And everyone said "Eww".

Life Lesson I have learned from my 1st graders # 93:

Nose-pickers are laid-back, easy-going people without a care in the world.



I promise a serious post is coming soon.

:-)

Kun

Some days here are hard. Sometimes I even want to give up. But then I look at my students, and I can't help but smile. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but I love them more than I could ever say.

She's going to be a Christian.

The parents of one of my students were very concerned today.

Of all the books she has, the only one she wants to read is the book my co-teacher and i gave to her for Christmas about the birth of Jesus. "All the time she wants to read about the baby born in Bethlehem." She is always talking about Jesus and singing songs about Jesus.

She excitedly told my co-teacher that even though her family does not believe, that she believes in Jesus, and she now talks about going to see Jesus in Heaven.

In a sigh of defeat her mother is realizing "She's going to be a Christian."

PRAISE THE LORD!

Please pray for all of our students, of course, but especially for a little girl named Daonua. Right now she only has a glimpse of the challenging road she is embarking on, as a Christian from a Buddhist family, in a Buddhist nation.


This, my friends, is why I'm here. :-)

My Two Front Teeth.

Hi Friends! I'm still here. Silent, but here. Christmastime has been keeping me very busy lately, which hasn't left me a lot of time for writing.

We recently had a Christmas program here at the school which the students worked so hard on. When it was finally time for them to get up on stage and sing their songs and recite their lines I felt like such a proud mama watching them from the audience. I took pictures, and mouthed the words along with them. It was great.
The angels are pretty much self-explanatory, but the teeth picture isn't. My students sang the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" and did a wonderful job. Like I said -- I was so proud.

We also decorated our classroom a bit. Here are some of my rockin' decorations:

Tomorrow is my last day of school before Christmas break. On Sunday I head out for India where I will be for 2 weeks. Woo Hoo! I will be visiting some friends from home who now live in Kolkata, as well as doing all sorts of touristy stuff in Darjeeling, Delhi, and Agra. Look for pictures to come of me at the Taj Mahal. :-)

Turtle Life.

Me (teaching a verse during devotions):
"...that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
My student:
"Ms. Elizabeth, same same "Turtle"?

Number two, the idol rule...

"And God spoke all these words:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt,
out of the land of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God..."
Exodus 20: 1-5

I have been teaching my students about the life of Moses in Devotions for the past few weeks. We work through it slowly, because their understanding is still very limited, but we have finally reached the point where Moses and the children of Israel are in the wilderness and Moses is up on Mount Sinai receiving the commandments from God.
I didn't think much of it at first, because teaching young children about Moses and the ten commandments is a pretty common thing. But then I ran into a problem.
I am teaching about God, and the Bible, to children who have been raised in Buddhist families. It starts off not as not very difficult. Jesus Loves you, Adam and Eve ate a fruit and that was a bad thing, Noah had lots of animals... These are all fine and good and acceptable, but then, Bam! "You shall have no other gods." "You shall not made idols."
In Christian churches in the states, we usually look at these verses/commandments and try to adapt them to our culture. We change it to say that we should not let anything become more important to us than God. We say that an idol can be a relationship, a sport, an electronic device, or anything that can steal our time and attention from God. To a typical American, it would be silly to think of bowing down and worshiping a statue. But transplant yourself into the Buddhist mind. Bowing down and worshiping a statue is normal life and isn't questioned.
I was suddenly very nervous about teaching the ten commandments. How on earth do I begin??
Something inside of me was tempted to say "But they won't understand what I'm talking about anyways, so it's okay." But that would be foolish of me. I WANT them to understand. They NEED to understand. I can't be censuring the truth so as not to step on toes.
I definitely have been spending a lot of time in prayer over this one, and I would love it if you could do the same. It's a big hurdle, but this is why I'm here, right?

In other news... The Kingdom of Thailand has lifted it's ban on youtube.com.

Mai Kow Jai Kaa

Mai Kow Jai Kaa = I don't understand.


This past week i began tutoring a few of my students who have been needing a little extra help. They're all extremely bright kids, but good number of them struggle in the areas of speaking and listening. After class for about an hour I'll tutor a student one-on-one and help them in whatever areas they most need help. Usually we'll both be pretty tired, seeing that it's the end of a long school day, yet these times are very important. I am able to more accurately gauge what the individual student needs, rather than the class as a whole, and i'm able to work with them until i'm confident that they understand.

It's not easy for these kids.

For the majority of a school day the kids are being taught in English (by me), but for an hour or two they will have classes taught in Thai. I recently sat in on one of the Thai classes and gained some valuable understanding. I watched the American kid (Missionary kid) who doesn't speak hardly any Thai, but he is in this school because the majority of the classes are in English, and his parents want him to learn Thai. I watched him fidget in his seat, daydream, become absolutely bored, and give up on trying to listen to the Thai teacher. It made me realize that when I teach, that is what it is like for ALL of the students in my class. It can be easy for me to get frustrated because they don't listen to me, forgetting that they have a really difficult time understanding me, and as a result it is easy to tune me out. I've seen it in my American student, and i've seen it in myself as it is easy for me to tune out any Thai that i hear spoken.

I'm trying to learn more of the Thai language. I've picked up a little...

The main reason that I am in Thailand is not to teach. The main reason is to share with people the love of God. Actions go a little ways... but to most of the Thai people i'm just another American tourist with a fat wallet. I need words to get past that. I've been writing everything down that i learn, and listening to stuff on CD and getting lots of pointers from the Thai teachers here, from people from the church, and from Rose, the fruit shake lady.

It's not easy to learn this language. In fact, with all of the tones it's very difficult. But it's worth it.

Wai Kru

Happy Wai Kru!
In American terms, "Wai Kru" is essentially a Teacher Appreciation Day. A very happy day in the life of Teacher. In the states, days like this tend to be just another holiday that comes with our calendar that we easily overlook, like Arbor day, and Secretaries day, or the birthday of a Queen of some country we've never heard of. But in Thailand, Wai Kru isn't just another forgotten holiday. It was actually a very exciting day full of surprises and ceremony.
At 1:00 all of the students and teachers at the school met together in one big room with a stage at one end. As a teacher, i was told to go sit in one of the chairs that had been set up on the stage. They sang songs and people spoke, but i couldn't understand a word of it because it was all in Thai. But then, all of my students came up to me bringing flowers and waiing me. You've seen my picture of Waiing with Ronald McDonald. The wai is a symbol of respect involving two elements. How high you hold your hands, and how low you bow. To a friend or coworker, for example, i would hold my hands at my chest and lean slightly forward. For someone like my boss i would want to give more respect, so i would do the same but hold my hands at about my chin or mouth. My children all came up to me with their gifts of flowers, had their hands up to their foreheads, and knees and elbows on the ground at my feet. Can I express to you how awkward this was? I really didn't know how i should respond at all, but i was told just to receive the flowers and to smile.
After the ceremony it was back to classes as usual. And that is when something really struck me. Trying to get my 23 first graders back to the room, trying to get them to listen to me, trying to get them to do what i was asking... it wasn't easy at all. And I honestly had to wonder if all the honor and respect they had just given me was real. Was it something they were doing because they truly appreciated me and wanted to do something nice, or was it simply because this is what they were told to do for sake of tradition? Please don't write back with "Elizabeth, you're a great teacher" comments, because that's really not the point of this post at all. My point is to remark about how similar we can so often be to this. Like the people in Isaiah 29, who so faithfully followed tradition in worshiping God. In verse 13 it says, "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men." They said all the right things, and did all the right things, but their hearts were far from being in the right places. Just like to me, when all the waiing and flowers meant nothing to me when i saw that my kids really didn't know what they were doing or why they were doing it, it is the same with God. Our worship of Him means nothing if it is not an overflowing of the desire of our heart to please God.

First Week

I have officially made it through my first week as a first grade teacher in Thailand!

Not a whole lot has changed from my first day... there are still many challenges that are mainly related with the language barrier. It is difficult to keep the attention of the children because if they don't have a good grasp on the words that I'm speaking, it's easy for them to tune me out all together. My other challenge is trying to teach students that are at all ends of the spectrum in regards to their learning levels. I have students that are eager to learn and are leaps and bounds over the lessons that I have planned for them (not to mention the one American missionary kid in my class who gets bored with learning a language he already knows), while there are others that don't know a single word of English who i have to physically put a pencil in their hand and help them to write one letter of the alphabet. Trying to appropriately challenge all of my students is keeping me on my toes.

Here is an interesting thing that I have learned about Thai school systems. Grades and assessments are highly stressed, and I will even need to give homework and tests to my 1st graders. Yet at the same time, failure is such a great shame. So basically, even if my kids receive all F's on their tests and assignments, they will all go on to the 2nd grade next year. Many of the kids are not ready for the 1st grade, but nonetheless they are here, and so I have my work cut out for me.

Below are some pictures of my classroom!







My kids are cute all right. A handful, but cute. :-)

When I'm not teaching, and when I'm not preparing lesson plans (which doesn't leave a whole lot of time), I have been finding new ways to enjoy myself. I can't just hop into my little Honda that i have in the states, and go out driving, but i can always hail a taxi and hope that the driver understands English or my very broken Thai. One of the highlights of my week honestly was going to church.

Last night (Saturday night) I attended a church that i had not been to yet. It's called New Song, and after a long taxi ride with 5 passengers plus the driver piled into one little car, while stuck in traffic, we finally got out on the side of the road and decided to walk the rest of the way. It was raining, but i had my umbrella, so all was well. We walked all through the different allies of Bangkok, following our fearless leader, Nookie, a high school student from Kansas who is half Thai and can speak the language!



We finally came to a flight of very steep stairs nestled in between a row of shops that had closed for the day. At the top of the stairs was such a beautiful sight. There was a room filled mostly with people my age, American and Thai, singing praises to God. I stood there in awe... There, I could hear familiar songs of praise and worship to my Father, sung in both English and in Thai. I was truly beautiful. The fellowship and encouragement with other believers was exactly what i have been needing, and i cannot begin to express the joy i had in being able to sing to my God with other believers, in many different languages.

After church we were hungry... So we went to McDonald's! Haha, yeah, we did. And in Thailand, Ronald McDonald knows how to properly Wai (a polite greeting, involving placing your hands together and bowing slightly. Demonstrated below).



And of course I have to mention... I was able to enjoy one of my most favorite things that I have been wanting ever since the last time I was in Thailand. Do you know how at McDonald's in the States, you can get little apple pies? In Thailand, you can get Pineapple pies! And they're sooooo good.

First Day

Yup, today was my first day of class. It was only a half day, which isn't too bad, but it was a whirlwind nonetheless. My students are all adorable, and very sweet. But when you take 21 Grade 1 students and put them into one small class room with a teacher who does not speak their language, combined with 1st day jitters and brand new pencil sets... you have a recipe for one tasty challenge.

The best picture that i can give you is the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons. You know, the "skwak skwak skwak" that comes from the front of the classroom that no one can understand, so then they just tune it out. That's a lot of what it was like.

Tomorrow morning i will be trying out some new strategies... I won't be outsmarted by a bunch of 1st graders.

Needless to say, I can't wait until the other Grade 1 teacher gets here next month. She will be my godsend as she takes half of the class.

Teaching, Taxis, and W.

I was finally getting things sorted out with my curriculum and textbooks and was getting started on lesson plans... When I find out that they decided to have me teach using a different textbook. Hmm... Still learning to roll with the punches.

The new teachers at the school had to give practice lessons yesterday to the other teachers. I was a little bit nervous about that, not only because I had just changed the focus of my lesson after getting the new book, but mostly because it's just very awkward presenting a lesson geared toward grade 1 students to a bunch of college grads. But it was good to hear their tips and have them point out things that need working on.

Today is Friday.

Class starts on Monday.

Monday and Tuesday we only have half days, so they won't be too terribly crazy. It will be just enough to get settled in the classroom and get to know my students. Wednesday is when our normal schedule will begin.

I had my first taxi adventure today. We ride in taxis all the time here (typical fare to get across town is between 35-80 bhat which is under three US dollars), but usually it has been without any problem. Today, after driving a minute or so, we realized that our driver didn't know what we were talking about when we gave him directions. He did the whole smile and nod thing, but couldn't understand what we were saying. It took quite a while to sort that out. But he played the English radio station for us which was nice of him, and he told us that "George W. Boul" was good.

Our taxi driver's broken comments about Bush really got me thinking. What would happen if I were not in support of my president? If I were to go to another country and speak poorly about the leader of my country, what kind of picture of America would that be painting? In Thailand they have a HUGE amount of respect for their leader, the King, so what a sad contrast it would be to see a country whose people are not in support of the leader that they themselves even have chosen. It breaks my heart to know that there are people out there, traipsing the globe, and showing a lack of respect for their home country's leader and thus giving a poor representation of America.

The Beginnings.

Today it was down to business.

Lots of meetings... Listening to people talk. But it was all very good and very helpful. I feel like I'm on information overload at this point, but I figure that is better than being completely in the dark. I'm figuring things out like creating lesson plans, which I can tell right now will not be my most favorite activity. I'm decorating my classroom (which needs a lot of help), and the coolest part about my classroom is that it has cute little desks! For my little students! I can't wait until all those cute little desks are filled up with cute little Thai kids.

Classes start on June 18th. Ten Days from today! I think it's the first month that I'm most nervous about. Not only will it be an adjustment for me as I learn how to be a teacher, but it will be an adjustment for my students. They are used to kindergarten, and suddenly as they find themselves in 1st grade they will discover many changes. They will no longer have nap time, they will be at school all day rather than for a half day, they will have to sit at a desk, they will have homework. So it will be a learning experience for us all. My class size is nice though. I will only have 11 students, except for the first month. In July there will be another Grade 1 teacher coming, and so there will be two grade 1 classes. But until she arrives I will have her students as well as mine, making 23 students.

All in all... Life in in the Eastern Hemisphere is grand.

Oh, and I can't forget to tell you about my roommate.



His name is Geico. He's a good little roommate. He comes and he goes. And he sometimes hides in my shoes which I'll admit is a little strange. But I told him that as long as he stays away from me while I'm sleeping then I don't mind living with him.