Senior Dinner

Now that final exams are over, it's time for the best month of the work year. You see, school ends for the students at the end of February, but the graduation ceremony is in late March. So although the first week of March is incredibly busy and hectic with grading exams, entering grades (everything is done by hand in large ledgers), double-checking other teachers' grades during departmental and school mark checks, etc, etc... after that, we have a few weeks to make lesson plans and prepare orientation material for the incoming new teachers. There's just not much to do in March, but we're still getting paid, so we have to keep coming in to do small tasks here and there. It's great, because that's the month that I can really dedicate to studying Thai, which I've been lapsing on recently. It's also a fun month, because there are several exciting events for the graduating M6 students (seniors).

The first such event took place last week. It's the annual "Thank You Dinner", an event that the M6 students hold each year to say "goodbye" and "thank you" to their former teachers. After school last week, we teachers gathered in the "banana field", a small courtyard near the student's canteen that has a number of, you guessed it, banana trees.

hanging out before the dinner

We were greeted by a student who presented each teacher with a Thai flower garland like the ones we are given on Wait Kru Day. This is a day for the students to show their appreciation and thanks to their teachers before they graduate, so they served us a dinner as we watched the evening's festivities.



native English teachers at the Senior Dinner 



The big event of the evening is the Teacher Awards, which are basically like the Academy Awards for teachers. But not just for teaching; the awards are things like Best Dressed, Best Lipstick, Best Hair, Teacher With The Best Catchphrase, etc... In the past, all the nominated teachers have been Thai teachers, which makes sense, as they are the ones who have taught these students for six years.

I was surprised and honored when the students called my name as a nominee for the "Jai Dee" Award; the Kind Teacher Award. I was one of five nominees (including our department head), but in the end, they chose me! They brought me up on stage and had the whole school sing "Happy Birthday" to me as well (the award ceremony was actually on my birthday this year). It really made my day!



Kru Jai Dee, the "Kind Teacher" Award 

My boss, Geoffrey, also got an award. We could tell when a foreign teacher was about to be nominated for an award, because the two student MC's were suddenly speaking in English. He was nominated for, and won, the "Everywhere Teacher" award, because he likes to wander around the school and everyone knows who he is. It's sort of like an award for a teacher who is very involved in school activities.

Geoffrey receives his award

There is one more big event for the students this month before their graduation, and that's the Senior Farewell Trip. It was a good time last year, and I'm quite looking forward to it again this month.

I'm not normally a very sentimental or emotional person, but I feel really touched and honored to be recognized this way! I am quite fond of this year's graduating class, since they were my first class to teach three years ago, and it makes me really happy to know that they think I'm their kind teacher!

the Everywhere Teacher and the Kind Teacher