Bangkok Life Update: Frustrations

There was a lot of work to do recently, so naturally, my colleague Ryan and I spent several hours figuring out the copy machine's "reduction" function and creating color-coded schedules for the remaining six weeks of the school year.

the next three weeks

It's really winding down now. It's hard to believe that final exams will be at the end of this month. My friends and I have been kind of frustrated with things lately. At the end of the year, the students get so busy, and their actually classwork has to take the backburner. This is especially frustrating as it's part of the institution here. For example, my M5 Main class had to move a test back by two weeks, because those students had an O-NET (standardized test) preparation class that takes up most of our class time on Fridays. The M6 students are so busy studying for university entrance exams (which are also scheduled during the school day) that they are rarely there. There are some students who I haven't seen since the quarter started.

It's a Catch-22, or what we Ajarn Farang refer to as (possibly a bit unfairly) "Thai Logic". The students have to go to the mandatory standardized test preparation sessions. I doing so, they miss the classes that they really needed to take in order to be prepared for the tests, thus necessitating the test preparation sessions that they are missing class for in the first place.

*this is not my "teacher handwriting" 

This has led us to kind of feel, not like we've given up for the semester, but more like we need to stop taking our classes so seriously. Suzie says it's like this with M6 every year. Their schedules are too fully booked by other school duties that they just don't have time to go to class. That sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

Suzie, Ryan, James, and I have had the most trouble with our M6 writing class. The students are working on a major research paper which is their whole grade for the semester. We add parts to it each week, so a student will be behind if they miss one class (never mind the whole quarter). In the end, we gave each student a packed explaining all the parts and a course calendar. They are to turn in their work  on the day it's due, either in person or by email, and as James wrote on their blackboard...