"Buy You A Bed" and "Butcher"

“Buy You a Bed” and “Butcher”

Two Stories

First story. Leaving school late one afternoon, I pass one of my English colleagues sitting with other teachers, eating ice cream they bought from the ice cream cart guy. They invite me to join them.  After finishing the ice cream, they slice a green mango and eat it dipped in a sweet and spicy mixture, of which Thai fish sauce is a prominent ingredient (see link to recipe at the end of this post).  The dipping sauce leads to talk about smelly foods from various countries and I try to tell them about blue cheese, which I’m guessing they wouldn’t like. One of the women asks me about buying something, but I don’t understand her.  My colleague’s translation comes out as “she want to buy you a bed.”  Hmm, I think, that’s strange, but don’t pursue it.  A few minutes later, when they are telling me I can get it at Tesco Lotus, I realize that they mean “bread” – duh, of course. Thais routinely simplify consonant clusters in their own language – for example, fish sauce, “naam bplaa” comes out as “naam bpaa;”  handbag, “gra pao” is “ga pao,” and so on.  The same simplifications are made when they speak English, I should know that by now.  I do know it, just can’t always remember to scan their English sentences for missing consonants.  Sigh.

Second story.  My co-teacher and I have been assigned to serve as judges in two English events at an academic competition.  The contestants are elementary students (grades 1 - 6). In the morning we judge Impromptu Speech, which in Thailand means a memorized speech; the impromptu aspect is that the students must memorize several speeches and then draw lots to see which one they will recite/perform. The afternoon competition is a spelling bee. 

For the spelling bee, there are three judges, my co-teacher, me, and another teacher whom I will call Dee.  She speaks very good English, at a level of proficiency that is unusual for elementary school teachers in Thailand. Most elementary teachers were not English majors in college, and they must teach English on top of all the other subjects, so it’s hard for them to improve their proficiency. Dee and I talk about the spelling bee rules, which specify that “the foreigner” (i.e., native speaker) must pronounce the words the students will spell – a rule that strikes me as a bit unfair, since most students have learned English from a Thai teacher and thus won’t be familiar with a native speaker’s pronunciation.  But rules are rules. 

The conversation shifts to foreigners who don’t speak Thai and Thais who don’t speak English. I tell Dee it’s hard for me to practice speaking Thai because when I try, the Thais either assume I’m speaking English or don’t understand how I pronounce Thai. Either way, they answer me in English, then continue talking with each other in Thai.  She says, “They are afraid their English won’t be good enough.”  I say, but I’m trying to speak Thai with them, they know how to speak Thai, it’s not about how they speak English. She repeats that they are afraid their English isn’t good enough. It strikes me that she hasn’t understood what I was saying.  This is a trap I fall into – when speaking with someone like her, whose English is easy to understand, I tend to forget that just because it’s easy for me to understand them that doesn’t mean it’s easy for them to understand me.  Duh again.

The word lists for the spelling bee are not published in advance, but are made up by the judges.  My co-teacher and I make the list for students in grades 1, 2 and 3; Dee makes the list for students in grades 4, 5, and 6.  During the actual contest, I do my best to pronounce each word and its definition distinctly, neither too fast nor too slow, in the hope that my American accent won’t frighten the students too much. In each round a few students can spell enough of the words to go on to the final round.  So we are at the final round for grades 4, 5, and 6 and one of the words on the list is “butcher.”  The poor student who gets this word is totally stumped and can’t even come up with the first letter. He’s out of the running.  Later, as we are tidying up the room before leaving, Dee says she pronounces “butcher” as if the first syllable rhymed with Dutch or much.  No, I say, it’s butcher.  – Sigh again.  Note to self:  In the future, remember to read all the words to the person who made up the list before the contest starts.

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The link below will take you to a recipe for the dipping sauce for green mangos:

http://importfood.com/recipes/mamuangprionampla.html

A Teaching Assessment Visit

A Teaching Assessment Visit

August 8, 2013

During the first week of August, the PESAO (Primary Education Service Area Office) announced an assessment visit for our school. In order to prepare, teachers didn’t meet their Friday classes and instead spent the day cleaning, decorating their classrooms, hanging posters – one even took the weed-whacker to the weeds in front of our building.  Some of the students helped make posters and set up displays, others just hung out in their homerooms. To me, it seemed a shame that all this was happening now, rather than early in the term to give students the benefit of the displays. Still, the other teachers had been through this before and doubtless know how much importance the assessment team attaches to appearances.

My co-teacher and I were told to expect our classroom visit on Tuesday afternoon, when we have two regularly scheduled classes, so we conferred and then divided the work of making lesson plans, PowerPoints, flash cards, and worksheets for each class.  It was the most thorough preparation we’d done for any classes since the term began in May – just like teachers I used to observe in the US, going all out to impress the visitors.  As I’ve learned over the years, however, it doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles you add, you can’t fake being a better teacher than you are.  The quality of the lesson plans (including ours, of course) and the fit between teaching techniques and lesson goals reveal much about a teacher’s understanding of effective teaching.

On Tuesday morning, school beautification was still going on. Student workers showed up with big potted plants for outside the classrooms.  A colorful banner labeled “ASEAN Corner” went up on the wall – teaching about ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) is more or less mandated for all Thai schools. The teacher with the weed-whacker sliced down the tall grass behind the building, working right outside our classroom all through first period. My co-teacher negotiated with another teacher to switch classrooms for our first afternoon class so we could show a video.  We were ready!

 Me and the ASEAN Banner

A half-hour before our class, the PESAO English language supervisor arrived with a six-member team. I knew most of them from training seminars. They were going to sit in on only one class, not two as we had thought.  We gave them copies of our lesson plan and they met to confer; then, after a flurry of confusion getting the students to switch classrooms, the visitors settled on chairs in the back and we started class only a few minutes late. It’s a 4^th grade class, just beginning to read and write English. During the first three years, they learn to say and write our alphabet – which is vastly different from the Thai alphabet – but reading and writing English words is mostly new in Level 4.

The students were excited to have so many guests and were on their best behavior. The computer, however, was less so and there was a short delay before we could screen the video of children singing “The Phonogram Song.” Our lesson went smoothly – not only because we were so well-prepared, but also because we had met that class in the morning, during the weed-whacking. Thus, they were primed for the phonics-based lesson, volunteered answers to questions, and identified sound-letter correlations correctly most of the time.  The assessment team took pictures and videos throughout the period.

When the lesson was over, the English supervisor thanked us and gave us each a souvenir from the PESAO – mine is a set of two cute ceramic teacups with logo; my co-teacher got an elegant little vase. Our pictures were taken, individually and with each team member, in front of the ASEAN banner.  The team then withdrew for discussion, without us, for about a half hour before leaving.

Still in my American mind-set, I asked my co-teacher whether we would get feedback on our teaching in writing later, or whether a report was sent on up the line within the education office hierarchy, or what.  Oh no, she said, no feedback, but the video will be posted on the PESAO web site.  – So there you have it, one episode of teaching assessment, Thai-style.  I went to the web site (www.sakon2.th.gov) but couldn’t figure out how to find the video. But, hey, I have my teacups!

Hair and Nails

Hair and Nails:

Discipline in Thai Schools

One morning when it was too rainy to gather at the flagpole, all the students and teachers were assembled in the hall for the daily ritual of prayers, national anthem, announcements, and story from the Jataka Tales.  The students were standing in rows as always, younger students to the front of the room, mattayom students toward the back. Gazing around the room, I saw one of the male teachers going down a row of mattayom boys with a pair of ordinary scissors, snipping off their hair like trimming a shrub.  I let out a little gasp and turned to my English teacher colleague. Their hair is too long, he said, smiling. In Thailand we have very strict rules about hair.  The teacher continued down the row of boys, shearing them one by one – six or seven boys in all.  A few minutes later, when all the students were seated on the floor to listen to the day’s story, I saw that one boy had gathered his cut-off hair into a forlorn little heap at his feet. Several boys a few rows away, whose hair was as long as or longer than that of the shorn boys were probably feeling lucky to have been overlooked.

Students in assembly hall waiting for an event to start.

Several days later, during flagpole activities outdoors, I saw that same teacher going down a row of students, boys and girls both, looking at their hands and rapping their fingers with a stick.  Again, I gasped and turned to a fellow teacher:  What did they do?  Their hands are dirty, she said.  – But, but . . . I saw them picking up trash on the school grounds earlier this morning – of course their hands are dirty!  My colleague made no reply.  I remembered that at my one-room country school years ago, the teacher went up and down the rows of desks each morning for “health check,” to see if our hands, fingernails, neck, and ears were clean, and checking to see if we had a clean handkerchief (no Kleenex in those days). I don’t think we got our hands smacked if we didn’t pass muster but am not sure – maybe readers from my generation can remember?

In the interest of fairness, let me emphasize that I’ve seen little corporal punishment at my school – no paddling, no beatings, no violent grabbing or pushing. Besides the two episodes described above, I’ve seen a few instances of boys getting their heads thumped by a teacher for scuffling during flagpole time, and sometimes a teacher who is patrolling rows of students will carry a long slender stick to prod students who are acting up.  I’m not defending these actions, which certainly fall under the definition of corporal punishment, but I don’t think they rise to the level of physical abuse.

Is corporal punishment legal in Thailand?  In a word, no.  Thailand is a signatory to the 2003 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Detailed information on what is covered by the act is posted on the Peace Corps Thailand wiki. Here is an excerpt from a summary published for the information of Peace Corps Volunteers who may have been told by teachers or school administrators that parents gave permission to administer corporal punishment to their children:

Teacher training, corporal punishment school-parent "contracts"
Volunteers may have heard about or seen “contracts” between schools and parents in which parents agree the teachers can administer corporal punishment. These contracts are invalid because they contradict the Child Protection Act 2003. Unfortunately, law enforcement has little concern to implement the law. The Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights has tried to influence the Ministry of Education to introduce positive discipline methods to teachers, while the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security should also educate parents on this. Setting classroom rules with participation of pupils should be the primary management technique. Assets for children: Resource lists, addressing school improvement, and planning after-school programs and day programs during semester breaks should be considered as ways to help discipline pupils. 

While I was writing this piece, a friend in the US sent me a link to an article published earlier this year (IHT May 29, 2013) that tells about a student-initiated group called the Thailand Educational Revolution Alliance.  I recommend it for readers who want to learn more; here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/world/asia/thai-students-find-government-ally-in-push-to-relax-school-regimentation.html?pagewanted=all

The same friend also sent me the link below, which will take you to a short NYT video about the student-led alliance and examples of what the Thai students are protesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/05/30/world/asia/100000002253734/resisting-conformity-in-thailand-.html?ref=thailand

Since the above articles were published in May, a new Thai Minister of Education has taken office, Mr. Chaturon Chaisang.  He has said he will uphold the policies of his predecessor, Mr. Phongthep Thepkanjana. It remains to be seen how that will be carried out in practice.

Flagpole Tales

Flagpole Tales

Gathering at the flagpole is a daily event at our school and, presumably, at most if not all Thai schools.  At the start of our summer term, in mid-May, morning flagpole activities began with student council members leading the singing of the Thai national anthem while raising the flag, prayers, the singing of several other songs, including one of the ASEAN songs, announcements, and speeches, either by one of the teachers or, on more weighty matters, by the principal or assistant principal. The students line up in rows according to their homeroom, pratom (=primary) students to the front, mattayom (=junior high and high school) students behind them. Teachers patrol the ranks to keep order.

In July, our principal and all the teachers attended a five-day seminar on Buddhist values. Classes were suspended during this time.  The following week, a new flagpole protocol was introduced:  national anthem, flag-raising, and prayers remained, but the other songs were gone. The principal was present most mornings to read a tale from the Nithan Chadok [Jataka tales], a compendium of tales about the life of the Buddha.  The link below will take you to an image of an early 19^th-century illuminated manuscript page from the Jataka Tales:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIlluminated_manuscript_of_Jataka_Tales_and_the_Story_of_Phra_Malai's_Visit_to_Heaven_and_Hell%2C_Thailand%2C_Bangkok_style%2C_1813%2C_ink%2C_color_and_gold_on_paper%2C_HAA.JPG

At the end of each day’s tale, students are asked to sit quietly for about three minutes. Many of them close their eyes and appear to be meditating.  After another prayer and maybe announcements, depending on the day, the students are dismissed to their classrooms.

But that’s not all.  Students are encouraged to write a summary of the tale, including its moral lesson, and turn it in to their homeroom teacher. Teachers rate the summaries on a three-point scale and report the results to the principal’s office.  The next morning, students whose summaries were rated 1, 2, or 3 (a maximum of three students per homeroom) are called to the podium to receive an envelope containing – money!  I’m not sure if all students receive the same amount, but the envelopes I’ve seen contained 40 baht – not a large sum (30 baht = about $1 US), but surely not insignificant to students.  Some mornings, I’ve counted 20 or more students coming forward to receive those envelopes.

Despite the possibility of cash for their pocket, relatively few students write the summaries. Most who do write them read the tale online to be sure they get it right – it can be hard to hear during flagpole, and it’s easy to forget details. The students are also asked to tell their parents the story at home in the evening. As far as I know, there is no monitoring of how often that happens.

From my perspective, this program definitely has its pros and cons. On the one hand, it’s great for the students to hear these tales, which are part of their Buddhist traditions and heritage.  About 95% of Thais are Buddhists.  Thailand has no separation of church and state comparable to that in the United States. The Thai Sangha organization advocates the teaching of Buddhism in the schools:

In order to provide Buddhist education in the schools, the Thai Sangha has persuaded the Ministry of Education to mandate the teaching of Buddhism to all students from grade 1-12. Local school districts, however, were left to formulate their own curriculum.

http://www.dhammathai.org/e/thailand/contemperary.php

So, our principal has chosen this co-curricular method of infusing Buddhist values into the curriculum. Writing the summaries is an opportunity to think about and process the content, beyond simply hearing the story.  Another positive aspect of the program is the “moment of silence,” which quiets the students and gives them a few minutes to meditate if they wish. Though some may have been scuffling or inattentive during the tale, all are calm and seemingly focused, a better way to start the day than simply heaving a sigh of relief that flagpole time is over. 

A questionable aspect of the program, in my opinion, is the handing out of monetary rewards for writing summaries, which may make this activity seem more important than homework for other classes. The relatively low number of students who actually write summaries might appear to negate this concern, however. Finally, as a teacher at the school, I wonder why there is money for this program but not for other deserving projects.  But an answer to that question quickly suggests itself, in general terms at least:  no doubt there was a funding source available for projects along these lines.  In Thailand as elsewhere, foundations, religious organizations, government agencies, and private donors fund projects that accord with their values.

School Ways

School Ways

In a previous post (“School Work”), I talked about how students help take care of our school.  This one is about daily routines that are part of the school culture here. I’m co-teaching 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade English classes and have had a lot to learn, to put it mildly – starting with the wai greeting (palms together, slight bow of the head). Teachers exchange the wai only once daily, upon first meeting of the day. Students wai us often– however, we aren’t supposed to return a student’s wai, but simply acknowledge it with a nod or other gesture.

Our students remain in their homeroom most of the day; we go from room to room. When the teacher enters, the student who has been appointed leader says:  “Stand up, please.” All students stand and intone, in a sing-song cadence: “Good Morning, Teacher! How are you?”  We answer: “Fine, thanks. How are you?” and the students respond in chorus: “I’m fine, thank you.” – then wait for permission to sit down. My co-teacher and I often take a few minutes to greet students individually and encourage them to answer more authentically, e.g., by saying “I’m okay.”  “I’m good!” or “I’m happy.” At the end of class, the leader prompts the others to stand again and say: “Thank you, Teacher. Good-bye!”  These rituals are symbolic of Thai respect for teachers. The mechanically recited greeting, however, is just that – students don’t necessarily think about what the words mean, with the amusing result that they occasionally say “Good morning, Teacher” to each other.

Gestures of politeness and deference are also obligatory when papers are passed out or returned. I soon learned not to hand worksheets to students one by one, because they cannot take it before doing a wai, complete with head bow. Best to let a student hand the papers out! When given time in class to work on their vocabulary notebooks, students bring them for us to review and kneel at our desk while waiting – something that made me uncomfortable at first. They are delighted if we draw a smiley face or star to signal “good job” – much as students may dislike homework, they love being rewarded in these small ways.  

Hanging out with students between classes.

Of course, our 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders are normal children with many behaviors that every teacher will recognize. A request to take out their notebook or get a pen sends them into a little flurry of rooting around in backpacks, poking each other, giggling, discovering that the notebook or pen can’t be found, and other delaying tactics. We also contend with expectations from other classes, notably the dreaded correction pen, or Wite-Out. In English class, students inevitably make many mistakes, not least because of the different alphabets – my own struggles learning to read and write Thai have given me compassion for what our students are going through! We discourage the correction of errors with Wite-Out because it’s too time-consuming; however, correction pens are required in other classes and students persist in using them.  A favorite stalling tactic, after having eventually found their notebook, pen, correction pen, and ruler, is to draw a line along the side of the notebook page – then decide it’s crooked, white it out, and draw another one, which is usually crooked too. This can generally be counted on to use up the time until the bell rings.

Another influence from other classes is chanting memorized material such as math times tables, history facts, chants from religion class, poems from Thai class, and so on. I often hear students reciting in unison, in a quick rhythm that must require full concentration to keep up. It strikes me that they enjoy chanting – they are all doing it together, propelled along by the rhythm and camaraderie; they get satisfaction from doing it correctly over and over again, and they can feel they are doing something they are supposed to. – English class, by contrast, has many activities that require students, after practicing in the group, to speak in English on their own. This is very stressful for them, even in the familiar double-circle activity where students face one another for a brief exchange (e.g., introducing themselves to each other), then change partners until they are all the way around the circle. Although everyone is talking at once, so no one notices if you make a mistake, this is still a far cry from reciting a known text in the comfort and security of the group.

During our Peace Corps pre-service training we were reminded many times that Thailand has a collectivist culture, not individualistic as in the US. I think you can see the collectivist aspect in these examples. In another post, I will write about challenges specific to teaching English to Thai students.

Water and Rockets

Water and Rockets

Two Spring Festivals

One of the ways to experience Thailand’s rich cultural heritage is through its festivals. This post looks at two spring festivals that are celebrated all over Thailand, but may look rather different depending on the part of the country you are in. My information is based mostly on how I experienced the festivals here, in a small village (3,000 people) in northeastern Thailand.

The Songkran festival takes place in mid-April, the hottest time of the year, toward the end of the dry season. It dates back to an earlier lunar calendar that had the New Year start in spring rather than the middle of winter. This year, the actual holiday (April 13^th) fell on a weekend, so the next working day was declared an additional holiday and Songkran lasted for five days, April 12-16, 2013. The long weekend gives families time to get together for fun, relaxation, and rituals. Many people visit the local temple to make merit. In earlier times, an important part of the celebration was the water blessing, i.e., pouring water over the hands and feet of loved ones, especially one’s elders, to wish them good luck, good health, long life, and so on.  The water is often scented with flower petals, as you see in the image below. Members of my host family poured water on the hands and feet of relatives who had come from a distance to visit them, and I was included in the ritual as well. 

Although the custom of water blessing is still practiced, it is not what’s publicized. Songkran today seems to be mainly about throwing water – TV news even shows reporters getting splashed while they are out on the street doing their job. In my village, people drive around with a barrel of water in the back of their pickup truck, looking for someone to throw water on.  They also have water guns and water pistols. Children stand at the sides of roads with plastic dippers and buckets, throwing water at passing cars and most especially at motorcycles and pickup trucks with riders in the back. A few students came by our house specifically to throw water on me – though I must say, they were very gentle about it and didn’t throw it in my face. We were warned to keep our cell phones and cameras wrapped in plastic, and it’s good that I followed that advice because I got drenched several times. That’s also why I don’t have photographs of Songkran in my village – the camera was always in a zip-lock bag! The following link will take you to a quick overview of how Songkran is celebrated in several Thai cities and provinces:

http://www.tm.mahidol.ac.th/eng/academic/download/SongkranFestival.pdf

Unlike Songkran, the Rocket Festival or bang fai does’t have a fixed date. It is celebrated in late May, just before the start of the rainy season; the date is set locally. The word fai means fire or light; bang refers to the cylinder (traditionally made of bamboo) to hold the powder that is ignited to launch the rocket. The festival goes back to a pre-medieval practice that my host family told me was about bringing rain. In our village, the festival began with a parade that passed our house at about 9:30am, on its way to the rocket-launching site. Everyone who is anyone – the village headman, the vice-principal of our school, other community leaders – was part of the parade. There were parade-marchers in traditional Thai costumes, some in ordinary clothes, several women wearing strings of wooden phalluses, and quite a few men wearing skirts. How the gender-bending aspects of the celebration are connected to the bringing of rain and fertility is unclear to me, but there they are.  One man who stopped to chat with my host family during the parade grabbed a skirt and wrapped it around himself before leaving to watch the rocket launches.

 

 

The rocket launcher was erected on the grounds where our weekly market is held.  Rockets were shot up at irregular intervals. The men setting up and firing off the rockets took their time, which is doubtless a good thing-- the rockets use black powder so can be quite dangerous.

As for watching the launches and the rockets’ vapor trail, I’m sure it was very interesting to spectators who knew the rockets’ owners and could track which rocket had gone the farthest. That part was over my head, literally and figuratively. Besides the rocket launches, there were snack stalls, a band with cross-dressing dancers, a few people dancing, and a lot of people drinking beer.  It was a brutally hot day. I left after getting drizzled with beer that someone threw onto the awning I was standing under.

The Thai Tourism Authority publicizes bang fai festivals in various cities in Thailand and in neighboring Laos. I don’t know if the parades in those locations look like the one in our village but I doubt it. The festival here is for the village, not for tourists, and as such, is perhaps more authentic than festivals you would see in larger cities. Which I suppose is just to say that when you’ve seen one, you haven’t seen them all. 

School Work

School Work

Do you remember American one-room country schools, or know someone who does?  I attended such a school in central Wisconsin for grades K – 8 in the 1940s and early 50s.  More than 50 years later, as a Peace Corps volunteer currently teaching at a rural school in northeastern Thailand, I was surprised to find several points of similarity – and also colossal differences, of course – that prompted me to write this piece.

In my one-room school, students helped the teacher with the work of keeping the school clean, orderly, and warm in the winter (coal stove in the earlier years, later replaced by an “oil burner,” if memory serves).  We all had “duties,” such as sweeping the floors of the school building and outhouses (one for girls, one for boys), bringing in water (the school had no running water), cleaning blackboards, clapping erasers, and so on.  Our school was very small – sometimes there were fewer than ten students, other times twenty or so.

At my rural school in Thailand, one of the first things I learned was how much “housekeeping” or janitorial work the students do. On the first day of the term, first-period classes were not taught; instead, the students went to their homerooms to be assigned duties. For example, in each homeroom, a student is assigned to sweep the floor twice a day – the windows have grates but no screens, so there are multiple entry points for dirt and also birds, who tend to drop their, um, calling cards at random. Students also sweep the walkways in front of buildings, empty trash bins, clean the toilets, deliver the day’s free milk to homerooms, and bring fresh bottles of drinking water to the teachers’ rooms.  One thing they don’t seem to do is clap the erasers – at least, the erasers in the rooms I teach in are always saturated with chalk dust (yes, we use blackboards).

Student mopping in front of our building.

The village is small (pop. 3,000) but the school is relatively large – it’s a comprehensive school (K-12), with about 630 students and 40 teachers.  There is no administrative staff except for the principal, vice-principal, ICT manager, and the principal’s administrative assistant. One janitor is responsible for five classroom buildings, an assembly hall, a small library, a store that sells school supplies and snacks, and some storage sheds.  There is no money to hire workers to do these jobs, even though Thailand spends some 20% of its annual budget to provide free education for students K-12, with attendance mandated through grade 9. Where does the money go?  Schools pay for the students’ meals, textbooks and other learning resources (laboratory materials, band instruments, etc.), recreational activities and uniforms. Each student has several different uniforms that are worn on specific days, including a Scout uniform, worn every Wednesday – all students are expected to join Scouts.  Of course, teachers must be paid too, as well as utility bills and related costs.

So, having janitorial and some administrative work done by students rather than paid staff helps keep the school running – as in my one-room school days, on a much smaller scale. Besides duties that must be done every day, students do other tasks as needed. They pick up trash on the school grounds, help move furniture, deliver textbooks to classrooms, deliver messages from the principal’s office, help with set-up and tear-down for special events, serve glasses of water to visitors before they ask, and more. Students even sweep out the teachers’ room twice a day and wash the dishes that we leave piled up from lunch and snacks.

This picture reminds me of what we called “Arbor Day” in my one-room school, a day in the spring when we raked and cleaned up the entire school yard.

When I started to do the dishes myself one day, other teachers told me not to:  “That’s the students’ work.”  As I thought about it, I could see that if teachers started doing the work the students are expected to do, it could begin to tear a hole in the fabric of the school culture.

The rural Thai school where I teach seems to have a sense of camaraderie between teachers and students – I haven’t seen any students balk or stall when reminded to do an assigned task.  I believe this has much to do with the fact that teachers and students share the work of keeping the school running.  Students know that the work they do is valued and needed; teachers appreciate the work the students do. In another post, I will write about the many duties the teachers have besides teaching their classes.

Song Teo Trips

Song Teo Trips

The village where I teach English as a Peace Corps Volunteer is about 35 km from the nearest town with an ATM and a place to buy items we think we can’t get along without – in my case, crunchy peanut butter and good coffee.  For safety reasons, PCV’s, as we called, aren’t allowed to ride motorcycles or drive cars, so we rely on public transportation and rides from friends. In my village, the song teo (small bus with two rows of seats facing each other) is the only public transportation. It’s not fast and is often crowded, but it gets you there.  Here is a picture of one just after dropping us off in the town.

The first time I took the song teo on my own, I was at the stop before 7 a.m., to be sure I wouldn’t miss it. It arrived at about 7:30 a.m. and I got on. The driver promptly shut off the engine and said it would be about 10 minutes.  I spoke to him in Thai, and he labored to answer in English. A member of my host family came by to check on me and verify the return time. The driver said proudly:  “I tell him, ten half” – which is indeed what he had told me, and I understood the return time was ten-thirty.  Referring to me as “him” stems from the fact that the Thai language has one pronoun for all third-person forms (he/him/his; she/her; they/them/their), so mastery of English pronouns doesn’t come easily to Thais.

Eventually the song teo started, with the driver blaring his horn and slowing down every few minutes in hopes of more passengers. Several people got on in the next village and the song teo was soon full.  The trip took a little over an hour.  From the song teo stop, I took a motorcycle taxi to Tesco Lotus, a Walmart-type chain based in the UK.  It was nearly 9:30 a.m. by the time I got there, so I had to hustle through my errands (ATM, groceries, top up phone) and find another motorcycle taxi to take me back to the song teo stop by ten half. 

Boarding the bus, I recognized several passengers from the trip in. Everyone had groceries. Sacks of fertilizer and several boxed items were piled on the floor. Passengers shared mid-morning snacks. Here’s a typical return trip:

The last passenger to board was a young man in army camouflage with a chicken (actually a rooster) under his arm.  I wondered if they had been at a cockfight.  The man had to stand on the little platform at the back of the bus the whole way. The rooster was very calm and well behaved – clearly well-treated by his owner.  The song teo dropped me off in my village at about noon.

Since then, I’ve taken the song teo numerous times and have gotten used to the fact that an hour’s worth of shopping takes all morning.  When I moved out of my host family’s home in mid-August and into a rental house, I had to buy several larger items (table, bookcase, wash tubs, clothes drying rack, etc.). The driver and other passengers always helped me get my bulky purchases on and off the bus.  The drivers often take short detours in order to drop passengers with large items at their doors.  One rainy day when the bus was very full, the driver backed into a muddy driveway to unload about a dozen 500-kilogram-sacks of fertilizer.  It seemed like a setup for getting stuck in the mud, but with much huffing and puffing the sacks were unloaded, and we pulled back onto the road.  Whew!

 I haven’t seen the young man with the chicken again – and unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask if I could take their picture at the time.  Here is a picture captured from the internet to give you an idea.

 

Visakha Bucha Day

Visakha Bucha Day

May 24, 2013

Visakha Bucha Day is celebrated by Buddhists all over the world. It commemorates the most important events in the Buddha’s life: birth, enlightenment, and death, all of which happened on the same date (but not in the same year of course). One way that Thai people observe this day is to make merit by giving gifts of food to monks.  Merit-making is too big a subject to delve into here, but essentially, it means to do a good deed unselfishly and from the heart.

One of many depictions of the three events.

May 24 is a national holiday and schools are closed. At our school, Visakha Bucha was observed the day before. It was a rainy morning, so instead of gathering at 8:30 a.m. at the flagpole as usual, we went to the assembly hall. The children were excited, sitting in rows on the floor with their gifts on trays or in plastic bags. Each person should bring nine gifts, I was told; there would be nine monks. Two monks were there at the start of the event and the others came one by one, the last two arriving halfway through the gift-giving.

Two teachers who have leadership roles at the school opened the ceremony with speeches and led the students in prayers. The children all knew what to do, reciting in unison or performing the wai (not the greeting, but the one where you are on your knees and prostrate yourself three times). Finally the gift-giving started.  The students filed past the monks, who held bowls to receive the gifts – most often, little plastic bags of cooked rice, boxes of soymilk, or other non-perishable foods. Many of the children also had “kanom” (the Thai word for any dessert or snack) – candy bars, little packets of cookies, packages of dried bananas or other sweets.  A few mothers rushed in at the last minute with gifts for their child to add to the bounty. The monks’ bowls were quickly filled up and the contents emptied into sacks held by waiting students – a team of the older boys, who put the sacks into wheelbarrows, took them away, and came racing back with the wheelbarrows again to get more.  I was prodded into line at one point (not having a clue when it would be appropriate for me to go), with the whispered reminder: Take your shoes off!  -- Duuh, of course, nearly five months in Thailand and I still forget to do that. – After all the students had filed past, one of the monks chanted a prayer and the ceremony was finished.

People giving gifts to monks

At lunch that day with several fellow-teachers, I commented:  “Man, those monks got a lot of kanom! Rice and soy milk are basic foods, but kanom are a snack.” Politely, the others set me straight:  The children like to give the things that they themselves like. In so doing, they make a gift from the heart, which is the in the true spirit of the giving.  – Abashed, I nodded contritely and finished my lunch.

School Dogs

School Dogs

Anyone who’s been to Thailand knows there’s a highly visible dog population. Stray dogs roam streets and public areas. Many dogs that belong to someone run around freely too, so it’s hard at first for outsiders to tell the strays from the pets. Dogs bark ferociously at joggers and bike riders, and occasionally bite them. They lie down or sit in the middle of the road. Drivers honk at them and sometimes slow down. Usually the dogs get out of the way in time.

At the rural school where I teach, a half-dozen or more dogs are present on any given day. I think of them as School Dogs because they behave as if they belong here – they don’t bark at students, teachers, or visitors, but trot around the school grounds in that ostensibly purposeful way of dogs. They hang around the students, waiting for them to drop some of what they’re eating – usually not a long wait. I haven’t seen dogs overtly snatch food from a student’s hands, but they are Johnny-on-the-spot for spills or scraps that are emptied into bins after lunch. There are frequent short skirmishes over them. 

Some of the dogs participate in our school’s routines beyond foraging for food.  Every morning, when the students line up for the flagpole ritual, dogs are part of the gathering. When there are events in the assembly hall, they join those too.  It’s usually the same three dogs: a black-and-tan one, a tan one, and a black one. They choose a spot and lie down for a nap.  Sometimes the students pat them, but the dogs don’t reciprocate by wagging their tails or licking the children’s hands.  It’s as if they have their own reasons for being there.

One morning a dog suddenly growled and nipped a boy.  Some teachers checked on the child and he seemed unhurt.  The dog trotted away.  Several times the black dog has come up to me during flagpole and stared in what I take to be a baleful manner.  When this happens, I move a few steps to the right, whereupon the dog sits down, scratches his fleas, and settles into a comfortable position. Apparently, I should learn not to stand on his spot.

All but one of the dogs that are regularly present on the school grounds are un-neutered males. It’s obvious that the female nursed puppies not long ago, probably fathered by one of the regulars. Some days, they chase her away. Other times they ignore her. At least once a day, a snarling, yapping fight erupts over food, or because the regulars are trying to chase away an intruder – or possibly just because one annoyed the others.  I’ve seen a little fourth-grade girl go after the combatants with a stick to break up a fight, and the dogs ran. Probably other schools also have their resident dogs, but I only know about ours.

As an American, I don’t welcome the School Dogs – I wouldn’t want my child to have to contend with possibly unfriendly dogs in addition to other school pressures. Thais seem unconcerned about the dogs. However, while walking home from school one day, I was passed by a pickup truck with an enclosed truck bed packed (pun intended) with dogs. I guessed it might be the local dog-catcher rounding up strays, and voiced this thought in conversation with an Australian ex-pat who has lived in Thailand for some years.  Oh yes, he said, they take them to Cambodia and sell them for food.  – Brrr, unsavory thought – though if true, such a scheme might have its practical side, I suppose . . . .  Maybe the School Dogs are escaping a Cambodian stew-pot by integrating into the school culture?  

Wai Kruu Day

Wai Kruu Day: Teacher Appreciation in Thailand

13 June 2013

June 13^th was Wai Kruu Day at our school, a day for honoring teachers (kruu) in Thailand. Wai is the traditional Thai way of greeting (hands pressed together, slight bow of the head); the word also means the deep wai, a reverent bow performed three times on one’s knees with head down and arms stretched out.

Classes were not held the day before Wai Kruu.  The students spent most of the day making bouquets and garlands – each homeroom made one, and almost every student made her or his own as well.  Younger students had a few flowers tucked into a cone of rolled-up banana leaf secured with a toothpick.  The older students’ creations ranged from larger banana-leaf bouquets, to white jasmine blossoms stitched together in a ring, to elaborate floral arrangements in pots or vases. Many bouquets also included a little bundle of candles and joss sticks.  Classrooms were littered with stems, petals, leaves, and other by-products of the creative process.  The students cleaned up before going home.

The next morning, many students had their bouquets with them during the flagpole ritual – inevitably a few flowers fell by the wayside before the Wai Kruu ceremony. After flagpole, the students filed into the assembly hall and sat on the floor.  Teachers took turns speaking to the students and walking between the rows to keep things orderly. 

The ceremony opened with speeches, chants, and prayers.  All the students seemed to know when to chime in and what to do. Then the Vice-Principal mounted the stage, bowed to the altar and the portrait of the King and Queen, and performed a deep waai before taking a chair. My fellow-teachers nudged me into line to go up on the stage too, insisting that I sit in the front row next to the Vice-Principal – so typical of Thai hospitality, always giving guests the “best” seat, no matter how fervently we may prefer to be a little mouse in the background.

The Thai teachers were wearing their uniforms in honor of the occasion. Thankfully, I’d worn a long skirt to camouflage the faux pas when I crossed my legs at the knee instead of demurely at the ankle as per Thai etiquette. The village headman and several other community members joined us on the stage as well.

Then every student – about 600, give or take -- crossed the stage with his or her flowers, starting with the kindergarten students.  By twos, they knelt and bowed three times before the altar, then walked on their knees to form a line of kneelers before the row of seated teachers and community members, bowed deeply, and handed their bouquets to us. We in turn handed the flowers to the row behind us, where they were collected by older students and taken to a display table.  After everyone had left the stage, girls in traditional costumes performed a Thai dance to conclude the ceremony.

As an outsider sitting in on a ceremony such as Wai Kruu, you get a feeling for how deep the Thai sense of community is. Everyone seems excited and happy to be participating (sure, a few students fidget, but they are children after all), and everyone knows what to do – because they’ve been doing it all their lives, since before they went to kindergarten. The ceremony reminds everyone that they are all part of the community – and lets us foreigners get a glimpse of what that means.

If you are interested, you can learn more about Wai Kruu by googling it – or, you can even learn how to make a Thai garland by googling “flower garlands Thailand.”

Thai String-Tying Ceremony

Thai String-Tying Ceremony

The highlight of my first week at my permanent Peace Corps service site, a rural school in northeastern Thailand, was the string-tying ceremony. The school held a welcoming reception four days after I arrived, and the ceremony was a big part of it. Like many things that happened during that first week, the reception and ceremony were fun and exciting but also made me acutely self-conscious – not least because a huge banner with my picture on it was displayed at the school entrance. I soon learned that banners are used for many Thai events.

The reception started quite a bit later than the announced time – something you quickly come to expect in Thailand. My English teacher colleague served as EmCee. I had to give a speech in the Thai language about myself. Everyone gathered in the middle of the room, sitting on the floor, around a large urn with flowers in it and surrounded by other objects including a bowl with an egg, other bowls and plates with fruit and other food, a candle stuck into an empty bottle, and short lengths of string hung up for people to take. I had seated myself politely with my legs to one side (covered by my skirt) when an older lady told me I could sit cross-legged as she was doing. A few minutes later, a teacher told me to sit the other way for the ceremony. I just tried to follow instructions.

The ceremony itself began with a long string being handed around so that everyone in the circles around the centerpiece had hold of it – everyone was connected by the string, as you can see in the photo. Then an older gentleman chanted for quite a while, and everyone held their hands in a wai/prayer position. The other people all knew when to join in the chant with a few syllables. A fellow-teacher told me the string is called sai sin, which means sacred string.

After the chanting was finished, I had to hold an egg, a banana, and a rolled-up banana leaf with rice in it in one hand, while each person in turn tied a string around my wrist.  They all said they wanted me to be happy, to have good luck, and to have good health, among other good wishes. This went on for a long time – I must have had 60 strings around my wrist when it was finished. The tradition is to leave them there for three days.  It was really touching that all these people came up to me on their knees to tie a string and say something kind.  Except for my host family and a few teachers at the school, I didn’t know most of them.

After that, there were speeches, food, and karaoke, which is very popular among Thais. You can count on a karaoke machine at most every party.

The next morning was graduation for mattayom Levels 3 and 6 (roughly comparable to our high school grades 9 and 12).  I went to the graduation ceremony, which again included many speeches. Each student walked across the stage to receive her or his graduation certificate. Then the graduating students all put their chairs in a circle and sat waiting for people to tie strings around their wrists!  So even though I had met only a few of them, I joined the other teachers in tying strings around each student’s wrist. I said in English:  I want you to be happy and strong and successful. Some of them cried really hard – the ceremony is clearly something that carries s a lot of emotional significance for them.

After the string-tying was finished, the students walked around signing each other’s blouses or shirts, like signing yearbooks in the US – the students at this school don’t have yearbooks, as far as I know. I signed quite a few blouses and a few shirts – not as many boys asked for my signature.  I was glad to have the chance to participate in the string ceremony from the giving as well as the receiving side so soon after arriving at my site.

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The photograph of the string ceremony, taken by my Thai colleague Chanutaporn Arayakul, was recognized for best representation of the Peace Corps in Thailand at the July “Reconnect” conference. A slightly longer version of this article was published on July 18, 2013 in the Ripon Commonwealth Press, the weekly newspaper of the Wisconsin town where I grew up.