First Day of School

The first day of school. Hectic already. But the first day of school in the biggest school in Thailand after the worst natural disaster in 50 years is more than hectic. It is chaos. The day started off with the assembly. Literally thousands of students were all sitting in neat rows under a pavilion. They began the day by raising of the flag, by singing of the national anthem and by praying to the Buddhist shrine. Ajan Oi (Ajan means teacher) introduced me to several other ajans. Most could not speak English. I bowed to them and they said “Good Morning”, then giggled away to avoid speaking any more English to me. Apparently, if other teachers refuse to meet your eyes it is not out of disrespect but because of their lack of English speaking skills. They would not want to embarrass themselves by not being able to speak to me, so they will avoid speaking at all.

I share a homeroom class with another Thai teacher. The students stay in their own classrooms and the teachers move from class to class in this school. I walked into the classroom after the assembly and there was no teacher. The students all looked at me and starting calling out, “Teacher! Good Morning! Teacher! Hello!” Not sure what to do I stood and waited. One of the students then yelled, “Please stand up!” All the students stood up and chanted together, “Good Morning Teacher.” Then they stood there. Not sure what to say I said, “Good Morning. You may sit down.” Then they all said together, “Thank you teacher.” Every class begin this way. Finally, the teacher arrived. She told me, “You are free.”

I headed back to my office. Alone. Not sure what to do next. Not sure when the next period started. Turns out no one knew the schedule for the day. Every Thai teacher I talked to told me something different. The head of the health department hunted me down to tell me I was 10 minutes late for class. Another teacher asked me to leave a classroom because I had taught too long. Hopefully tomorrow everyone will be on the same page. Literally. I hope all the teachers will be looking at the same schedule.

When I left for the day the students yelled out to me, "Good Afternoon! Hello! How are you!". Even students from the high school who I will never teach. They all greet their Thai teachers with a bow and "Sawasdee". I am definitely in a very different place.