All in a Day's Work

There I was, reviewing "in," "on," and "under," with the 5th graders, when they started jumping and running to look out the door. 6th graders were walking past in the hallway, clutching their arms up near the shoulder. "What’s going on?" I asked my co-teacher, Ajaan Warangkana. "Oh, they’re having their shots in the library," she explained. "German measles."

Once the 5th grade was settled down again, and at work on their pictures, I crept out of the room to peek into the makeshift medical station two doors down. Sure enough, there were my 6th graders, getting shots. Some were huddling nervously as they waited; others were looking relieved to be finished, though a little unhappy about the pain.

Suddenly an excited man with a slightly familiar face was waving his hands excitedly and talking to me. "Can you teach for about 15 minutes?" he asked. "You know, about health and taking care of your body." "Sure," I answered, thinking he meant sometime in the distant future when we could collaborate and plan in advance. "Ok, I’ll let you know when we’re ready and we’ll have all the grades here, 1-6," he replied. "You can do whatever you want. Robert played a game earlier."

Somewhat bewildered, but feeling like I had some idea what had happened, I consulted with Ajaan Warangkana for a minute and then called over to Robert at his school. He said that yes indeed, during the morning he had been asked by Doctor Aig to teach the entire student body about health for 15 minutes, so his response was a vocab-and-action game about different illnesses. ("Stomache!" All kids clutch their stomachs, lean over, and groan.) Feeling like that wasn’t quite our style, Ajaan Warangkana and I got to work composing a song to the tune of "The Limbo" with such great lines as "Wash your hands, brush your teeth," and their accompanying movements. The 6th graders watched with interest.

Finally the moment arrived. Grades 2-6 assembled on the library floor (Grade 1 was too traumatized by their shots, so they remained wailing on the other side of the school) and Doctor Aig introduced my topic as "How Students in America Take Care of their Health." I agreed, in response to his prompting, that students in America do in fact get vaccinations also. I then asked the kids about their handwashing and toothbrushing habits, again stressing that American kids are expected to wash their hands, just like Thai kids. Finally, as the room was getting hotter and hotter, Ajaan Warangkana and I launched into our song. Given that it was after 3pm, about 95 degrees, and 20 percent of the kids in the room had recently received painful shots in the arm, I’d say it was a decent hit.

When we were finally finished with our "lesson," Doctor Aig came back up front for a question-and-answer session with the kids about bird flu, dengue fever, and childhood obesity and its relation to diabetes. Watching as he singled out Sutin and Prapat to draw attention to their overweight-ness, I was reminded of how this was different from America. When Robert and I compared notes over dinner, he noted his surprise at how, when Doctor Aig asked the question, "And how many of you have lice today?" about 12 girls in the 5th and 6th grades raised their hands.

Teaching in a Thai primary school: never dull.

[The accompanying photo is a year old, taken in the meeting hall at an English club session. But I thought it was a cute one of Ajaan Warangkana and I co-teaching together.]