Sunday, November 21

Maybe one of the best ways to talk about teaching this week would be to share some stories about a few of my students…

Asher is one of my tiniest students. He’s three years old and has a big smile that reveals all his front teeth are missing. I only ever saw his smile in online classes, though—like all the other students, he’s always wearing a mask, and his is a particularly tiny Union Jack mask. His father is a foreigner (British? I’m not sure—I’ve only seen his mother) and Asher has brown hair and speaks a ton of English. Still, he’s hard to understand—he has a small voice and can’t enunciate very well, and the mask doesn’t help. When I ask questions of the group, like, Is it snowing or raining in this picture?, he’ll raise his hand and, when I call on him, go off on a pretty incomprehensible monologue about some experience he had that maybe has something vaguely to do with the rain.

He also had this really earnest, slightly surprised way of saying “yeah” where he stretches the word out to two syllables in his chirpy little voice. I’ll go and talk to him while he’s working with the turtle life cycle sensory activity, and I’ll say, Asher, what’s this? And he’ll tell me it’s a turtle and then go into a whole story (that I can only partially parse), that ends with him and his dad eating all the turtles. And I’ll say, You ate the turtles? And he’ll chirp, yeah!

Asher has a hard time with the morning arrival at school. Every time I’ve seen him getting dropped off in the morning, he’s crying. Unlike most of the other kids who struggle with drop off (poor things!), he doesn’t sob or scream, he just weeps silently as he’s passed from his mother to his teacher.

Wayha is another K1 student, and is as tiny as Asher. He has big round eyes and a worried expression. He started school a week later than most of the students and he spent that Monday and Tuesday crying for most of the day. On Wednesday, I was doing my morning presentation—which involves all the kids watching me as I say a prayer, tell a story, etc—and I saw Wayha’s face start to crumble. I kept talking for a while, but eventually I just felt like I had to do something, so I moved to sit next to him and rubbed his back while I kept talking to the other kids. But he was kind of shying away from me, so after a minute, I moved back to the front of the class.

When Wayha joined his skill group (small group session) later that day, I saw he was carrying something in his hand. Afterwards, I asked him what it was and he showed me a photo of him with his mom and dad, which had been placed in a little plastic sleeve. I asked him if it was a picture of his family, and he lit up and became suddenly verbose, telling me something in a stream of Thai and pointing to different things on the photo, including his own picture, which he pointed to using the third person—Wayha, Wayha.

Wayha did better on Thursday and Friday, though he still had the photo in his hand all day and he still looked worried in the mornings. He warmed up a little by the afternoons, and though he mostly stared at the other kids while we sang If You’re Happy and You Know it, he did jump up and giggle when we got to the surprised verse.

Then there’s Timmy, who is a K2 student with a lightning bolt fade on the side of his head. He is shy but quick to smile and is starting to raise his hand in class more and more. On Thursday, I went to chat with him when he was working with the chicken life cycle. I have my usual thing that is what (I think) we’re supposed to do—I start with asking the students to Show me the chicken, etc. then I point and say What’s this? What’s this? Etc. When I came to see Timmy, he had the chicken in his hand and he started pointing to different parts. What’s this? he said. That’s the beak, I said. What’s this? he said. That’s the comb, I said. What’s this? he said. Eyes, I said. And it was only at that moment I realized he was imitating me—making me answer his questions!

I’m going to try and keep taking notes as the term goes on—I haven’t even told you about Din, or Hampton, or Miki yet! Characters, all.

Anyway, Friday was Loy Krathong, a holiday that marks the end of the rainy season in Thailand. It is traditional to float a lotus-shaped basket (or krathong) containing flowers, incense, and a lit candle onto any body of water. I’ve heard the krathongs represent wishes for the new year, or chance to release your anger and grudges from the past year, or a way to thank the water goddess for her abundance. Whatever it means, on Friday, all over Bangkok, people were congregating at parks, on the khlongs, and along the river to release their krathongs.

Before heading to Benjasiri park, Roman and I had dinner at an Issan place nearby (we got seafood salad, duck larb, sticky rice, fish sauce fried chicken wings, and som tam).

And then we headed to the park, joining crowds of people—including many families, and many little kids decked out in traditional Thai clothing and glow sticks. I think we’d missed the big rush, as many of the krathongs were collecting by the side of the man-made lake, no longer lit, but it was still pretty cool to see.

We bought a krathong from one of the many vendors outside the park, borrowed a lighter, and floated it out onto the lake.

And...here are some more pics from the week…

On Monday, Roman and I did an audition for commercial voiceover work in Bangkok (we’ve since been added to the roster of talent—will let you know if anything comes of it). Anyway, after the audition, we went to dinner at a Northern Thai restaurant. For some reason, we both ordered soup instead of salads, larb, or fried chicken. Roman got beef soup with dill, and wasn’t crazy about the very deep, savory taste combined with the kind of floral, abundant dill. I got snakehead fish soup with bamboo shoots—which tasted fine, but man, it smelled like the Khlong Toei market—like fish guts, garbage, and rot. I tried really hard not to smell it as I ate it, and of course failed—I still kinda can’t believe I ate this one! It was late after the audition and I was really hungry.