This morning there was the teacher appreciation ceremony, wai khru. Wai is the what they do in respect in Thailand and khru means teacher. The ceremony is like nothing I've ever really seen before in a school. The teachers sat on the stage in the auditorium and student representatives from each class walked onto the stage bearing flowers. Each student would kneel and walk on their knees towards the teacher, present the flowers, and the wai in the "krab" position. After they wai they return to kneeling position and walk on their knees until they are a few feet away from the teachers and then they are allowed to rise to their feet and walk off the stage to their seat. They ran out of flowers and so the last row of teachers, of which I was a member, didn't get any. I did get some beautiful flowers in the end (see today's photo) one of the other teachers gave his to me because he said he has received the flowers in the past and I should get a chance to have some. It was very sweet and they are making my room smell beautiful! Over all I would say the ceremony was educational and the principle of an appreciation ceremony for teachers is excellent, but I wasn't as big a fan of the submissive/superior student-teacher relationship.
There was also a ceremony for the King at the school this morning because of his ceremony is on Monday. The ceremony was outdoors and I had to stand in the full song while three different songs were sung for the King. I have not sweat this much before, ever... it was truly gross and the third song went on for what seemed like a life time.
My class today (grade 7b) was ok but not fantastic. With the respect ceremony in the morning I was hoping that they'd maybe behave themselves, alas no.
I had a long break in the afternoon so I helped to decorate the math lab. I'll take a picture of our glorious math mural and post it sometime soon.
Today, being Thursday, I had leadership club in the afternoon. I think that we had a good class. Since the kids don't want to do any work and have no interest in doing service we have been just playing games. Today's activities were about changing our ways of thinking and we played games that made us "think outside the box". First we played a game with teams but where I didn't tell them it was a competition. Being in teams often makes people feel like they should be competing and so in the end we discussed why they didn't cooperate. They didn't even realize that that was an option and were surprised and I could tell they were thinking. I think this group may come around nicely.
This evening I tutored Ruhi book one again which went well. I'm learning more Thai and our discussions are getting very interesting and involved. Right now we are talking about prayer.
I'm nearly all better from my cold and I just have a little cough left, yay.
Thank you Auntie Cie for the shoutbox post, it's lovely to hear from you. I am feeling better thanks.
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