Should Expat Teachers Hit the Thai School Children?

I live on a soi where two tiny girls of 3 and 4 get beat with a stick on a daily basis. These poor girls are hit over and over and over, AND OVER sometimes for up to 10 minutes. In fact, the older boy of about 12 yrs has been hit for 20 minutes hard, for something as simple as not walking the dog. I haven’t seen Thai parents hit their kids much over the years but these two are not shy about it at all - in private or out in front of their home.

While teaching English in Thailand you might become a little frustrated at the seeming complete lack of respect for you as a teacher, a person, and what we term in the west as an authority figure. You really aren’t any kind of authority figure in Thailand as a foreign teacher of English and the kids have probably already shown you that.

You can of course set yourself up as THE BIG DOG and that’s one route you can go. Some teachers look at it like this… Why let the kids do whatever the hell they want? I’m going to maintain control and treat the classroom like a boot camp. This technique works in the sense that the teacher has a rather easy time teaching. There isn’t much clowning going on because the teacher is so strict. There isn’t much learning going on either because the Thai kids don’t learn in a classroom environment where there is not much leeway to be themselves. Yep, for Thais they need to be able to be themselves in and out of the classroom or they aren’t learning. If they aren’t having fun then it isn’t considered school.

School is outrageously fun to Thai kids. It should be anyway. There are few Thai teachers that are very strict, those that are usually are over fifty years old and have had enough. They can’t deal with the clowning so they’ve either adopted a “learned helplessness” role like Pavlov’s dogs, or they’ve demanded respect in sync with their age which still goes far among Thai kids in the northeast though not sure about the south and Bangkok areas.

The problem foreigners face when they arrive in Thailand to teach Thai kids is that the school experience is ENTIRELY different. Basically there is no real control of the kids without the military dictatorship classroom style because the big picture is something else entirely.

What is the big picture?

The big picture, as Brunty has found out repeatedly and not yet fully resigned himself to is that the Thai kids will pass your class regardless of what your point of view is as the teacher of your class. They will pass and they might even pass not only with a D (1), but they might pass with a C or B (2 or 3)! Thai school administration works magic with the grades and reports you give the kids each term. Some might call it voodoo.

The kids understand their education system a whole lot better than you. Each jackass boy that insists on clowning around in your class day after day understands the game of the Thai education system really very well. It’s the foreign teachers that don’t ‘get it’. As teachers you really need to get it and live with it because contrary to what most Americans, Germans, Brits, and Australians here to teach think - you cannot change the Thai system at even one school to make it better or more along the lines of the educational experience you received in your home country.

Who are you to try anyway?

Foreigners have a way of coming to Thailand and expecting Thais’ to act American, German, Swiss and everything else but what they are - Thai. Who of us, as a teacher in America would listen to a foreign teacher from Thailand about how we needed to lighten up the atmosphere of the classroom so the kids can learn?

Why would we? Should we? Should Thais listen to you here?

They placate you and then go about doing the same thing they were doing before you set foot in their country - and will continue it long after you leave. It’s Thai ways.

So this brings me around to the subject of hitting the Thai school children in the classroom when they’re really raising cane and you’ve stood them in a corner or whatever your usual method of discipline is.

Thais live according to face. While some kids, most kids, can be effectively controlled with using face losing techniques, many are immune or at least seem to be. They may go home and create play dough witch dolls of you they run bamboo slivers through and play screaming rock hate music that they scream into ‘your’ doll’s face to deal with the grief you gave them in class.  But, these kids exist - there are always some kids that are just absolutely uncontrollable.

Should you hit the kids in the classroom?

In America as most know, this isn’t possible. In the Catholic schools it was done even in the 1980’s… not sure about now but I think it’s safe to say that’s been phased out due to fear of litigation from parents.

In Thailand it’s commonplace. There are some (few) teachers that bring a paddle into the class. Those classrooms are pretty damn quiet you’d notice. You’d also notice that the teacher enjoys quite a bit of respect gained from the threat of whacking someone across the back of their thighs or lower back.

I’ve seen the director of a government English program whack some kids. She didn’t play around, she hit them good- boys and girls alike. The kids resigned themselves to it. They knew it was coming and each stood in line (she had a queue).

Girls and boys would cry. These were 13-16 year old Thai kids. Some were tough boys and she knew it and really swung it with some speed. I’d watch through the tinted office window and she might hit them once or 5 times. One kid got 10, he wasn’t in such good shape.

I saw teachers hit 5 year olds on the head and knuckles with rulers, pencils and aluminum markers. It worked wonders in some, and others were still victims to their own wild id impulses and never did grasp the simple concept that loud outbursts or hitting others led to getting whacked. Usually the boys were much worse than girls.

Is hitting the kids going to make teaching easier for you as a teacher?

Yes. That’s the reality. It will make it easier to get control of the kids. You might even be able to control the whole class that way. They likely haven’t been hit by their parents EVER in their lives. Thai parents don’t typically hit kids, they let them run willy nilly all over creation and ‘anything goes’ seems to be the parenting style. It’s different from the USA - is it wrong? Not to me. It’s great to see kids doing whatever they want, wherever they want. Outside the classroom.

Inside the classroom I’d like to see things change but I’m not naive enough to think they will in my lifetime. I don’t believe strongly enough in the educational system I was brought up in to attempt to force it down Thais throats. How presumptuous.

I notice that most foreigners don’t assimilate into the country. They bring their own country with them and try to make everyone else conform. It’s ludicrous for one person to try to enforce a completely different lifestyle and reality on 65 million inhabitants of a foreign country they are visiting.

DJ on Walking Street, Pattaya Arrested for Playing FAKE CD’s!

DJ’s - watch yourselves! I know there are a couple foreign DJ’s in Thailand that work or donate their time at the clubs. In Pattaya DJ was arrested for playing fake CD’s.

I’d like to think there’s something more to the story - like the guy had other issues that the police wanted him for. Because this is insane - yes?

DJ Arrested - Pattaya >

New Farang English Teachers to Spend 100,000 b to be Certified?

WOW.

That’s what one Thailand blogger is saying - that should jack up our salaries a bit I’d think.

Everybody now…

Neung…. Song… WTF?

Thailand Private School Students, "Cut your hair OR ELSE!"

School Kids in Thailand’s Private Schools: Haircut Checks and Bag Checks

There are numerous regulations students in Thailand are supposed to follow if they’re attending private school.

One of them is getting your hair cut and keeping it within “regulations”. In the Air Force we had this same thing, and since I was at a layed back Air Force Base (Hickam AFB, Hawaii) I didn’t need to worry about it that much. They weren’t that strict and one could push the envelope a bit and get away with it most times. I knew guys that used pins to keep their long hair up on the top of their head.

At a private school I taught at in Isaan there is a rule about haircuts. They are SERIOUS about haircuts. If you push your luck at this school you may well end up looking like this:

As you can see, they don’t mess around with guys, though with girls it may be worse they’ll just give you a BAD haircut there on the spot. One of my M4 (Mathyom 4) girls had the worst haircut I’ve ever seen after a run-in with the haircut butcher during inspection day. Everyone laughed and she was quite a sad little girl.

The other thing kids need to watch out for is the bag inspections. This is quite an interesting story…

Kids are told to put all their bags in a pile and they stand off to the side. The teachers then go through each and every bag looking for things the kids aren’t supposed to have. Cellphones, makeup, pornography…

Yes, pornography.

The M1 class (13 year olds) was having their bags checked when the inspector stumbled upon something interesting to say the least. Inside one bag was a plastic bag with about 10 photos of girls interacting with animals (sex). I know our English department was shocked, but on a personal level I was horrified. HOW did these kids know about that stuff already? Didn’t that just happen in the last few years? I’ve only been aware of it for about 10 years. I was about 30 yrs old when I first saw something like that!

So, there was a joke in the office for the next couple days as we all tried to grasp the sickness of it. Oh, the student wasn’t a boy… yeah, a sweet little angel 13 year old!

Sorry, no pictures of the pornography though I DID see them.

Horrifying! lol.

Here’s a blog post about one of my own “Haircut Misadventures“

Blogging Professionally… possible from Thailand?

I’ve was considering this question a lot before I decided that I needed to move back to the states.

I think it is definitely possible, but it would be a 6 month project or so - once you get up and running and figure out the whole blogging process and attracting enough site visitors to start making some cash.

Or, you could apply to write professionally for one of the major blog networks. B5 media, 451 press, and some other networks pay their bloggers in different ways. They have so much traffic and cash to fund site traffic that eventually - about 6 months - 10 months or so, your blog, if it’s any good will be doing pretty well. You’d make a couple hundred dollars per month for sure. A thousand if you were good. A couple thousand if you were really good. All per month.

Of course you’re writing FOR the company - and they own most everything you write. You don’t take it with you when you leave.

I thought about writing in this way for a while. I applied at B5 media for a couple positions, and while they liked my blogs, I couldn’t convince them to do a Thailand blog as they had just recently expanded their network and were feeling the money crunch.

Recently I applied to 451 Press and was accepted as a blogger for one of their travel blogs. I read all of the agreements I’d need to sign - and you know what?

They are VERY restrictive in what one can do once one leaves their network. It’s like a signing a non-compete agreement with yourself. If I blog at their Hawaii blog for a while - say, 6 months. I then quit or they ask me to leave… I cannot blog about the TOPIC of Hawaii for a period of time - I think it was 6 months! I cannot work FOR a company that is blogging about Hawaii either.

That was just too much for me. Since I will probably BE in Hawaii what else would I blog about? Alaska? Nah, I want to blog about Hawaii!

I read the agreement through again just to make sure I wasn’t missing something - nope - too restrictive. WHO would write under those conditions?

Not me.

Instead I searched godaddy.com and found a great domain name for Hawaii - h2Oahu.com and snatched it up and I’m building a Hawaii blog on there for things to do on Oahu, Hawaii in WordPress right now.

I think maybe the better option is ALWAYS to blog yourself under your own domain and get all the money, and own all the content. I think that’s the best way to go about this.

If you’re not doing that - you need to. If you can’t buy domains and setup your own blogs and get traffic yourself and optimize for search engines because you’re not quite savvy enough…

You can do it under the ThaiPulse! Travel Blog Network if you wish

- we don’t take any money from you - and we funnel visitors to your blog. YOU own the content and it’s a win-win for everyone.

Depending on your topic - you could have a LOT of visitors to your blog in a short amount of time. Jason at Isaan Style has a LOT of people reading his blog daily - around 200. If you wanted a blog about Muay Thai and you had a lot of interest and posted half as much as Jason does you’d do VERY well in the matter of a couple months. There are other hot topics…

I think blogging professionally from Thailand is possible - but, do it on your own. Don’t write for someone else, write for YOU.

I Never got the Clever Answers when I Taught Math…

English, that was a different story…

A friend sent this link from Korea because he knows I taught high school math for Thai kids last semester .

Best Test Answers >

Clever kids…

Working in Thailand… Working for Self…

In the states I’d have a job for a little while before deciding I’d be better off doing what I wanted to do and doing it on my own. I’d start a website, get it up and running, make it profitable and then get scared I wasn’t making as much as I wanted ($100,000 plus annually) as quickly as I wanted, and so I’d sell the site and go back to working for someone else for a bit.

I was an Internet Marketing consultant, and it was rather easy to find 2-6 month contracts with companies that wanted all their online efforts straightened out. I usually would go for a couple months, cut all spending and start over. I’d give them a plan for spending for the next year and they’d be happy and I’d leave and start more websites, sell them, and return to work at another company for a short contract.

It was a cycle that I repeated for a few years before finally deciding to come to Thailand to live full-time.

Now that I’ve come here I’ve relaxed QUITE a bit and there’s little stress to deal with here… I’m already tired of working at the schools and dealing with working for/with Thais’ that work and interact by a different system altogether. Socially, with friends I can interact fine… there’s no stress. There’s nothing I could possibly stress over amongst a group of Thai people that I’m friends with or interacting with in any manner that doesn’t involve business or money, my money or my time.

But, at school it’s like another world. I’m not happy with the system and not too keen on continuing it. I think blogging and other internet projects will work here in Thailand since I only have to make $1000 USD per month to survive OK. When I think of the web sites I’ve sold that were doing so much better than that - but not good enough to live comfortably in the USA… I think, DAMN! Should have kept those running and come to Thailand then.

Hindsight always sucks.

So I was reading some stuff online this morning and saw this guy’s idea of why NOT to work at a job you don’t want. It pulls together in one place a lot of what I’ve thought of and might bang a gong for you too?

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/7-reasons-to-quit-your-job/

Over the next few months I’m going to step-up the post frequency on ThaiPulse! and some of the other blogs. It will probably be overwhelming to those of you that come to read the blog daily since there will be more reading than most people will care to do, and the topics won’t always be the fun topics that are interesting. Topics will be about everything that will rank well in the search engines, as well as some fun stuff mixed in.

Just kind of warning you that the state of the blog will change over the next few months as I build a bank of a couple hundred articles that are geared for reading, but also for the search engines to index and bring me mad traffic. Just surf through and see if there’s anything to read… but don’t expect anything!

I’ll also re-arrange the link system on the right - there are too many topics to click on. I’ll shrink that list down to maybe 15 categories, if possible.

Categories will be something like…

Photos
Videos
Absurd
Thai Living as Expat
Thai Culture
Thai People
Thai Places
Things to do in Thailand
Funny Experiences
Rants
Bargirls, Ladyboys and Expats
News

Something like this - not sure yet, stay tuned.

Teaching English in Thailand: Round 4

Teaching English in Thailand, my new style is like a token system.

It’s the end of the year, semester 2 is finished and I can better assess what happened this year as I varied my teaching styles from semester 1 to semester 2.

The Thai kids are used to speaking when they want. They do NOT understand or listen when the teacher says quiet, shut up, silence, ngee-up, etc. They keep right on talking. They will talk whether you are quietly asking them or yelling loudly. Makes no difference to them. They have some mechanism inside that has been created over the years of living with Thais’ and dealing with only Thais’. Their brain tells them - when someone tells you to be quiet, it doesn’t really mean QUIET. It means - be quieter, and don’t talk as much. But, if you do anyway - the person giving you the command is not all that serious about it anyway - mai pen rai prevails in nearly all circumstances.

So, a foreign teacher that was brought up believing that someone talking while he/she is talking is rude and showing disrespect doesn’t understand Thai culture and must somehow either change that culture in the kids that are in the class, or change him/herself to adapt to the culture and map pen rai everything also.

I’m somewhere stuck between the two.

I know that the yelling and being very serious and strict doesn’t really work. It works for me - in the short term, but at the end of the day or semester when I sit and think about whether it was fun to teach the kids - I have to answer - NOPE. It sucked. I don’t LIKE to yell at the kids, yet, I believe if they aren’t silent while I’m teaching then they can’t learn. Then I’m not able to do my job. Which is unacceptable.

So, here’s what I did 2nd term.

I told them I was tired of yelling and that I wasn’t going to do it much anymore. I told them that I was not going to hit them with the ruler or whiteboard markers anymore.

Instead I implemented a daily token system of sorts. Everyday each student would get 3 points that goes toward their grade at the end of the semester. These points, when added up among 40 classes for our basic math - added up to 120 points that were possible for the whole semester.

My tests are all worth 100 points. That meant that kids had an opportunity to score a perfect 100% on a 120 point test each semester. This would help some quiet kids immensely, and hurt others that might be good academically, but clowns in the classroom.

The other thing I did so that the kids got a better feel for what was going to happen for each class is I came in and wrote 2 numbers on the whiteboard. I wrote the word “Seriousness” and under it put a level from 1-10. If we had a lot to learn that day I put an 8 or maybe a 9. I tried to usually have 7-8 on average. Somedays were 10’s. If a kid opened his mouth on a 10 day - he was outside with his nose on the wall quickly. 10 days were no fun. But, the kids understood that 10 days were NO FUN. If they didn’t act accordingly they lost their 3 points for the day, and possibly up to 9 other points for 3 more days depending if they wanted to push me further after putting their nose on the wall for 15 minutes outside.

The other word I wrote on the board was “lines”. Under this I wrote 2 numbers. The first was usually 100, and the second usually 200 or more. This was the number of lines they’d write if they screwed up bad.

The kids never knew what I’d do if they screwed up during class. That’s a little secret to the effectiveness I think. They never knew, would I make them write lines or take away their bonus points for the day. They knew something would happen though. Enforcing the system is VERY important for it to work.

An example… The kids knew by 2nd semester that they are never to talk while I’m talking. So, if I’m talking and writing on the board and I hear someone and I’m able to identify who it is - I just write their name on the board with a -1 or -2, or -3 up on the board - corresponding to the number of times they had acted inappropriately in class that day.

I had to be fair - never carrying over bad feelings for certain students to the next class. I had to treat everyone the same. If a bad kid or a good kid spoke out inappropriately they both lost the same number of points. Thai kids WANT fairness. If they don’t get it they’ll raise hell behind your back. For Thai kids to call you “unfair” as a teacher is a real blow since it is something they have very high on their list of priorities for a teacher.

So, the results of this experiment in teaching 15 year olds math for 2nd semester…

NOBODY had to write lines except one boy that irked me good. He lost 9 points for failing to do what I told him to do in one day. Then he refused to write lines for homework saying, Ajarn Vern, I don’t have time at night - I have special class… He gave me this excuse 4 times as each time I increased the number of lines he was to write. When we got to 400 lines and he said it again we marched down to the English Program director and set him straight.

The director was a push-over in every instance of discipline and never wanted to call the parents of the student for ANY reason. The kids knew this and also refused to do what she wanted. I wisely handed over the discipline to her to save face myself - because all the kids in the class saw this kid’s blatant refusal to do what I told him… The director made him write 100 lines total.

I never asked - but another kid told me - I said, oh, Aj. Pim is handling that now, I’m not sure what she agreed to with him. So - I saved face. Aj. Pim saved face. The kid saved face AND got what he wanted - to not do the lines. BUT, he also lost 24 of his daily points just over that episode, and got a 0 out of 20 on “Responsibility” assessment in his end of year pink book record which the parents DO see. He got a “B” that term instead of an “A” and everyone was happy… well, everyone but him.

So - nobody else had to write lines but we had a handful of jackazzes go from A’s to B’s and from B’s to C’s and from D’s to F’s on their final grades for Semester 2 because they couldn’t control themselves in my class (or anyone’s class). We had some students go from a B to an A and from D to C and F to D also - which was nice since they understood and exploited the system for their own good by being perfect students.
For the extra point system which added up to 120 points in basic math…

Out of 100 students 83 got an “A” grade resulting from the extra points. There were 15 F’s. Only 2 in-between. So - 83 students got a better grade because of this system, and 15 got a worse grade. The other 2 - about same as first semester.

I rarely yelled during the second semester and I didn’t need to do much more than start writing names with minus the numbers of points they were receiving as they talked to each other. When they kept talking I kept subtracting points. It worked really well because they all tell each other when they see someone losing points and the person doesn’t know it yet…

I believe this system was vastly superior over last semester’s drill-instructor system. I also tried during this term to do some fun stuff that lightened everyone up. We had about 10 classes that were ranked seriousness levels of less than 5. We played some games and had some bonus point contests where I did a problem on the board and asked for answers to different parts of it. If someone raised their hand first and answered correctly they’d get a bonus point. Some kids that never raised their hands started to do it - and got some bonus. That was cool to see…

Teaching English in Thailand: Surat Thani 1 High School, a review….

Teaching English in Thailand: Surat Thani 1 High School, a review…

Location: Surat Thani, Thailand (Surat town, Ampur Muang, in Surat Thani province).

Shopping: Tesco, Big C, Makro. Close enough to Ko Samui to get anything you can’t get here. If you can’t find it in Samui, Phuket town is a 4 hour bus ride to the south, or, rent a car and get there in 2.5 hours.

Western Restaurants: Couple western food places “Milanos” pizza by the night ferry comes immediately to mind. GREAT pizza by a guy that came from Italy 9 years ago and opened this place and another on Ko Tao.

NO McDonalds, but, the usual suspects: KFC, Dairy Queen, Pizza Company, MK’s, I’m sure I’m missing something. Oh, there’ s a Black Canyon Coffee in Tesco complex - but I found the coffee ALWAYS watered down, like they don’t know how to make it.

Banks: EVERY Bank in Thailand is here. Bangkok bank is the most international - they gave me a VISA debit card to use that works in Thailand. I also was able to guarantee my PayPal account with that card which was cool.

Airport: Yes, about 25-30 km away from Ampur Muang. Take a car, not a tuk-tuk into town or to the ferry!

Train Station: Yes, Phunpin station. Ends up 15 km from the city center - take a tuk tuk, motorbike taxi or regular taxi to town.

Boats / Ferries: Yes. They go to Ko Samui, Ko Pha-ngan, and Ko Tao.

Tourist Sex Scene: No. There are very few tourists that stay in the city for more than one night. There are some karaoke clubs here, that’s about it - thankfully.

Number of Farang teachers: 12-13

Countries represented (2007): Canada, USA, Britain, Holland, Philippines.

Average age of Farang teachers: 30?

Subjects Taught in English: Math, English, Science, Health, Physical Education

Contract required: 1 year. No part time hours or 6 month contracts unless you come late in the term - they might be desperate.

Western English teachers arrive by 7:30, sign in, fingerprint in, and relax until 7:50am when we have to go out to flag ceremony.

Everyone except one lucky guy (18) was teaching 20 hours per week. I taught 4 classes per day M-F. The classes are 1 hour each. Many teachers that were here when I already arrived were pulling a number of hours of overtime - some as many as 15 hours per week which they were paid 400b per hour (cash) for. About 7 teachers had this arrangement. I could have taught overtime classes if I wanted but I really wasn’t into teaching English anymore than I had to.

The overtime hours are done during regular daytime hours: 8:20am to 4:20pm. I believe there was one class that went 4:20 to 5:20 at times, though not sure which class(es).

There is one head of the English program - her assistant quit - post-mid 2nd term under less than obvious circumstances… fuzzy logic tells us that she lost a LOT of face when one of the American English teachers here asked her if he could have a different, more comfortable chair to sit in, and the woman approved it. This led to everyone wanting more chairs and extra costs to the English Program. The guy initially thought the school was paying, but the school thought he was paying… anyway, a minor fiasco that led to this woman disappearing without a word of goodbye to us.

The one in charge is Aj. Pim. Affectionately called, “the pimster”. She seems to be fair, and listens, but in the end it all goes the Thai way - mai pen rai for everything, keep the flow going.

There are two Thai guy staff that drive and that might just be it. They really do very, very little but watch tv and walk around, and sit at their desks doing nothing. If they aren’t driving, they aren’t working - so I think that must be their only job.

There is a Thai librarian, a Thai teacher of French, 2 accountant type girls and another girl that is sort of the liason between the pimster, the Thai staff and the rest of the native English speakers.

There’s a group of 12 native English speakers and one Filipina girl that is delightful.

This school is a well-respected government school that is a launching point for those kids that are considering going to great schools in Bangkok for Mathyom 4. This year I had one girl in my math class that was accepted to the top science school in Bangkok. No, I don’t know what the name of it is - but everyone that knew was highly impressed.

If you’re looking for GOOD internet connections while you have some down time in the office you WILL NOT FIND IT HERE if this year and last is any indication. I think it’s the high-speed service in general here, as even in Ubon (Isaan) we had MUCH better connections at the internet cafes there. The connection here is IFFY at best. During the entire year we were totally without service for probably 50 days.

We had shiteforservice about 150 days. And, we had decent, fast, works all day service for about 15-20 days. Not sure how many days that all is or if it is in ANY way related to the actual number of days I was here for teaching - but in my mind it makes sense. Take a look at the percentages rather than the actual numbers I gave - that’s a better indication what I really feel about the service here.

Now, internet dying everyday multiple times per day might not be that tragic because I can use my blue-tooth enabled phone to connect with GPRS and AIS phone system wirelessly with my laptop… that is

IF THE FARKING AIS PHONE SIGNAL WORKED
HERE FOR MORE THAN 5-10 minutes AT A TIME!

Yes, no signal here about half of the day - and some signal the other half. Unfortunately the half I’m talking about is 5 minutes on, 10 off, 10 minutes on, 5 off, 12 minutes on, 12 off… it’s frustrating to make ANY phone call here, yet alone set up the the phone for internet and keep getting cut off and having to reconnect the next time there’s a signal.

This is the only thing that REALLY SUCKS about working here - and that’s my rant about it.

On a positive note, if they HAD continuous internet service that didn’t piss all the staff off - there is a wireless a/b router that spits it out around the room and is easy to connect to - WHEN there is a connection. If you don’t have wireless for your notebook computer you can connect with a cable directly - there are about 4 of those here.

: |

Oh, the OTHER thing that sucked is - the IT people here that are to “fix” things and keep them running - do not. When I first arrived I was using the office computers (nice flat screens) but they lost an entire hard drive (with my first semester’s lesson plans on them). Later in the year they re-ghosted (copied over) 4 computers before they told anyone what they were doing! So, 4 computers full of data were written over. Everyone in the office lost something, some lost everything.

I had no lesson plans or sample work to look at when I arrived to teach M3 math. I had to look through books that weren’t great books, but all we had. The guy before me apparently didn’t KNOW how to teach Math and they got rid of him mid-term. The guy before him was a math super-genius who I was expected to live up to. The kids’ level of math ability was on par with about 6th grade in America - and these kids were 15 years old.

I’m done ranting, really.

So - we had a whore’s picnic of days off, especially in 2nd semester I think I worked less days than I had off. Government schools are the kitty’s MEOW if you are looking for holidays out the yin-yang. We had more three day weekends than I could count. We had a handful of 4 day weekends too. October - off.
If I was staying on here we have a month off now too - March 9th to April something. Everything paid.

We get 30000b salary and 4000 housing allowance. My house is 7000 and I think I’m living in the best house of anyone here. 5000 buys a great pad with 3 bedrooms, 2 stories, air con and a yard here in the outskirts around perimeter road.

We get 30000b bonus for completing a 1 year contract. I was hired at the end of May - and they were desperate so they gave me the bonus too.

There are numerous costs that come out of your paycheck. If you opt for the additional insurance through AIA - and I never do - you will pay about 900 initially and then 500 or so out of your check each month. You’ll have an unannounced trip to the hospital to get a scrape of the inside of your cheek until it bleeds for an AIDS test - and piss in a bottle in which they check for all STDS and other stuff I imagine.

You don’t NEED to get this - it’s optional - but the schools will never tell you this.

You must buy one of the blue/green Thai silk shirts that cost 1000 baht. A guy comes in to fit you for it. Girls and guys.

You have your work permit and VISA costs taken out - which are later reimbursed - they say. Which amount to around 5000 baht.

There is an English camp, Math camp, and Science camp that teachers are expected to go to - no extra pay.

There are some other “optional” things to attend at night - but all you’ll get is a dirty look for not going - and if you plan on staying for over a year you should go to everything that’s optional unless nobody from the English Program are going.

Working environment is ok - when away from the kids. The kids at DECENT government schools where they have had many farang teachers already and where farangs are not a novelty, are quite insane and not very respectful (I’m coming from Ubon Ratchthani where the kids were much better).

Seems if you teach rich and spoiled kids it’s the same anywhere. They are spoiled as all hell and don’t wai you if you’re not Thai - unless there is a Thai teacher hanging around - and then SOMETIMES. They don’t even wai some of the Thai teachers here! You’d not see that in the northeast.

The kids are awesome once you get to know them, but by that time, it’s the end of the year and they move on. A couple teachers here teach more than one grade, but most of us - just one level.

You’ll have your own desk and swivel chair. There are 8 desktop computers to share. Most have their own laptops so there’s always a desktop free. There’s a NICE laserjet color printer and a backup small deskjet printer if it dies.

The main copier SUCKS! But, the copier that you do the tests on - copies of more than 100 - is quite awesome. It’s new - we’re “trying” it. I hope they buy it. They really need to kill the other one and get a new copier for the 1-99 copies jobs.

You’ll need to do the pink books that are pure hell at the end of each of 2 semesters. I just finished mine and I feel like I need a break. I have an excel spreadsheet for Pink Books if you want it - you just fill in the blanks and you don’t need to do the manual computations for them. I then print it out and cut and paste it (literally) into the pink books.

Half of us do it here - and it’s one of two evils. Handwriting everything is a pain in the arse to me and I’d rather deal with the computer than writers cramp.

The school is NICE - the English Program building is new. The English camp was VERY fun - and complete blowoff since they have AYSO or someone handle the teaching side of things - we were just chaperones. I went climbing and walked the beach, swam, played football with the kids and drank at night with the other teachers (and some of the M3 kids came down to the bar and got their own!)

The air is cold in the classrooms and office, never a problem there.

There are some books to read at the English library - not enough though. Hmm, what else… there’s a TV in the staff room that is on WAY too much for my taste. The 3 giants (all guys over 6′2″) LOVE to watch American football, basketball, boxing, HBO movies and anything literally that’s on TV - it’s quite annoying. I usually put my headphones on and hook into my laptop and write blogstuff.

The farangs that stay here year after year are great people - welcoming to new-comers and really helpful. GOOD bunch of people to co-work with.

The others of us - we’re rolling stones. I need to find something different. I think I’m going to pursue this blog as hard as I can and see where it goes. I’ve got some ideas for how to make it great, but it will be a lot of experimentation I can foresee…

Mor on Location: We’re in an AWESOME spot that is in close proximity to everything fun about Thailand… Ko Samui, Phan-gan, Tao, Krabi, Phuket, Phangnan, an overnight train to BKK.

My girlfriend and I can hop on the motorbike and hit Don Sak Pier in 60 minutes, catch the ferry - WITH the motorsai, arrive Ko Samui 90 minutes later - hit our bungalow in Tong Takien beach in 25 minutes and be relaxing on the beach at 5pm on ANY Friday!

I had Friday afternoon off - and the director was pretty flexible about us leaving early on Fridays if no classes. Also - pretty liberal policy overall about leaving anytime you need to do something. AND for calling in sick anytime.

That’s about it… wouldn’t it be GREAT if we had a database of reviews in some standardized format that we all could take a look at BEFORE we went to work at a school? That’d take some doing - but maybe someone reading is interested in creating a useful web site??

Teaching in Thailand: Jobs Available

The jobs that are available always greatly outnumber the
jobs I want.

Right now I’m trying to find a job in the northeast of
Thailand, in a good school, that pays 32-35,000 Thai
baht per month. It’s gotta be close to Laos so I can go
frequently. It should be close to a major city with a Tesco
so I can have Italian bread (french bread) sometimes.

It should have some universities. It should have good
internet connections SOMEWHERE - even if not at my
home. It should have good connection at the school I
work at.

There should be virtually no farang there at all. One or
two that I might see each day - ok. No more really. No
tourist atmosphere.

They need to have awesome som tam, spicy, spicy.

The school should give me a bonus at the end of the year
equal to one month of salary. The school should offer
yearly increases if I stay. The school should have some
experience already dealing with farangs and know that
we don’t take well to last minute notices.

The teaching job should be for Prathom 2 or 3, maybe
4. Or, I would consider a university job - but they don’t
pay so well in Isaan. Never more than 28,000 baht per
month.

The city should have lots of traditional morlam dancing.
I LOVE that stuff. I love the music too. I should get
awakened every Saturday and Sunday by groups of
people dancing behind a pickup truck with large speakers
and some guy playing a crazy instrument that sounds
almost like east Indian music, but is much, much better.

There should be a too-geh outside my window.

There should be a Makro where I can buy a ping-pong
table so I can invite people over.

Ideally the job would be close to a part of Laos that is
thin so I could shoot across Laos and into Vietnam for
a 3-day weekend.

There should be an English camp where we go
somewhere fun like Ko Chang near Rayong.

There should be Thai teaching assistants.

It should be a great Song Kran town. I think all the
towns in the northeast are, though I’ve been to just
Ubon and Sisaket oh, and Warin Chamrap. Those
are all perfect.

Anyway… Anybody know of a teaching job in the
northeast that is looking to hire for next term that
might fit the above?

Didn’t think so!

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