Sports Day in all its glory

I don't even know how to go about doing this post, but I will do my best.  So Sports Day.  I would say to think back to the events of Science Day, but it appears that I never got around to doing a post about that (To Do List: The Flood, Science Day, Vacation with Andrew).  One thing you should understand about Thailand is that it is always about the pageantry.  You have seen how this applies to daily life in school (saying that something is very important and then completely disregarding it), but events like Science Day, the Candle Parade, and Sports Day give everyone a legitimate outlet for the pageantry. This gives the kids (and adults too, let's not kid ourselves) the chance to go completely overboard for a few days.  This includes dressing up, music, dancing, singing.  The sports?  They are a sideshow.  The main events are the costumes, the dances, the cheers.  That is all people really care about.

Which is actually kind of fun.  To be honest, at first I was not terribly excited about Sports Day--it was raining, I was tired from my trip around Thailand with Andrew, and the prospect of just sitting around all day was not enticing.  Little did I know what an event it would be!  I had been told that it would pale in comparison to the Candle Parade (not sure I would agree with that statement, but it is definitely different).  All I can say is that it was a spectacle in the truest sense.

I began the day by peeking out my door at all of the students in their costumes.  They would walk the 2 km from our school to the Nan Stadium, a parade made a little less grand by the fact that it was raining.  In fact, I had been sure all morning that the day would be cancelled, but the show must go on, as they say!  The students certainly didn't let the weather dampen their spirits--despite the dreary weather and the delayed start to the day, they all came out in their finest (costume?) attire.  It was a bit bewildering at first to see them all, it was such a strange array of outfits. Gone were the traditional Thai costumes of the Candle Parade.  In their place?  Well, just about everything you can think of, and many that you can't.

So all the kids were sorted into their color groups for the parade (the same 8 groups as the Candle Parade).  I saw some of them preparing near school, but most of the others I didn't get to see until we arrived at the stadium. I went over there with Pee Neat and then just waited for the first groups to arrive.

Back at school.  Looks a little bit like the Candle Parade?

This...not so much like the Candle Parade!

More ridiculous outfits arrive at school

The stadium itself was a bit of a surprise--you go down a random road on the outskirts of Nan and actually head down a dirt road for part of it.  Then voila!  You find yourself at a beautiful track.  I mean a lovely 8 lane rubber track.  The thing is brand new (parts of the stadium still have plastic wrap on them, I am not even joking).  Anyway, there is also a sketchy municipal gym and swimming pool, but the track and bleachers were pretty awesome.  So the students paraded from our school to the stadium, at which point each color group did a brief dance presentation.  This received a grade, which would be combined with a grade they received later in the day for a 10-15 minuted dance presentation.  It was quite fun to see them all arrive in their costumes.  I will say that many shoes came off as soon as they were in sight of the stadium--the heels were HUGE!  Take a look in some of the pictures.

English Department in the stands

The Gold team

Pink team

The marching band arrives!

One of the interesting things for me was the marching band.  See, I have band practice every morning directly outside of my window.  I mean about 3 meters outside my window.  Yeah, that close.  On the plus side, it serves as a wake-up call.  But just about everything else about it is a downside.  Most notably: they are terrible.  No, not even just "bad," I mean horrendously, awfully, claw-your-ears-off-your-head-so-the-pain-will-stop kind of bad.  Yeah.  That bad.  Andrew will back me up on this one.  So imagine my surprise when the marching band showed up at the stadium and was actually good.  I mean wow.  What a shocker!  I can only conclude that the people who practice outside my window are the beginner band students.  Or possibly the ones who were dropped on their heads as infants.  Or quite possibly some combination of the two.

In the first part of that video you could see another interesting part of the day--the cheering gloves.  They were double sided, with a different color on each side.  This meant that the students could do different hand movements to make a pattern as a group.  Pretty fun to watch!  It was actually the orange team that won the competition at the end, largely because they had a group of these students in gloves working with the dancers to put on a pretty elaborate show.

But I have talked enough for now.  Without further ado, here are the costumes!

Maybe we have a mascot?

Oh, the shoes

My favorite little lady boys!

The judging panel hard at work

They fell behind...the gym teacher "motivated" them to catch up

A speech from our director

Our own "Olympic torch"

More lovely lady boys

After the parade to the stadium and the mini dance performance upon arrival, there was a bit of an intermission from the dancing/cheering.  Or at least the official cheering.  It was at this point that most of the sporting events occurred.  However, throughout the afternoon there would be (what appeared to be) impromptu dance performances on the field, and fairly official looking cheers coming from the students sitting in the bleachers.  Let me just say this: the Thais really love to cheer!  It was pretty fun.  Anyway, late in the afternoon we finally got to the most anticipated part of the day: the formal dance competitions.  These were about 10-15 minutes long, and they really varied from team to team.  I wish I had some better footage of it, but my camera was almost out of batteries (and did in fact die while recording these), so what you see is what you get.  Enjoy!

This one was a bit of a scandalous performance.  There were (at minimum) 4 times that Pee Neat turned to me and said "Oh, they will be in the Discipline Room tomorrow!" So I know I haven't talked much about the sports, and to be honest there isn't much to say.  All together, Sports Day was actually 3 days.  The first 2 days were just sporting competitions (basketball, soccer, etc.).  We didn't have to come to school for those.  The 3rd day had the parade, costumes, and dancing/cheer competitions.  Additionally, it had the track events.  But by track events, it had about 1 race per grade level--not much to talk about.  There was, however, a relay race for teachers!  It was an 8x50 race, meaning that each team had 8 people running 50 meters each, totally 1 lap around the track.  It was supposed to be in your color group, so I signed up for purple.  Well, nobody else signed up for purple, so I ended up on the gold team.  There also weren't even enough people to field full relay teams, so it ended up being 4 teachers and 4 students to each team.  Well, we go down to the start line, and magically a team of 8 teachers (from purple) appear...WHAT????  Oh well, I am on gold now.  So I stick with it.  Originally I was set to be 1st leg, but then they switched me to 7th.  Not really my preference, but whatever.  Our "baton" was a stick with a balloon taped to it.  Let me just say that deteriorated quickly, balloons flying everywhere!  It was all good fun though--I got my baton, ran my excruciatingly long 50 meters, and almost killed Ping Pong because I was in an all out sprint and he didn't start running until I was on top of him.  I guess all those years of relay hand-offs did teach me something that other people don't really know after all!  Funny thing, we got 4th, purple team got 1st--jerks :P  Anyway, it was really fun to be on a track again.  I did sprint warm-ups and everything.  Kind of made me miss it all.

Anyway, it was quite a fun day, from the almost complete lack of actual "sports" to the truly excessive pageantry.  But everyone really enjoyed it--this is most definitely the Thai idea of fun.  And I really liked getting to participate as well.  I hope you could get some sense of it all through the photos.  Last but not least, I will leave you with the same video that was in the previous blog post: my little lady boys strutting their stuff.  They are too hilarious not to show again, so I will let you giggle at them a bit more!

P.S. Sorry about the audio quality on the videos.  But if the video quality is bad, try to adjust the settings on YouTube, they actually aren't terrible!

Andrew's Visit, Back to School, Sports Day

There is so much to tell, and I really need to get on it.  But in the meantime let me just say that our break was fantastic.  I got back here on Wednesday and then on Thursday we had Sports Day.  Like everything else in Thailand it had more to do with the pageantry/dancing than it did with anything else.  I will leave you with this video of some of my favorite lady-boys until I get the chance to put up full posts!

P.S. In response to questions, yes, both sets of dancers are boys.  The more you know!

The term is ending...

Last day of the term, and it couldn't come soon enough.  I am really fed up with the bureaucracy surrounding education here.  As you all know, there is a no-fail policy here.  This basically means that even if a student fails every test and turns in no homework, they still have to pass the class.  This presents some practical difficulties, since grading is split into 3 grades: midterm exam, final exam, and class grades.  The exam grades are easier--if they take the exam, you have some grade for them.  If they fail, you give them a project to do, they do it, and you raise their grade to a passing one.  Simple, right?  The class grades are a tad more difficult.  I say that because I have a very large chunk of students who have NEVER turned in an assignment.  So I don't have any class grades for them.  Meaning that 40% of their grade = 0.  So when I average the 40% of 0 with their 60% of barely passing exam grades, they certainly don't get a passing grade overall.  Therein lies my difficulties.

Now I discovered this problem last week and managed to sort it out for the most part.  How did I do this, you might ask?  Well, I told all of my M1 students to come meet me in the library.  I then met with them one by one, looked at their work so far this year, and then either cleared them to go or told them to sit down and do certain work.  This was either the big project that about 1/4 of the students just didn't do, or the homework that they felt was completely unnecessary, or the test make-up project.  Whatever the case, if there was some component of the grade missing, I told them to sit down and do it right then in front of me.  And this solved a lot of the issues, giving me class grades for many students who didn't have it and dropping my failing grades from a couple dozen into the single digits.

Sadly, we are now stuck.  There are quite a few more who still haven't turned anything in, and despite my bullying have not come to see me.  I have a separate Facebook account for all my students, and I even went so far as to post on there the homework assignments so students could download them and email them in.  Did it help?  Well, sort of.  I got 2 more sets in, but nowhere near the response I needed.  I also posted the numbers of the students who still hadn't done the major project--no response on that front.  It is funny, when I post these requests for my students to do the work on Facebook, I get dozens of "Likes," but nobody actually does anything about it.  I would trade all those "Likes" for students to actually do their work...

So now I am in an unpleasant situation.  I have 6 students with Grade 0 (failing).  4 are from M 1.3, and 1 each from M 1.2 and 1.1.  I have bullied, pleaded, and cajoled in every way that I know how, and they just aren't budging.  So I just decided that I had done everything that I could, and that at this point it was there responsibility.  These students had been given every opportunity to do their work, and they have rejected those chances at every turn--they now have to live with those consequences.

Only they don't.  Upon hearing about the situation of the 6 students in my M1 classes, my coordinator Pee Neat explained to me that I would give my grades to the science head, and that the students would be given an "incomplete."  These students would then come back to me at some point next term and would have to do some project to pass the class.  So it is just the same thing again--no failing allowed.  And I knew that, but I guess I didn't really think it through.  I didn't realize that I would have to deal with them again next term (even though I won't be teaching them again) and that I would basically wait around for them to show up at some point in the semester for their project.  Their laziness this term means more work for me next term, and I don't even know when next term--they could show up a week from the end of the term to do the project to get rid of their incomplete.  And in all honesty, they probably will--I just say a girl come in on Friday with her mother to complain about a grade given by a foreign teacher who was here over a year ago!

All in all, this is very frustrating.  I definitely need to get away from all this madness for a while.

Pee Nong, my own language stalker

So at work there is a woman named Kru Nong.  She does earth sciences, but sits in the physics office.  Well, ever since I came here she has sort of latched onto me.  She wants to practice her English, and keeps inviting me to her house to practice.  I have always been polite but noncommittal, largely because her English is so weak it is extremely taxing to hold a very basic conversation with her.  Back at our first EIS seminar I had to help her with her presentation--she was talking about "swarms of earthquakes."  It turns out she had taken a Thai wikipedia article and then used an online translator...it was disastrous.

Anyway, the frequency of these demands to chat have increased.  Last week I was again invited to her house, which I politely postponed.  Then on Tuesday morning she caught me with another invitation.  She said she would come to my office in the afternoon.  I understood this to mean that she would come and we would plan a visit, she clearly understood it to mean something else entirely.  So after work that day I went to the market, bought a fish and some rice for dinner, and around 5 p.m. Rhea and I were sitting down to dinner at our house.  We had the window open, and had just started to eat when Pee Nong's voice comes through the window. Allison, ready?  Go now!  Uhhh, what?  I had no idea what was going on.  So she pulled the curtains aside, saw we were eating, and questioned us.  Oh, food at my house!  It gradually became clear that she expected me to go to her house right THEN.  I explained to her that I was sorry, that I had been confused about the timing, and that I was eating dinner now.  But she kept insisting that we go. And go now.  So very reluctantly I grabbed my bag and said goodbye to my fish (only got to eat 2 bites) to go to Pee Nong's house.

We took a random tour of town, complete with almost unintelligible English, and then I met the family.  There were 5 adults and 1 little girl who studies at Lydia and Danielle's school.  Let me begin by saying that everyone was very nice.  They were quite friendly, interested in my life, and just trying to practice their English.  But dealing with low levels of English is absolutely exhausting, especially in large doses.  And this was a huge dose.

They kept asking me different things, but insisting I eat at exactly the same time.  Then they would ask if I understood Thai, and test it out by speaking very quickly--not exactly the best way to evaluate my very basic language skills.  So it was concluded that I spoke no Thai, and they proceeded to "teach" me to count, something which I learned my first week in country.  Whenever I would try to demonstrate what Thai I did know, they would basically tell me to shut up and then repeat the same thing over again--very frustrating.  And then there was there reaction to my questions.  For instance, one man's nickname was "Yoot."  I immediately thought of "stop," which is also "yoot" in Thai.  So I said "Oh, Yoot, like stop!"  And then they all got very distressed--"No, not like stop."  So I tried to ask the difference between Yoot the nickname and yoot stop, but they would only say no, not like stop, over and over and over again.  So much for me trying to understand anything.

Bottom line is that it was a mentally exhausting evening.  After 2.5 hours there I told them I had to go home (much disappointment from them).  This was actually because I had a Sype date with Andrew, but I honestly don't think I could have handled another 30 minutes of the "chatting."  On the drive back home, Pee Nong was very excited, and kept telling me to come tomorrow.  So I said "Yes, I will come to your office to talk tomorrow."  Definitely not what she meant.  She actually expected me to return to her house for another session of English practice the very next evening!  So I (politely) declined.  Once was enough for now.

TL/DR: Speaking English with Thai teacher and her family is mentally exhausting--I need some boundaries in my personal life.

Update

Another visit to the head of sciences with Pee Neat after a very tearful lunch of green curry with her, Rhea, and Gina. The incident involving Pee Mam and the mother of (should be) failing student #8 was recounted, with many serious head nods. The outcome? Give the student grade zero anyway. Even though Pee Mam had basically forced me to agree to the girl's mom that I soul give a passing score, Pee Jitra (sciences head) said I should do grade 0 and that she would deal with the mother. Yes!

As for Pee Mam's insistence that I continue to co teach, that was addressed to. Pee Jitra will sort out my schedule with the academic office, but it should not include Pee Mam.

Success! (for now...)

"The Plan," and how it went down in a fiery blaze of hellish glory

So just yesterday I posted about how my life was going to get easier.  This broke down into 2 major parts.  1. I was finally given permission to fail a student who totally deserved it--she hadn't done any homework, nor had she taken the midterm or final exam.  Getting the permission to fail her was extremely exciting, since it felt like there might be some sense of  merit in this school system.  2. I got my class assignments for next term.  They are all upper level, and none of them involve working with Pee Mam (who makes my life a terrible adventure in what bullshit will randomly appear each day).

Problem 1
Welp, today everything fell to pieces. I was told that while I was allowed to give the girl a grade 0, I would have to give her a retest at the beginning of next term so that she could get a passing grade.  Why, you may ask?  Because it is school policy.  While this is irritating enough, it got significantly worse when Pee Mam (back from her seminar/vacation) got wind of it.  She immediately called the girl's mom to school so we could "solve the problem." And by solve the problem I mean they could convince me not to give the girl a grade 0, even for the 2 week break until she gets a retest.  They actually called me out of one of my final exams to have this conversations (not one, not two, but three phone calls).

When I got there, I was sat down with this woman and Pee Mam.  It took a while before I realized it was the kid's mom.  They then proceeded to explain to me that the girl had missed the final because she was sick.  Well, what about the midterm? Or all of the other assignments she never did.  Their answers were nothing but a string of excuses.  Did she know she had homework? they ask me.  Well, I would certainly assume so, since I wrote it on the board, said it out loud, reminded them, and the other students turned it in.  They assured me that while she was bad in the beginning of the term, she was being a very diligent student now!  Yeah, not in my class--our midterm was only a couple weeks ago, and she just skipped that and never did a makeup test.

Bottom line is the kid did nothing for my class and both the mother and Pee Mam wanted me to pass her anyway.  I kept trying to explain to them that passing this girl wouldn't be fair to the other students who actually had done all of the work, but they just ignored me.  It would have been easy to stand my ground against just the mother, but I kept getting bullied by Pee Mam too. "We must find a solution to this problem," she kept repeating.  What sort of solution do you want?  The girl blew off my class, and she should fail.  It isn't right that she should get a free pass now that the term is over.

But the relentless bullying was not to end, and it got more and more intense as the conversation progressed.  At last I broke.  I agreed to let the girl take the final exam next week.  If she passes, I will give her grade 1, and no higher.  The mother seemed satisfied by this, and thanked me as she left.  Pee Mam, on the other hand, thought that I should allow the girl to get a higher grade than 1.  What a load of shit.  The kid should fail, there is no way in hell I am giving her anything other than the bare minimum passing score, and that is only if she passes the final.  We will see.  Needless to say, I am feeling pretty awful right now.  So much for my morals.

Problem 2
The next issue concerns my classes for next term.  I thought I had it all figured out--a nice solo teaching schedule with M3, M4, and M5.  Well, Pee Mam has other plans for me.  She is ok with me doing solo teaching for M3 and M5, but she won't let go of me as a co teacher for M4. According to her, that would be too many class hours if I did M4 solo, since M4 meets several times a week. The obvious solution is that I do solo in M4 the same way I do solo in every other level--I teach 1 or 2 periods a week, and a Thai teacher does the other sessions. We cover similar material, but do it separately.  So this "too many hours" excuse is a total load of crap.  The real reason she objects to me doing M4 solo is that she doesn't want to lose a co teacher.  Having a co teacher means that she can disappear to all parts of Thailand for her "seminars" with no notice, leaving me to cover for her.  This is exactly why I can't work with her anymore.  She leaves school, never having told me anything, and doesn't tell me what she wants taught.  She constantly throws me into the classroom with no handouts or preparation.  She will change her mind on topics the morning of a class.  It is the most stressful work environment possible.  I can never adequately prepare for those classes, so I feel like an idiot and my students suffer.  I just want to be left alone so I can actually teach my students, rather than basically substitute teach for Pee Mam whenever she decides to disappear.

So now I am really worried.  She is going to the sciences head to demand that I stay as a co teacher...I would rather die.  I have already gone to Pee Neat to ask for help, and the conclusion is that we will go to the sciences head again this afternoon.  That way we can make our point really clear--that it would be better for me and for the students if I were allowed to solo teach.

And the kicker?  Pee Mam has decided to add an extra class of for me.  So each week I have to sit and teach the teachers English language for the classroom.  I have said I will teach one of these a week, but she was like "oh, I don't know, it will be hard for all the teachers to arrange their schedules for that.  Maybe we do one every day."  HELL NO.  So I am also being dragged into the extra classes.  Which I am going to make into extra class, singular.

Anyway, as you can see, things have deteriorated a bit.  I am just trying to hang in there.  Only 2 weeks and a day until Andrew gets here.  I need it very much.

My life here is about to get much easier...

As many of you know I have had several challenges adjusting to my role as a teacher at this school.  Some of these are pretty widespread among my coworkers (the inability to give a failing grade even when a student has done absolutely nothing to deserve a passing one), while others are more specific to my situation.

Well, as it turns out there have been several developments that will make my life much nicer. These, of course, grew out of a particularly miserable set of circumstances.

Scenario 1: This is my week for final exams.  I was going through my grade books form before the midterm and realized that there was a young student who hadn't taken the midterm examination.  Since the end of our term got hopelessly shortened, I no longer had time for re-testing those people who had failed the first time.  I was therefore giving them a written assignment so that these students could achieve at least a minimal passing grade.  As for #8 (the girl who didn't take the midterm), I decided to give her the same project. The extra added difficulty in this situation is that I only see my classes once a week, and tons of classes have been cancelled.  Hence our midterm and final exams were only 2 weeks apart.

Well, the day for the final rolls around.  There is the normal amount of cheating and bullshit, but I was prepared for that (walking through the classroom, letting them use only the pencils I provide, etc.).  What surprised me was when I went to hand out the extra "projects" to the students who had failed their midterms.  There was some confusion, but they eventually all made it to their intended owners.  All, that is, except for #8.  As it turns out, she was not present.  So no midterm, no final.  And looking at her performance in the rest of my class, she has skipped half of the sessions and never turned in a homework assignment.  This seems like the perfect candidate for a failing grade. 

Anyway, I brought this to the attention of Pee Neat, and we in turn went to the head of the sciences department. After some brief discussion with my department head, it was agreed (much to my surprise)...I would be allowed to give the brat a grade 0!!!! This means that for the first time I will actually be allowed to give a student the grade I think she deserves.  It is refreshing.

Scenario: The second difficulty I have had in the recent weeks is my co-teacher Pee Mam disappearing to seminars randomly.  The most recent trip was to Phetchabun.  She left last Tuesday morning, but didn't tell me about it until the afternoon.  That was a bit irritating, since I was waiting for her instructions for class that morning.  She won't even return until tomorrow.  When I eventually did talk to her, I was told that she had left handouts for the classes...NOPE.  So basically I am left standing here with all her classes and absolutely nothing to do with them.  It was super awkward and I really had no idea what to do with them.  End of story?  I taught the classes I could, and just didn't show up to the ones I had no topics for.

This continued on and on, and just kept getting worse.  I would email Pee Mam asking for her instructions for classes, for what topics she wanted me to teach, and I would wait for any responses.  Needless to say, none were forthcoming.  All the while she was busy posting photos on Facebook. Basically it seems like a lot of these seminars are just excuses to travel.  I wouldn't care at all it I were left with the information needed to teach my classes.  Ugghhh.

Well, it came down to the point where I just wanted to figure out my classes for next term.  I had already told my coordinators that I wouldn't teach M1 again--they are just too young, don't know enough English, and are altogether incompetent when it comes to handling this type of studying.  For example, the final exam.  Their test was 30 questions, and 23 of them were taken verbatim from their midterm exam.  That being said, about half of the class still failed (got less than 50%).  I don't really know how to make it any easier, save for giving them the answers directly.  I think the biggest issue is that they just don't understand enough English.

Anyway, back to the point.  I won't work with M1 again, and despite constant pestering Pee Mam to tell me my classes for next term, I was getting no results.  So today Pee Neat and I also talked to the sciences head about this issue.  And magically it turned out well!  I will be teaching M3, M4, M5 (3.1, 3.2, and 3/1--don't know the specifics on the other classes). It also seems that I will get to teach some of these classes twice per week rather than once a week...YAY!!!!!  Finally, I get to teach solo.  I finally don't have to deal with co-teaching anymore!  So I won't have to put up with all of Pee Mam's crazy vacations and absences.

So even though my workload will be higher (18 classes/week rather than 12-16 like I have now), I think it will be worth it.  I will be free from a lot of the bullshit that has been getting me down.  Hopefully this will be a move in the right direction!