Ban Huaymongkol

Ban Huaymongkol School opened in the rural outskirts of Hua Hin in 2514 (1971 in farang years). It is roughly 4 acres large, and on them sit bright red academic buildings, quiet teacher dormitories, and a large soccer field with real, plush grass. From it you can see the Huaymongkol temple, where  Luang Paw Tuad's black marbled, tired body sits criss-cross and smirks at tourists walking by. The school is home to 350 students, donned in red and black uniforms (the school colors) with brown tennis shoes that you can usually find kicked off and splayed , somewhat chaotically, outside a busy classroom. It is home to 22 teachers, 7 of whom stay on campus during the semester. It is home to a passionate, driven, young principal (Paw Aw). It is home to three cats, Fried Egg, Black Egg, and Egg Boy, and roughly 7 stray dogs, whose names are unknown. And as of about three weeks ago, it is home to me: Emily, aka Kru Chunpoo, aaka Kru Emily, aaaka Teacher, aaaaka Kru Emiloosh (?).

This is my fourth week of teaching English. Until this day, the others leading up to this have been pretty much been the same. I will walk you through it: I wake up around 6:30, throw on a black, white, or gray outfit (in mourning of the Prime Minister's death, my yellow shirts for the King are now useless) and walk to school. I pass the women with food stands handing snacks to the already arriving students, and they wave to me. I wave back. The students run to me for a high five and say hello. I say hello back. I would like to note here that I say 'hello' roughly (and I've counted) 109 times a day because that's how many times students say it to me first. It's something I often look forward to, but I'm seriously over "hello" and think I'm going to start teaching them "sup, dude" or "top of the mornin to ya, teach!"

We stand at morning assembly on the soccer field in the blazing sun. Teachers hide behind the lined up students to avoid getting more tan. We sing the national anthem, do a little prayer, and are dismissed to start learning.

I teach roughly four classes a day with my two Coteachers, both of whom have a lot of experience teaching and give great ideas for games and activities. Some classes feel like a victory, some feel like a total flop, and some feel like a... question mark? Do you think they got that? I'm really not sure.

We eat lunch together (after the teachers help serve the food, which I'm thinking they might ask me to stop helping after I spilled soup on a kid the other day WHOOPS). We then return to more classes until about 3, where we will either have SCOUTS (still unclear what that is), Young Guides club ( where my coteacher and I help students prepare to tell visiting tourists about our community in English) or English classes for the staff (that I lead). Then the bell rings, I walk home, get in bed, and should drift off to sleep.

But my eyes are open. Because I keep thinking. This still doesn't feel right. They should be understanding more English by now, shouldn't they? I kept telling myself to be patient, the year is new, the curriculum is new, I am new. It will come with time.

So here is why today was totally the opposite of all the other, a-little-worried-but-pretty-much-fine-days:

First grade, or Prathom 1, was going to take their first Unit Test. Their first test ever. Also, the first test that I have ever given. I was excited to see how they would do. I planned to show them a flash card and they would have to tell me the word in English, or I would ask them a question in English and they would answer.

I pulled the kids out one at a time, each with eyes the size of dinner plates. Where is this crazy white bitch taking me now?, I'm sure they were thinking. I smiled a lot so they knew to relax, and would start the test. They'd soften when they saw the familiar flash cards. I would hold up a picture of shoulders, they would get a big grin, and proudly declare "KNEES!" ...okay, just a fluke, I thought. I hold up "mouth." "TOES!" They'd shout again. One card after another, they don't know them. After testing all 30 students, I realized the average score was about 50%.

I walked to lunch, ate as quickly as possible, and ran to hide in my office, because tears were coming. How could I have taught so poorly? What are things I need to change? Do they even like coming to my class? I sat at my desk and just before waterworks spilled over, my coteacher, Oh, was at my door. "Let's talk about Prathom 1," she said.

We sat there together and talked. At first I was trying to stay professional, but of course as it always goes with a theatre major, the dramatics got the best of me. Soon enough I was throwing my arms up with tears coming down my cheeks, repeating to Oh the same thoughts I had before. "I failed them! I need to be better at this! I need to fix so many things! I-"

"WE!" She interrupts, "WE need to. We are CO-teachers, we need to figure this out together, okay?"

...Oh yeah. 

After she said this, she also pointed out how much of the classes have been me teaching and her just observing, and how she thought it was supposed to be more split responsibilities.

Oh my God, I thought. My coteacher just had to remind me what my job was here. 

I knew she was right about all of it. She was right that I needed to give her more room to teach, that my problems are her problems too, and that I need to lean on her to fix these problems. Before running to my next class, we stood up, she hugged me, and said "We can do this. Now stop crying or I'm telling Peace Corps on you."

At the end of the day, I went back to thank her again for the wonderful conversation we had, and she was teaching fifth grade, my favorite grade (but SHUSH that's a secret). Oh says "Ah, you're here! (Then in Thai) alright students, I want you each to give Kru Emily one word in Thai." They looked up from their books, clapped their hands, and raced over to me before I even knew what was going on. They got in a line and started saying random Thai words at me. I looked up at Oh, who said "you should be writing these down!" I ran to get paper and began jotting away.

Nat gave me the word pan-wai Kru, which means ceremonial bowl for Teacher Day. Poy gave me sai-sin, which means bracelet. Mem gave me reua bpai si faa, or the blue ship (which he told me is the mascot of his favorite football team Manchester City).

I scribbled English, they scribbled Thai, for the whole hour. They drilled me on the words. If I got a word wrong, they'd yell "NO! AGAIN!"and if I got a word right they would say "Very good! One point!" The page became filled with words and names of the people who gave them to me. I felt my heart exploding out of my chest that on such a shitty day, this was their (and Oh's) gift to me. I asked them to write their names on the paper, and I brought it home.

It's currently on my bedroom wall positioned so it's the first thing I see when I open my eyes. I will look at it every day, so I can remember the word for shark, but also so I can remember:

If they can teach me, I can teach them. And I'm not going to let them down.

PS. I'm a Man City fan now