Ajaan Bobbi

I have survived 12 days of teaching...friends, this is no small feat.  The day I turned 15, I started my first job waiting tables and continued that trend until I graduated college.  Thanks to those years in the food service industry, I maintain that all people should wait tables at least once in their lifetime.  You really can't appreciate all that hack until you actually deal with people who ask things like, "does the cheeseburger come with cheeeeeese on it?"  Not to mention, when you live on $2.13 an hour before Uncle Sam, you learn to appreciate living on tips and the finesse needed to master the perfect superficial smile/courtesy laugh.

Now, I am not changing my tune, merely adding a new verse: all people should wait tables and teach at least once in their lifetime.  You really can't appreciate all that hack until you actually deal with children asking you, "Teacher, how old are you? 47? No? Younger? 45?"  Boy, that cheeseburger is sounding mighty fine about now.

In all seriousness, I enjoy teaching.  In our classrooms, all farang teachers are paired with a Thai teacher.  The class is split in half by language ability.  My students are a classic bell curve, with a handful being extremely advanced or completely clueless, with the rest falling somewhere in the middle.  Unfortunately, my counterpart is on maternity leave so I have been flying solo.  Factor in a staggering language barrier and 125 6th grade students and you have a recipe for near disaster...or at least extreme frustration.  However, I've somehow managed to keep my cool without the assistance of only-legal-in-Southeast-Asia-pharmeceutical-grade-downers.  

I will admit however, that I am a bit jealous of my fellow American teachers at Chitralada Prathom (Chritralada Elementary)...they are generally blessed with young children in sweet braids who hang on every word their shiny new teacher spews.  I have the curse of preteens who are a) completely and utterly over me and b) much like Basset Hounds, smell a little strong and have zero desire to please anyone.  

On the other hand, I have the blessing of young personalities.  I am slowly learning names and by Day One, could already identify unique personas in my little pubescent herd.  In every class, I have the advanced individuals (generally, the children of foreign diplomats who like to proudly inform me that, "they know the 'F' word!"), the helpers (who collect workbooks and carry them to my office), the class clowns (who, incidentally, also know the 'F' word), the shy itty-bits in the back, the populars and the rebels.  

Oddly enough, I feel myself transported back to the 6th grade...desperately wanting these kids approval. I want them to like me.  I know it is completely naive to hope that at the end of 10 months they might actually (gasp!) look forward to my class. But one can hope, yes?   

Naturally, my students (and everyone else in Thailand, for that matter) struggles with pronouncing "Phyllis."  That means my name has officially been changed to Bobbi.  Ajaan (teacher) Bobbi at that!  For a job I never imagined having, I am loving teaching.  Cheesy as it sounds, I feel a lot of pride being called Teacher.  It really has nothing to do with ego, honest.  It is simply that I now realize what a gift it is to teach.  For all its difficulties, at the end of the day, there is a really good feeling to not just possessing knowledge, but also the ability to effectively share it with other people. 

Because let's face it, 90% of my job is making my students believe that I've known for a lifetime what I just taught myself [that morning] about past imperfect irregular verbs.  

But hey, at least I'm not living off tips anymore.