journey from Bangkok. Si Sa Ket is about 70 miles from Ubon (with an airport) but located on the rail line, so we’re likely to take the train there tonight or tomorrow night.

From what we know right now, the school already has 7 English teachers there from our program (AYC) so we’ll have some company. However, it doesn’t sound like there will be much in terms of Western restaurants and shops like we’ve found here in Bangkok. It sounds funny, but 7-11s are all over and we’re really hoping there’ll be one near us.

We’ll try and update again once we’ve arrived in Si Sa Ket with more information and an update on where we’ll be living.

-Tyler & Amye

Bangkok

We have made it to Bangkok and are really enjoying ourselves.
We will update our blog soon. :)

Here are a few pictures for now: