On the horrors and honors of teaching

Back in the teachers' golden age, we could wack the shit out of kids if we felt like it. Now we've got to use "creative methods" to motivate and inspire children.

Imagine the teacher's nightmare scenario: kids running around, punching each other, pulling each others' hair, yelling, throwing paper airplanes, yelling "NO!" when I ask them to be quiet, or to do their work. I've been there. Also, imagine the teacher's dream scenario: kids raising their hands, practically fighting to be called on to give the answer, yelling "quickly teacher...me first me first!" when I'm trying to pass out worksheets. I've been there too.

And everywhere between.

When I first came to Bangkok, my favorite class was fifth grade, because most of the girls understood my English, and were well-behaved. But now all the students are familiar with each other, and familiar with me...resulting in many-a nightmare scenario. On the flip side, I couldn't communicate with third grade when I first came...now they complain if I give another group worksheets to do before their group. Invoking competition seems to be one of the key ingredients to the dream class.

Speaking of ingredients, I failed to mention what makes KL a salad bowl in my earlier post. In the US, second generation immigrants are already quite Americanized, and by the 3rd generation there's practically no trace of the mother culture. But in KL, you'll see Sihks, Hindus, Malays, Muslims, and Chinese in equal mix in public, but there's not like in the US one confined Chinatown, one confined little India...all of KL is a Chinatown, little India, etc. Generations and generations continue to speak their language, letting other languages only influence their language, not totally hijack it like in the states. In turn, these languages mix into the universal English language in quite a unique way. Everyone ends every single sentence they speak with a very Cantonese "la" here, even though the rest of the sentence sounds like a light Indian accent. "It's very cheap la, don't worry la. Why don't you take a look first la."