Happy Thankyougiving

I hope each of you had a lovely Thanksgiving (or, as one of my students said, Thankyougiving). I feasted on a plate of vegetable fried rice with a side of fried egg and brothy soup. It definitely wasn’t your turkey with gravy and stuffing, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Last week I taught a Thanksgiving-themed lesson. Most of my students had never even heard of the holiday because their former English teachers were usually from England. I passed out a word search with vocabulary like “pumpkin pie” and “mashed potatoes.” I discovered that word searches work wonders with these kids. For the first time ever, they stayed in their seats and were totally silent! A lot of students used rulers to circle the words, and if they made a mistake, they’d immediately whip out their white-out pens and carefully blot out the error. We followed up the word search with a couple conversation activities where I also discovered the power of stickers and candy. I have those kids in the palm of my hand with just a few cheap and simple incentives.

Speaking of students, a couple days ago I learned that one of my grade 2 students (equivalent of U.S. 8th grade) fell from the top (3rd) floor of the school (not while I was teaching). Fortunately he survived with just a few broken fingers and toes. Apparently he attempted to visit the next classroom over by crawling out the window, hanging onto the shutter, and swinging over to the next window. In the midst of swinging, the shutter broke off and he fell to the ground. The students ran to get a teacher and initially the teacher brushed it off because he thought the student simply fell from first floor. I guess students frequently crawl from one window to the next on 1st floor to visit their friends. “Mai chai, mai chai! No, no!” they exclaimed. “THIRD floor!” The student was taken to a hospital about an hour from here. I imagine he’ll come back to class a war hero.

I think this tale finely illustrates the general chaos of Kanchana Kalasin School. It’s definitely a whole nother playing field here. You just have to laugh – otherwise you might get an ulcer from worry.