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By Fred Nesvold
"Good morning, teacher Fred!” The 30 children in my first class cheerfully shout this greeting to me in unison as we begin another day in the Thai school where I teach. The entire student body – 800 children – has already gathered on the playground to listen to a series of unnecessarily long announcements before showing their campus pride by spending 25 minutes raking and sweeping the grounds and watering plants. School is mandatory here from kindergarten through age 16. At age 16, the school enrollment drops from six homerooms per grade to two. Most of the students who choose not to continue their formal academic education go to vocational/technical school to learn trades and help support their families. Overhead fans provide temperature control in the classrooms, which often average 80 to 90 degrees, which increases the challenge of keeping them involved. Class size is 30 to 50 students, so individual attention is rare. The students all wear a prescribed uniform and have a hair length code. Boys have a short “buzz cut” while girls cannot have hair that touches the neck. On Wednesdays, they wear their Scout uniforms because Scouting is mandatory. All students are either in Scouts or in the Red Cross. Scouting consists of little more than wearing a Scout uniform on Wednesdays and meeting after school on Wednesdays. The talks cover rules of scouting, camping and scout duties. There are occasional campouts and walks, but no merit badges and different classes of Scouts as I recall from my youth. Many teachers are Scout leaders and lead the students in marching drills. The drills are also typical of the teaching style. Multiplication tables, spelling words, and science formulas are memorized like lines of a play. There is very little creative thinking. When asked to write about what they did over the weekend, many students often ask, “What’s the right answer?”
I usually do my own photocopying because it is quicker. When it comes to getting something done, there is a saying here: “Ask politely, ask often.” Many times when you ask for something you will get a “yes” answer. Days will pass and no action. You just ask again. Thais are very polite and do not like confrontation. To tell you “no” would be a confrontation of sorts. So they say “yes” when they do not mean “yes.” They just do not want to say “no.” This can be really frustrating. I have said on many occasions, “If you really mean no, please just say no. I really prefer it this way.” There is also “Thai time.” If you say 9 p.m., you mean 9 p.m. plus or minus a few minutes. To a Thai, arriving at 9:30 or 10 p.m. would be on time. School usually starts 10 to 15 minutes late. When I get frustrated about how things are different here (like the lack of efficiency), I ask myself this question: “When you add up all those things that annoy and irritate you, do they outweigh all the wonderful qualities of life here? The answer has always been no! When the answer is yes, you will see me returning to The Land of Bush. How did Fred Nesvold “I had six interviews and five job offers,” he said. “I chose Thailand because I went on an organized tour of Thailand in 2003 and just love the country, the people, the food. “Thailand was the lowest paying, by far. But, the cost of living is very low here,” he said. Phuket still reeling from tsunami's impact By Fred Nesvold When the tsunami struck Thailand, I was living and teaching in Bangkok. I saw none of the damage personally until I moved here to Phuket about five months later. When I got here, there was still much debris on the beach ... weird stuff, like a tennis shoe with barnacles, pieces of plywood, plastic bottles. Most of the beach-side businesses were rebuilt and ready for the tourists. The tourists did not come for quite a while. The Asians feared another tsunami and feared the ghosts of the improperly buried dead. Other beaches are still being rebuilt. Worldwide aid has been erratic. Stories abound of money being pocketed or improperly spent. Many skilled workers left Phuket to find work in other towns, like Bangkok, leaving a worker shortage. The one-year anniversary, December 26, was observed with a ceremony at Patong Beach, one of the hardest-hit beaches. That evening, the crowd dug holes in the beach and placed a candle in each hole to commemorate the lost. It was called "100,000 candles in the sand." Posted March 9, 2006 |
Class supplies can range from good whiteboards to dismal chalkboards where the board writing is almost unreadable. Textbooks also range from new, American texts to old, stenciled (remember the stencil?) mimeographed books. When requesting paper clips, on one occasion, they were counted out 1-2-3!
Nesvold said he got the idea for teaching in Thailand after attending an International Teaching Jobs Fair at University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, where around 300 schools, worldwide, were interviewing.