Guess What?

I got a job! Ok, let me rephrase that, I got a full time job. I have had a part time job for quite a while, teaching some classes at a language center on the weekends. However, since I haven't written in forever, you wonderful people don't know about it. I have a few stories to tell, and I will get to those someday, but just know that I was doing part time work teaching 3 different classes to students anywhere from 9-13. With only about 4-6 kids to a class. BUT, this new job...

My friend Lex works at a large school called Varee Chiang Mai School. She works in the kindergarten (which is separate from the rest of the school), and has been teaching summer school all summer, or since about March. Last week she was getting ready for the year (she is teaching math to the kindergarten levels, and school started on Monday), and she told me that one of the kindergarten teachers they were expecting back had not got in contact with anyone all summer or in the weeks leading up to the school. Her boss was starting to get nervous, and when he finally made the decision to look somewhere else last Thursday, she passed along my name as someone she thought would be good to look at. So Thursday night, I dropped off my resume, cover letter, et all to her to bring to him the next day. Friday, he set up an interview with me through her. Monday, I went in for the interview, Tuesday I went in to practice teach, and Wednesday I went in to meet the headmistress (a requirement for every teacher) and to accept a job as a kindergarten teacher, to start the next day.

So its shortly after I'm hired, and I am sitting in the teachers room, talking to the other kindergarten teachers trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to teach all these little 3-5 year olds the next day, when Simon (the man who had hired me and who had been my contact through all this) came in, and told me to follow him. Remember how I said the kindergarten was a little separate from the rest of the school? Well, turns out they had another vacancy in the English Program, which is for the more advanced older kids. (Very quickly, all KG students are taught in English, when they hit first grade, they can be put in regular First Grade, or in the English Program (EP) First Grade. This means that not only do they have English Class, but about 70% of their curriculum is taught in English, ie. Science, Health, Math, Social Studies. It also means their parents paid more.) Well, apparently, the EP is more prestigious and more important to the school than the kindergarten, and they had a vacancy for a first grade English/homeroom teacher in the EP. So when I met this headmistress, and she found me reasonably suitable (my suit helped a lot, everyone was really impressed that I was wearing one - thanks dad!), she decided that I would be better served there as opposed to kindergarten. So basically, I was a KG teacher for about 2 hours, and yesterday afternoon, got the call from upstairs to move up to English Program 1 - First Grade!

So, the EP is set up more like a high school, with different teachers teaching different subjects. The only difference is that the teachers switch classes as opposed to the students. So what I am teaching everyday is English to both of the EP1 classes (there are only 2) and to one of the regular first grade classes (so I am the only English they hear all day). I was also given a few other classes which I'll talk about at a later date b/c this is getting confusing, and I am the homeroom teacher for one of the two EP 1 classes, ie I'm a first grade teacher, as opposed to just teaching first graders, if that makes any sense. Now, its not as crazy as it sounds, I do have a Thai teacher in their with me, who realistically does a lot of the work, but my desk is in the classroom as opposed to with the other teachers, I'm supposed to go hang in the classroom when I'm not teaching, and try and help Khru Mai (that's my Thai counterpart) control 32 six year olds.

So today was Day 1. I had no syllabus or any notion of what these kids knew, or really any ideas...and frankly no idea what I was doing. My first class was a train wreck, but they progressively got better as the day went on, and by the time I had my last class during the 2nd to last period of the day, I think I actually taught them something. I got thrown into teaching 2 other subjects, both to 2nd graders. I had one of those classes today, and I think it went ok, though my second grade students nicknamed me Teacher Michael Jackson and refused to call me anything else all period. (All teachers go by their first names, so I am either Mr. Mike or Teacher Mike to all the students. Hence when I introduced myself as Teacher Mike, I became Teacher Michael Jackson. A far cry from the Michael Jordan I was back in Phnom Penh.) Overall, I would say the day was a success. I'm working full time and shaping young minds. So what if I got milk spilled on me, nicknamed after a famous (alleged) child molester, and had a student sneeze in my face? I'm a teacher!

TPWWLT - 'Don't Stop Me Now' - Queen

PS. Went to the grocery store after work and was biking home...got stuck behind an elephant on a bridge. True story.