Here and There- Teaching in the US vs Teaching in Thailand

For the last two weeks I've been working as a substitute teaching assistant in a special needs classroom at an elementary school in Kansas. The ten days I've spent assisting the six students at this elementary school has been my first exposure to the US education system. It is a very different experience from my teaching career in Thailand and it's not just the fact that I speak the same first language as my students. For this post I thought, I would talk about some of contrasts I've seen between the Thai and American schools I've taught in. Disclaimer: I don't think either system is perfect.That said, I'll start with some aspects of my US experience that I think are better before I detail some aspects of American education that I don't think are very positive.

Class Size

Going from thirty eight first graders in Thailand to six in the US is amazing. Granted, the kids I help teach now all have similar temperaments to the seven or eight naughty students I would inevitably find in each of my Thai classes. When you have at least one student each day getting into a brawl or throwing a temper tantrum, it can be exhausting. However, the plus side to the US school is that I no longer have to worry about another thirty six or seven kids losing focus while I deal with two boys breaking each others faces over a batman figure. I can focus all my energies on the one student throwing his fit, in a classroom where he doesn't distract other kids.

Students with Learning Disabilities

 

This brings me to the next big difference. The fact that at my Thai school, there were no programs for children with severe disabilities. They were thrown into the mix with everyone else and there was no clear method to integrate them into the classroom or develop specific activities that would cater to their strengths. This makes my current experience in a classroom designed specifically for learning disabled children all the more remedying. It's comforting to see kids who struggle in this way get special attention and devotion.

Periods and Days

With little children, less is always more. That's a firm belief after two years of watching Thai first graders struggle to make it through eight or nine hour days filled with fifty minute periods. Children have short attention spans. The younger they are, the faster you'll lose them. At the school I'm working at now, each first grade class only goes for twenty five minutes. Their days are only seven hours long, including two recesses, lunch and PE. This make the students' lives and mine a lot easier. In Thailand when 3:00 came we'd still have two more hours to go and we teachers would be struggling tooth and nail to hold onto our students, whose energies were spent.

 

 

Freedom of the Students

In Thailand, students were given a lot of personal freedom around campus. Even my first graders were expected to move on their own if they had a class in a separate building. This often meant it took them fifteen or twenty minutes to walk thirty feet, especially when they found cool things like bugs to distract them. Students were also expected to come back on their own from recess and break. Not surprisingly, you'd find a few boys lingering outside or wandering around the backside of the buildings during the next few periods. In the States, students need teacher's to walk them around the corner of the hall to go to lunch. Teacher's need to watch the students get picked up and go home. Bottom line, here in the US there's a feeling young children need to be watched and supervised when they move around the school. If they aren't, this is seen as endangering the children and a liability for the school.

Security and Level of Paranoia

The US is a very paranoid country, in my opinion. It seems like we worry about everything trying to kill us, especially if you watch the latest local news story about how cottage cheese could give you cancer. Americans are also scared of some calamity befalling their children. It's only natural to be concerned for children and to want to protect them. Mass shootings and child abduction are real dangers. However, I think Americans spend an unusual amount of time thinking about security and how they can die, especially since they live in a country that doesn't have to deal with issues like active civil wars, regular bombings, or pandemic diseases. A lot of this fear, I think, is due to US media which is a topic for another day. I got a glimpse of this fear at work at Eudora when there a low level lock-down do to gunshots being fired nearby. It might sound alarming but the school is in a very rural area where hunters track turkeys. Regardless, some of my co-teachers were alarmed and visibly tense in spite of this knowledge.

Personal Space 

 

No matter where you are in the world, little children crave physical attention. In Thailand, giving one of your students a friendly hug, a high-five, or a tap on the shoulder isn't necessarily taboo. For me, I found occasionally giving a student a bit of physical attention refocused them. In the States though, teacher's and students maintain a significant bit of personal space between each other. No physical contact of any kind should be made unless it's an emergency. There are legitimate concerns in this area. I definitely understand that. But, once again I feel as if people in the US go too far in their safety concerns. One student I teach now in the special ed class, is highly affectionate. Much like my students in Thailand his instinct is to greet me with a hug. However, because this isn't Thailand I have to tell him to mind his personal space. The principle told me minding his personal space was an issue he struggles with. That's a truly sad state of affairs when giving too many hugs is regarded as a problem.

Filling the Time

In Thailand, I wouldn't really feel obliged to have something to do during free periods. It's nice to have a break when you've been standing in front of the mob for an hour or two. My jobs in certain developing countries have been similar. You don't have to be 100% productive 100% of the time. In the States though, even when you don't have things to do you're expected to be busy in some way, or at least appear to be so. If you're not constantly doing something, than something's wrong. I almost wonder if Americans are afraid of silence and stillness. I had a fellow teaching assistant comment the other day during a twenty minute break between classes that she felt awful when she wasn't doing something. I think the US could learn something from embracing the Thai notion of 'sabai' (letting things go).

Six Letters, Six Students- A Farewell

Last week, I decided to leave my school early. The decision was not an easy one but I am certain it was the right one. In the coming weeks, I'll try and write more about the thoughts and developments which prompted me to leave four weeks before the year ended. For now, I'll say that personal reasons and dissatisfaction with work, combined with  being accepted into a US based teacher certification program (which starts in March), convinced me that the best thing for my life at present was to go back Stateside. I'll be in Kansas City for the next seven or eight months to work through the program and do my student teaching. Afterwards, I hope to teach the history or the social sciences at an international school somewhere in the world.

 Although I'm certain that my decision to leave a little early was the right one, it was still hard to say goodbye to my students. Despite the hassle and difficulties that often arise in the classroom, I feel a strong love and attachment to the little six and seven year olds who also have filled the past two years with joy.

 It was a privilege to share their lives for a time. And there are six I want to write to here and now. 

 

-To Bio, the hardest working and most well behaved first grader.

I can't tell you how much your presence in my most difficult class made my darkest days so much brighter. You were in a class filled with so many apathetic students and yet you remained so attentive and so eager to participate in everything. I don't know how many adults in a similar situation would continue to be so steadfast. I hope you never lose that drive, that determination, that desire to be good despite what everyone around you is doing. On the other hand, I hope your greatest strength doesn't also become a weakness. I hope that your desire to respect authority doesn't stunt your creativity but allows it to grow. No matter what though, know you'll always be my superhero. 

-To Suveer, the most helpful boy ever.

Thank you for your endless eagerness. Thank you for your unfailing smile. Thank you for always waiting at the door to my office with your book in hand to show me where your class was at that day. Thank you for always being eager to lend a hand and help out whether it was by turning on the projector, testing out my markers, translating instructions or choosing a book.

-To Tua-O, the environmentally conscious genius.

 Tua-O, I know I haven't always been on good terms with you. I'm sorry that you found my after-school classes boring. Please know I never meant to make you upset. The truth is you were right on many occasions when you argued with me about leaving early. You, already fluent, able to tell me about wind turbines and explain the concept of evaporation in your second language, never belonged there in those after-school programs. You should be in an international school, not taking lessons with kids who are still learning how to put short sentences together about animals. However, you do have much to learn especially when it comes to being with others. If you can be as wise as you are brilliant, I truly believe you will do anything.  

 -To AA, the worst troublemaker.

 You were, like so many of the boys I met these past two years, difficult. But most distressing to me was how you could be so mean spirited and cruel. It was your pension for inflicting pain that convinced that children were not truly innocent. Each time I saw you in class you tested my resolve. You challenged me at every turn and you showed no respect to anyone including me. Some would call you a problem child. I called you, though never to your face, an asshole. Yes, it may seem harsh or cruel to talk about a seven year old boy in that way. But that is what you were. Please know though, that calling you out for this does not mean I am apathetic or cold towards you. Quite the opposite. I would still die for you as I would for any of the obedient students who sat still in their chairs. I've seen your energy in the classroom. I've seen your determination with certain activities. You have a charisma even at your young age. If you could harness that energy and determination you could be so much. Perhaps, no one in your life has told you this yet. Perhaps, I failed as a teacher to open your eyes to this. I hope you meet someone down the line who will.
 

-To Len, the jolly little dough-ball.

 You were always so warm and cheerful in the classroom. You started out wayward and distracted. Now, you focus so much more and do almost every assignment. I know you don't know this but this is a triumph for me. Whenever a student finds the will to participate it makes us teachers at the front all the more relieved. It alleviates some of the doubts, the weariness, the apathy that always hangs around our office desks in those moments of silence where we say 'What the hell am I accomplishing here?' For that little morsel of relief and ratification, I thank you.  

-And finally to Nana, the girl from another world.

 The first student I ever bonded with. I know I haven't seen you too much since last year. Know though that I've never forgotten your name when I've spied you on the playground between class periods. I've seen how you've shot up since first grade and how you stroke the leaves and massage the petals of the flowers outside your new building. Know that I will never forget you. You taught me much in that year we spent in the classroom together. I could tell straight away that you were different, lost in your own world and oblivious to the chaos of your thirty seven peers. Some would say you were learning disabled. I myself did. In hindsight I don't believe that was accurate. You were actually enabled in ways most of us aren't. The fact that I could somehow infiltrate your universe and become a part of it, is something that makes me feel proud. I will treasure the times you  wandered in the office and stay by my desk, standing still long enough for me to pull out flashcards and be astonished at how you seemed to absorb just about everything I had said in class despite having never looked me in the eye. I know it's not easy being so removed from everyone. I hope you can find others among your peers to share your majesty with. I hope someone can give a name to your wonderful state and provide you and those who love you with the right information. I hope they cultivate you as the rose you are, not the orchid they want you to be.