The NBA, Heavy Metal and Human Values
Today I helped out with a ninth grade ESL class, I sat with a group of boys and was instructed to have a discussion on anything, just to help them practice. Yesterday Dr. Jumsai (the head of School and famous educator) gave us a class on Human Values, how the mind processes information etc. He told us an anecdotes about an autistic boy who wouldn’t eat or talk about anything except instant noodles. 
The teachers took his interest—noodles — and gradually integrated other things, at first vegetables and protein and later academic subjects ( for math for example: if you have one bowl of instant noodles and we give you another, how many are there?). Anyway I tried to use this meethod of integration with the boys. First I asked them what they wanted to talk about – sports.
They told me that they play basketball and when I told them that I play soccer they laughed and couldn’t believe it, since here only boys play (this is interesting because Thailand is not a particularly conservative society, in fact I probably would have gotten the same response in Spain, where most girls would neigh exchange their mini-skirts for cleats, at least where I was. In fact, I’ve been told Thailand recognizes 8 genders, Yamini and I were trying to figure them out, but whatever they are, the country seems pretty open to shifting gender roles. In spain a particularly masculine Thai girl in my class told us that sex changes are very common. So, after all that bending of gender roles, i found it funny that sports are rather segregated, maybe one would need a sex chane to play, ha ha). Anyway I impressed them with my knowledge, minimal though it is of NBA teams, and we compared our knowledge :
“chi-go bul?” they asked. At first I looked blankly then nodded that yes, I knew of the Chicago Bulls, they favored the Miami Heat, and told me that Shaq no longer plays for the Lakers, oops. Our teachers at the Institute keep teaching us that values can be integrated into any subject, so I tried to do that with our NBA discussion. Using hand gestures for guns I explained to them the Washington Bullets and how it was too violent, so they had a contest to rename them (I think my attempts to impress them by telling them that I’d won the contests with Wizards fell short, I’m not sure they really understood, and anyway the Wizards aren’t a very good team. Still, they at least got the concept of guns and understood Wizard by making some Harry Potter references). Then after listening to how much they like heavy metal we talked more about the NBA and I told them that a lot of my friends don’t like it cause it’s too commercial, whereas college basketball has more of the spirit of the game. Yamini thought that was a rather big reach to put in human values, but in Vermont at least I know a lot of people who raise an eyebrow and wouldn’t watch NBA but go nuts for the Final Four.
Tags: kids, random thoughts, Thailand, Travel, US travel
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