Last Week of Teaching

Last week was, believe it or not, my final week of teaching for the semester. While school is still in session for another 2 weeks, Fulbright TUSEF requires all grantees to intern during the month of March. The internship can be pretty much anything, the only requirement was that it had to be within Thailand. So, on Thursday I am heading to Kanchanaburi for the next three weeks to work at an elephant sanctuary for sick, disabled, and formerly abused elephants. I am sooo excited, I just bought my bus ticket this evening. The task of packing for the next two months (afterwards I head straight to Hong Kong, Singapore, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Bangkok) is a bit daunting, though! Anyways, I thought I'd share a few picture from my last week of school with you. I spent the last semester hearing my students ask, "Teacher, watch Mr. Bean!" So, I caved. First through ninth grade got a healthy dose of comic relief last week. (Really fun for me to see that Mr. Bean entertains such varying ages).

The week was very bittersweet, as my oldest, most-fun-to-teach class- Matthayom 3 (9th grade), is graduating, and I therefore will never get to teach them again. Thailand is on a different academic calendar than we have in America, so I really started teaching in the second semester, and I will continue for one more semester in about two months (which is a new school year for students here). Matthayom 3 was always a respectful, fun group, and they spoke good enough English that I could make some jokes with them. It is also in this class that I met my first real friends at school. A few students, particularly Bow and Bew (pictured below), stayed after school to teach me Thai (in exchange for extra English practice), watch Korean music videos together, and argue over who is Justin Bieber's "real" girlfriend (me, duhh). I will miss them so very much, and I have to say that they started crying when they were hugging me goodbye, and then I started crying. A very bittersweet, but wonderful end to my first 5 months here.

Mind the water buffalo! 

(Everyday drive to school)

They would definitely dent your car

Water buffalo seen through the back window of P'Nuan's car,

next to one of many hanging stuffed animals.

3rd grade laughs at Mr. Bean

Love that kid sitting front and center

3rd Grade (Prathom 3)

2nd Grade

Some of my 2nd graders wanted to take a picture 

with me after class. It turned out so cute! I will never grow 

tired of the little girls' hair cuts here.

Backwards ABC puzzle. Classic

4th grade. These guys got pretty comfortable on that hard floor.

The 3 boys lying together had their arms around each other the entire time.

4th grade. One of my naughtiest classes, but turned out to 

be one of my favorites. We'll see next semester :)

Matthayom 3 students hang out with me.

Bow hides behind a "Curious George" book.

Three of my absolute faves outside of my classroom

Bew and Bow, aka Justin Bieber's 2nd and 3rd girlfriends.

Glad these two aren't graduating (3rd grade). 

They spent a whole class period looking at birthday cards

with me way back in November. Thais do not consider either of 

these girls attractive because they have darker skin. I think that they

are exotically stunning, though. Don't you?! I go out of my way to tell 

them how beautiful I think they are, because I know they never hear that...

and they ARE!!!

2nd graders (aka my groupies).

These girls don't care for English that much, but they follow me 

around like I'm the coolest person that ever walked their school.

7th grade

One of my favorite parts of the day is directly after lunch.

Two students need to present an arbitrary English word to the

rest of the school. The word on my last day of school: "Potato."

Sentence: "I like to eat potatoes." 

Everyone else sits on the floor and listens. Very frequently I 

will be asked to get up and speak English with them for 5 minutes.

The beautiful clouds on my drive back home.

 9th grade (Matthayom 3)

Even though I didn't have to come to school after February 29th, 

I went just to say goodbye to these guys. I am honestly sad that they are

graduating. I held out my camera and all of the girls immediately started fixing their hair.

Also, my view everyday as teacher!

We had a great run. (M.3)

These school uniforms are the same throughout Thailand.

I like them!

These girls brought in their own camera to take some pictures.

I wanted copies too!

Bew

Bow can be surprisingly gangsta

I will miss her so much

Snowman photoshoot

More snowmen

1st grade, Am and Krim.

I couldn't get anything done during class because every 5 seconds

a different 1st grader would come up to me and hand me a sticker.

A-DOR-ABLE

1st grade boys. A really bright, well-behaved, gentle group.

One of my favorites to teach. Looking forward to seeing them

as 2nd graders next spring!

P'Noon and P'Nuan

(The two other English teachers at my school)

P'Nuan and P'Oye

 (P'Oye is a brand new English teacher at school)

Bow and I getting gangsta with some English (animal) posters 

in my classroom. I miss this already!!!