Still Haven't Been Sold Into Sex Slavery: Bradley Vs. The Mini Thais: Round 3

Mickey

With the start of the new school year came four new classes of tiny Thai babies. During morning assembly I gawked at how big my students from last semester had gotten over two months of summer break. I also gawked as they didn’t seem to remember who the hell I was. It’s to be expected but still stings.

I set my sights to the new kids. When I walk into the classroom I always lead the kids in some fun exercises to help them realize class is about to begin. Nothing I did knocked these kids out of their silence, including flapping my arms like a bird which usually gets some laughs. Some of the kids are barely two years old. If they can’t even speak Thai very well I kept wondering how it was I was suppose to teach them any English. I teach K 1, which would be considered pre-kindergarten 2 in America. The classes are separated into K1/1 – K1/4, with K1/4 home to the youngest students. I thought this would end up being the most challenging class but K1/3 exceeded all my challenging expectations. K1/3 is home to two new Chinese students. These two kids, Chun-Chun and Mickey, came from Taiwan when their parents moved to Thailand for business. Neither child speaks Thai and the teachers, with the obvious exception of the Chinese language teachers, don’t speak Chinese. Although the K1/3 homeroom teacher, Cru Behn, speaks a few Chinese phrases. It’s a recipe for a fantastic kindergarten disasters.

Chun is the pouty one in the middle

K 1/3 is my first class of the day. I walked into the classroom and Chun is sobbing. Behn and her classroom helper are doing what they can to try and calm her down. Their tactics include gentle cooings, stern Thai phrases that translate into “stop crying” and “sit in your chair” to just leaving her in the corner to cry. I was totally unprepared. I’ve spent a lot of time with mothers who discuss their child melt-down horror stories but I’d never seen one. When I walk in the room, Chun takes one look at me, raises her head, opens her mouth in a perfect cartoon character way and lets out a banshee of a wail. Her face turns bright red within seconds as she dramatically throws herself to the floor and starts beating the hardwood floor with her hands and legs. Nothing will calm her. She is wailing and screaming and screaming and screaming and sobbing. I’m more frazzled than Chun is at this point. Behn tells me to start teaching my class but all the other kids are sitting at their desk, watching Chun in horror and confusion. A few of them walk over to get a closer look at the carnage. It’s heartwarming to see the kids speak to her, tell her “mai pen rai” (it’s okay) and try and rub her back, only to have her scream even harder. I tried for a few minutes to get up in front of the class and get the kids to sing a song with me but no one was paying any attention, obviously. How can I compete for their attention with a horrific meltdown occurring right before their eyes. We start gaining more attention as other teachers from nearby classrooms come to see what the fuss is about. Eventually someone gets one of the Chinese teachers but they aren’t having any better luck. The class is a dud.

Mickey spilling most of her popsicle.

Two hours later, I’m sitting at my desk in the foreign language department the English and Chinese teachers share. In walks one of the Thai teachers from the front office clutching the hand of a girl who looks like she has no idea what planet she’s on. I’m instantly in love with her. Watching her as she assess the room it appears her eyes are taking in everything and seeing something unseen by anyone else in the room. Her smile is a wide, open mouth grin of pure excitement and glee. Mickey has arrived. The Thai teacher is blabbing something in Thai to my boss, Mrs. Khim, known to Jenna and I as the master of languages as she reads and speaks Thai, Chinese and English. When the Thai teacher is through speaking Mrs. Khim is talking to Mickey in Chinese. Mickey grabs Mrs. Khim’s hand and spends the day dragging Mrs. Khim all over the school. As it turns out, Mickey is the most rambunctious child I’ve ever encountered. She’s unable to sit still, follow directions or care about anything for longer than two seconds. And the Thai teachers had had enough of her after a few hours, bequeathing all responsibility to an already overworked Mrs. Khim. Mrs. Khim will end up spending a better part of the week be dragged around by Mickey when Cru Behn can’t take anymore of her.

At the end of the first week I walk into K1/3 to the now expected sound of Chun’s sobs. Only this time she is sitting in the “crying corner” red faced and snot covered sitting next to a bewildered Mickey. Mickey is rapidly explaining something to Chun in Chinese as Chun continues to cry. Mickey couldn’t look more thrilled as Chun looks as though the world is coming to a painful end. It’s a match made in heaven, though not for Cru Behn.

Prem

The younger kids, K1/3 and K1/4, prove to be the hardest classes to teach. As the first month ends I realize I’m learning more Thai than they are English. I can tell them to stand up, sit down, listen, color, raise your hand, finished and stop talking. After a student peed on my foot I quickly learned that “pooshee” means “can I go to the toilet?” I begin to work out a system in my head of the phrases the kids say often so I can try and understand them better but I’m not doing very well. It’s horribly frustrating not being able to talk to the kids. Recently I tried to separate two students, Glo-gi and Prem, who, when put together, can be the devil incarnate. I moved Glo-gi’s chair next to mine to get her to come sit next to me. She decided “hell no” and tried to move her chair back. I held on to the chair with ease as she tried to move it, watching the focus and determination in her face as she set about proving her point: that I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. I continued to hold on until she stopped. Not defeated, she then let out a scream so loud she would have scared the hell out of Chun. She started sobbing and screaming. As I went to comfort her, feeling wretched, she ran straight towards the door, opened it and went screaming, crying and running down the hallway to her old classroom and teacher. I stood standing in the hallway watching her run and scream with all the other Thai teachers, feeling horrible and wondering what I had been thinking when I decided teaching at a foreign school when you can’t speak the native language was a good idea. Second semester stats: Teecha Bad 0; Mini-Thais 1.