Into 2009

Back at school, I begin really trying to learn the names of my students. I flick through their name tags when they’re not wearing them (trying to visualize their faces) and I go through the class photo trying to put a name to a face. I am appalled at my inability to remember names. Although, these are hard names like Suwichaya, Kochakorn, Sirapob, Phuri and Tae Goon. The only easy ones are Jennifer and Monique and they’re twins so I spend a lot of time spotting the differences between them. (We can’t wear name badges forever). Teaching in Hong Kong, the students would open their mouths to speak and barely any sound would come out. Here, I am bombarded with questions (pointing to my sweeteners) “What is this?" / "Miss Yee Ling is a Mummy?" / (pointing to my necklace) “What is this?” “How old are you?” and once they start talking amongst themselves, it takes some kind of dramatic performance by myself before I can get them back. The one strange hour where I didn’t have to sing and dance to get them back was when I set them about paper macheing hot air balloons (transport theme). And now I have table, chairs, tablecloth and a menu on standby for getting their attension. We first used this for role playing ‘At the restaurant’ (Occupations theme). But these days I seem to be dragging the whole set out at the most illogical moments just to get them back. A quick go at being waiters and customers and they're with me. Normal instructions like “Listen up”/ “Are we ready?”/ “Let’s start”/ “Quiet please” are all useless.

Monday 23rd February, I’m sitting a the lunch table with Sirapop (he’s six) and we’re chatting about the origins of this little fabric case he’s given me for my tissues (his aunt makes them) and mid conversation he politey says he has to go now. He points to a big cloud of black smoke in the sky and walks away. All the students are being taken away by their Thai teachers and so I think they must have called teeth cleaning early this lunch break. So I go to the teachers dining area and some of them are picking up their belongings saying they’re getting out of here because the smoke looks pretty bad. I assume someone is burning rubbish behind the school. For lunch today we have a choice of Penang curry, Green (Chicken) curry and a Yellow curry and for the first time ever they are all labeled. Another rarity is that I can serve myself and so have a larger portion than they usually give me. Halfway through devouring this treat I am perturbed by the fact that I am on my own in this very big school. There is a big cloud of black smoke hovering above the school but surely if there was any danger, the fire alarm would go off. Three Philippino teachers come running from the other direction. One is hysterically shouting “What about the children? They are trapped in the classroom and it is spreading so quickly” The others reassure her it will be OK. I drop my cutlery into my curry and make my way out of the main entrance to the car park. It is packed with children, some crying, some screaming and some sitting on the floor in lines which the teachers are all asking them to. As soon as I find my children, we are being directed over the walky talkies to go back into the classrooms. (Who goes back into a building when there’s a fire?) Standing in the classroom with so many bewildered children, wondering where the fire might have reached by now, visualizing it roaring into the classroom. (I am going to die in a fire with 36 scared children and a co- teacher who has barely said a word to me…) One of the kids asks if Miss Zaida died. Miss Zaida is the teacher I am covering for – the one who left before her contract finished. I meant to explain my being here and Zaida not but what with the Christmas show needing some work and the difficulties I was having just engaging them and I kind of hoped someone else had explained where she had disappeared to. I say that Zaida is working some where else and then some of them begin to chip in her whereabouts, some of which are correct, like that she is working in Canada. (How do they know?). Before we have finished the conversation we are being directed out of the classroom.. We traipse cautiously down the three flights of stairs through gardens and into a sister school's canteen area and then to an area I imagine this school conducts its assembles in. We make makeshift signs for our classes and sit and wait amidst the sounds of sirens. Within minutes parents are arriving to take their children away. These parents have dropped everything to come from the office it appears; one mother is wearing a pilot’s uniform, another looks to be an immigration officer. I try to amuse the remaining students until to my relief the last one is collected and we are sent home for the rest of the day. We are told School is cancelled tomorrow but we need to come in our scruffs tomorrow in order to clean up.

For the clean up, we are divided into Thai and Foreign staff teams. Foreign teachers carry out of the building all of the paperwork hosed wet the day before, the school bags thrown from the window in the panic, and move those items which people had attempted to carry out to safety (ceiling fans, clocks, pictures). The Thai teachers go in with a bucket and a cloth to clean up the rooms and then the foreign teachers carry everything back in. In the carrying task, I begin to piece it together. The fire was actually in the slum behind our school. I didn’t even know there was a slum behind our school or even that slums exist in Bangkok. (Where have I been?) Even the word seems very alien to me. Through the charred school windows you can see a mass of land black and burned to the ground. Where apparently 60 homes previously existed there are now just people rummaging (for their belongings?).

Having missed the opportunity to talk to my class about their last teacher’s disappearance, first lesson back, we talk about the fire. They talk about being scared, hot, happy now, about having seen the firefighters (one of their ‘Occupations’ vocab words) and the whole incident becomes a lesson in itself.

While we're writing the English and Maths exam papers, it comes to light that I should have been assessing each student on an ongoing basis on their speaking, listening, reading and writing (two or three tests in each area) and their English, Maths and Handwriting workbooks should be complete before the end of term (mid March). They must take these home complete on the last day of term. I have five weeks to get them ready for their exams, finish their workbooks and do all of the assessments. (Arggghhhh!) All planned creative activities, games and role play are abandoned in place of finishing the workbooks and exam revision and any free time I or the students have is spent hurdling them through one assessment after another. They beg for role play, they attempt to start the question and answer game and when they ask “What is this?” about all the interesting resources on my desk (which we will no longer be using), they are led into yet another assessment. An hour before the Computerised assessment ‘system’ closes, their exam results and assessment scores are submitted. Three hours before they are due to finish school for this year, we are still finishing their workbooks. I have enlisted the help of every teacher not doing something in marking them and just in time their books are ready for them to take home.

written by  Yee Ling Tang on March 24, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: the break
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