Funny how living in a country where 95% percent of the population is Buddhist, I have found the words of a Roman Catholic nun to be so fitting. In addition to my entry on our Mother's Day adventures with Ju I wanted to include pictures from the school's celebration of the holiday, along with a little story about patience; something we're practicing a lot of here. So mothers and patience= Mother Teresa I guess.
Of course we weren't told anything about the ceremony going on at school but discovered the surprise upon our arrival Tuesday morning. The undercover gym area was filled with the 6th graders and their moms, along with various displays of the Queen. In front of one of the displays was this massive arrangement. . .that looks like flowers but is in fact a ton of fruit and veggie carvings done by students.
These "flowers" are made out of papaya. . .
This one is out of a watermelon. . .
And this one is made out of a mango.
The stage was done up with more displays of the Queen and various decorations. A few of the teachers gave speeches and then this group of girls put on the cutest dance show with traditional Thai music, dancing, and costumes.
Later in the day each grade level came down to the undercover area to present the money that their classroom saved up. It is tradition to donate money to some sort of charitable event. Each class made these stands to hold their baht and then presented it to a monk that visited the school from a local temple. Here are some of my 2nd graders. . .
Here they are presenting their money to the monk while he wishes them good luck.
Here are just a few of my students. . .
The teachers invited Aoife and I to join in presenting the 1st grader's money to the monk.
Last week there were a couple extra announcements made as well as longer assemblies in the mornings. It's all in Thai so we never know what is being said. I walked into one of my afternoon classes right after one of the longer announcements was going on. I waited for it to finish before beginning the usual classroom routine.
One of the students always stands up and just as he or she has been told to do by his homeroom teacher, says "Stand up please".
The other 49 kids stand and in perfect unison say "Good afternoon teacher". (yeah it's not creepy at all)
I then say "Good afternoon. How are you?" and they say "I'm fine. Thank you. And you?"
Side note: before I knew that this is the routine I was supposed to follow, I said "Good afternoon. You may sit down" and all the kids looked at eachother awkwardly and said "I'm fine thank you and you?". . .so basically all they're doing is repeating what they're told to say and really have no comprehension of what they're saying.
That's when I usually go through a few other emotions like "I'm happy", "I'm sad", "I'm hot", "I'm sleepy" and act out each emotion. The kids love doing the action part but I always have to say the word first and they simply repeat it. So I never really know how much they're actually understanding.
Before I could get to all this on that particular afternoon, I realized that there were a few kids in the room that were crying. With all the chaos that goes on it's not surprising to see a couple of them crying. Usually what follows is another kid blabbing to me in Thai trying to explain what happened. Their teacher stopped me on the way in and said that it had something to do with the announcement and Mother's Day but with the language barrier I couldn't get the full story. Before I began our little routine one of the boys points to some of the kids that are crying and says "Teacher. Sad. Sad."
I couldn't believe it. Without having to give any sort of prompt, action, or hold up a picture, one of the kids spoke ENGLISH. My mouth literally dropped and my eyes widened. "Yes! Sad. Sad. You're right! Good job!" Refocusing for a second I turned to the kids crying, gave them a pat on the back and a look of sympathy. I couldn't help but look back at the boy and give him the thumbs up though.
A couple entries ago I talked about how frustrating the teaching can be and how I never feel like I'm accomplishing anything. It's moments like this one that make it worth it. And it reminds me that I just have to patient with all of it. I mean I don't know if "patience can achieve everything" but the kid knows what "sad" means and damn it, he can say it english too!
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