Professors for a Day

  Mae Sot, Thailand
Thursday, January 8, 2009

Well, today was quite interesting for us. As the guys continued to work on their building project with Matt, the ladies became professors for the day.

School Sign

We traveled to the village of Poe Praw and met Pastor Peacefully who had invited us to come to teach English in the village school for the day. We had made our preparations yesterday evening (thank goodness!), and now split into two groups of two teachers. We were given a teaching schedule as we arrived, and then were shown the location of the particular class rooms.

High School Building

Doris & Jocelyn teamed-up to teach the older children in grades 5, 6, 7, and 8, while Allison & Kathy taught the younger grades of 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Elementary Classes Building

The teams taught in separate buildings, one just up the hill from the other. 

Kathy & Allison Teaching

Allison & Kathy used the song of "Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes" to teach parts of the body in a fun way. They also drew a simple figure of a person on the white-board and labeled other parts like: legs, arms, stomach, etc., and then the children drew people of their own on some white drawing paper, and labeled the parts.

Jocelyn Teaching

Doris & Jocelyn used a word-bingo game that Allison had devised to teach about verbs (action words) in a fun way. A grid of verbs ( 5 squares wide, and 5 squares tall ) was distributed, and then random words were pulled from a little bag.

Doris Teaching

The words were written on the white-board, used in a sentence, and marked with a kidney bean on the student's grid. The winner would be the first to get five squares in a row filled with beans, and a small prize was awarded. The game was quite poplular.

Each teaching-team taught the same lesson to four different classes. We began at 9:00am and ended at 3:00pm. It was a long day, but very enjoyable. Each time we entered a classroom, the students would jump to their feet, and loudly announce in unision, "Good morning, Teacher!". We would respond with, "Good morning, students", and then proceed to introduce ourselves, tell them a little about Alaska, and proceed with the lesson. 

Spinning Yarn

After our school-day, we had a little time to walk around the village. We discovered the weaving looms, and were also able to purchase some hand-crafted items (click on the video).

Weaving Loom (Video)

About 6:00pm, the girls and guys were reunited at our hotel. We then enjoyed another good meal at the Casa Mia Restaurant, and were joined by Jocelyn's friend, Jane. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare our bags and Action-packers for our journey tomorrow into the hills.