Teaching
Lorraine (one of our instructors and ESL teacher at the school. In her “spare time” she drives
kids to Bangkok – 5 hours total – every weekend for music lessons, brings hurt puppies to the vet, has adopted a few children, and acts as emotional support/mother to many of the children here). So, we’ve started helping out in her ESL classes, even teaching when she’s not there. My first few days when I could barely sit through their classes, let alone feign enthusiasm, I thought, “Okay, I’m not meant to be a teacher” (which I already sort of knew), and while I still don’t want to be a full-time classroom instructor, I am learning to shed my perfectionism and dive in. Part of my frustration, I realized was internal, I was generally a bit gloomy when I first arrived, despite the accommodating people and facilities. Try as I might, I couldn’t get into teaching while I was sad. Lorraine had explained to us that being an EHV teacher is the hardest and most rewarding job, because it is way more than instructing others in the five human values, it is about transforming yourself to use them – a lifelong task. Anyway, because I hadn’t been that exemplary I was surprised when Lorraine asked me to lead English club on Saturday: (On weekends the whole school still goes to 5:45 prayers, breakfast, flag ceremony and then there are “clubs,” which are basically more low-key classes – which is saying something cause the classes here are already hands-on and fairly relaxed). Lorraine is one of those super perceptive types, so either she was just really busy and desperate for help or she knew that underneath my demeanor, I can actually be very motivated and creative, but needed a confidence boost).
Since almost everyone in my course is motivated and generous I got together a few classmates, along with ipods and computers and we made a music workshop (most of the kids in this club are musicians who struggle with academic subjects). We divided them into groups and they listened to the songs, wrote the words, learned the meaning and then performed a version of the song for the group. We used “If Everyone Cared”, by Nickelback, “Promised Land” by Majek Fashek, “Ebony and Ivory” and one other one, chosen by my Peruvian classmate, (it was sort of complex and metaphorical, but the rest of the songs worked really well) I think the students understood as we acted out elephants and their tusks and then made the connection to whites and blacks in the US; or, took the literal concept of a biblical promised land as a metaphor for their dreams. One boy, whom Yamini and I have nick-named Toot Nach (he’s a breakdancer and that is Hindi for break-dance) told me his promised land is to be DJ with a turntable (maybe not the ideal EHV profession, but okay, we are trying to meet the kids where they are). After the groups were set up I walked around and filmed them. As Yamini explained the Reggae off-beat to some talented musicians, Prema tried to explain to the teenage boys that they could sing an octave lower, rather than sqeaking out very high and off-beat tunes, the point didn’t come across, oh well.
Tags: Thailand, Travel
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