A Busy Week

A busy week in a busy life! Friday was Academic Day at school so we had a load of inter-school competitions and lots of visitors. I was a judge in one of the speech competitions and my heart goes out to the competitors. What a difficult terrifying experience! In some respects a waster of time, in my humble opinion, and of little academic worth. Also there was a lot of noise outside our room, the mandatory karaoke competition, so some of the more softly spoken kids were virtually inaudible. In any event we did not have to teach and such days are always welcome!

I was never a fan of learning things by rote, anyone can do it, and I am not really sure if an ability to recite something parrot fashion indicates anything in particular. I would exclude poetry from this. I was a victim of the Catholic Catechism, and I remember learning such pearlers, aged 9,  as: "A sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace ordained by Jesus Christ, Our Lord." I am still not very clear what this means!  We used to get a weekly test on it and we were belted for poor performance! Plus I could recite the Credo in Latin by about age 12.

Clearly learning a speech in a foreign tongue is much more challenging and I don't doubt that the transition from Thai to English and vice versa is much more daunting than say from English to French or  Latin. The key thing in this respect is the script,  the Thai language as well as having many huge differences from romance languages has a different script.

From teaching I readily appreciate what a challenge learning a new script can be. I teach a lot of kids who really struggle with writing in English. Unwittingly my Saturday morning class has a strong emphasis on reading and writing and trying to match written with spoken. My kids are writing correctly whereas many kids have a tendency to adapt the same approach they use for Thai.

But I felt for some of these students as they quite literally died on their feet or otherwise struggled to enunciate badly written speeches. The process was as mechanical as Mortlake Crematorium, London, in that people had their allocated slots and on completion were rather unceremonially moved on for the next contestant. I would have liked to give the students some feedback and some encouragement but sadly there was no provision to do this.

I am not sure whether it is a reflection on my skills or not but I was very pleased that two of the students I tutor won a speech and a story telling competition respectively. One in particular, at 10 years old, is a truly gifted child and I believe she has the potential to win national competitions. Her parents are quite ambitious for the child and I told them to be careful with her and not push her too hard. Both of the girls gave me a hug! These are the moments when as a teacher I get a deep sense of satisfaction. It is important for me to feel meaningfully engaged and that I am doing something positive. I recall the many years I worked in public/voluntary organisations and was usually embroiled in so much conflict that it was impossible to pay any attention to delivering a service to customers. I have to say that I also got a lot of satisfaction when I was cabbing/chauffeuring and a lot of money too!

From a school perspective we have English camp next week for Grades 5 - 9. There will be about 160 kids plus teachers, headed for a resort in Suan Poong, a mountain area to the west of Ratchaburi and towards the Myanmar border, for three days/two nights. The theme is Health & Well Being and I am delivering a session on Healthy Eating. Sadly I will be away from Luna & Benedict.

Benedict as always is a joy. Today he has an upset tummy, must have a bug so he has been quite uncomfortable and poohing a lot. I think it is passing. Unusual to see Benedict so grumpy and miserable. However he has started to smile again so we reckon he is on the mend. There are real clear sounds coming from his mouth....... baaah baah ....... and so we reckon a comprehensible sound is not so far away. Physically Benedict is strong and he is becoming adept at manoeuvring himself across our bed. I will probably have to make the house Benedict proof in the next month or so to prevent him from falling down the stairs.

On the bird front nothing major to report. I saw two beautiful pied kingfishers in the air at Huay Mai Teng Reservoir, Friday, I say beautiful but they make a horrible screech! Our pied harriers are still local, well two of the females were out hunting late Friday afternoon. Yesterday a quick trip to Laem Pak Bia showed 170 black-tailed godwits and 18 painted stork. I still have so much to learn!