Thailand Adventures ประเทศไทย: First Week of School!

The School of Promise had its official first day of school Monday! That is such a huge praise! All those hours of scrubbing, painting, building, and planning have finally paid off! I now find myself in a much more challenging role, that of teacher. I am again getting used to the fact that during the day I have five small people who depend on me to teach them and love them. Children who I remind to wash their hands and whose skirts I continually fix because they are about four sizes too big. I pray that I can teach them to speak and understand English, add 2 +2, and know how a plant grows. But even more than that is the responsibility to share with them about the Lord, to speak grace and love into their lives, and to trust the Lord to cause hearts to soften and change. It is times such as these that I see how inadequate I am and how desperately I rely on the Lord's strength.

This poem by Amy Carmichael has been an encouragement to me recently.

God of patience and endurance,

Steadfast as the steadfast stars

Stands Thy promise, Thine assurance

Unto Thine ambassadors:

"I, thy God, will strengthen thee...

Where I am, there thou shalt be."

Lord, we would endure; O sift us

Clear of weakness; make us strong.

Lord, we would endure; O lift us

Into joy and conquering song.

Cause us in Thy peace to dwell,

Seeing the Invisible.

Let us welcome all life's weather,

Whatsoever it may be;

And, or singly, or together,

Find our heart's delight in Thee,

Our Redeemer, our Adored,

Lover, and beloved Lord.

Anyway... more about the students. It is always amusing when you ask a question to have the question repeated instead of answered. This week we are learning about living and non-living things. I said a statement that the students were supposed to repeat and then I said, "That's a hard one isn't it." To which my class parroted, "That's a hard one isn't it" which caused me to smile.

My poor lone boy sometimes has a hard time focusing on our lessons. Apparently that is the case when my Thai co-teacher is teaching as well. Amy and I were standing outside the classroom waiting to help with dismissal time when my student looked up and saw me standing outside the door. He had been looking around and not focusing. When he saw me he did the gesture for our classroom rule #2 "Stay on Task." Which as he was not on task appeared as if he was turning himself in.

I have been experimenting with Whole Brain Teaching strategies and they suggest having a gesture for each vocabulary word you teach. Great! If only teacher could remember all the gestures. ;) In all seriousness I think that is necessary especially when teaching ESL or what we jokingly call ETL (English as a third language). Instead of thinking of my own gesture I did what the program suggested, which ended up backfiring a little bit. The word is green and the gesture is to point to the ground and say 'achoo' because the picture is of grass. A little odd I know. Well now I have the situation of anytime any of my students see anything green whether in the classroom or outside they starting pointing and sneezing. I'm sure the other teachers think all my students have a cold.

Here are some pictures to give you a taste of what the school is like and what we do everyday.

These are our 12 students Grades 1, 2, 4, and 5 with our director Joel on the first day of school.

This is FUN reading time. The next to last period of everyday we spend thirty minutes reading. I normally read two stories and then let the kids chose a book to look at. Often times they bring it to me to read which is what is happening in this picture. I can't tell you how many times I read Goodnight Moon and The Three Little Pigs this week.