A Tour of Mae La Noi Daroonsik

Travel about 5 hours outside Chiang Mai and you’ll come to the small town of Mae La Noi, home to approximately 8,000 people spread across rice fields and steep mountain slopes. This little town is also what I now call home and where the Mae La Noi Daroonsik (MLND) school can be found just north of the town center.

MLND has a student body of about 1,000 with 130 of those students being full time boarders at the school’s dormitories. The students who board here are expected to help with school ground’s maintenance over the weekend, as I found out the hard way after being awoken at a far too early hour to the excited chatter of students sweeping around our house the first weekend we were here. Many of the students are from one of the five hill tribes in the surrounding area, with the Karen hill tribe being the most represented, and therefore must travel significant distances every day just to attend school. Because of the student body’s mixed demographics, a variety of religions are present, which surprised me upon my initial arrival. Although most Thai people practice Buddhism, many of MLND’s students are Christian as this is the predominant religion within the Karen hill tribe.

Now while I could turn this blog post into a short novel about every little detail relating to MLND, I decided to instead just hit the basic highlights of the nuts of bolts of the school. If you have any burning questions after reading through everything don’t hesitate to leave me comments or questions and I’ll be sure to address them in later blog posts!

Meet the English Department

As I am an English teacher, I work most closely with the English department here at MLND. The department is composed of six wonderful teachers. While most of them have been here for at least a couple years, one just arrived only a few months ago and the latest gossip is that a new teacher should also be arriving at some point in the future. Since MLND is a government school, teachers are selected and assigned at the government’s discretion, which often means teachers from one province are expected to teach in a province hundreds of kilometers away.

Every student at MLND is expected to take English classes during their six years at school regardless of what specialized program they choose to study. This makes the daily teaching schedules of each English teacher extra packed, resulting in most English teachers teaching between 22 and 26 individual classes a week. While I’m currently only teaching around 12 hours a week, I’m excited to increase my hours next semester to not only get to interact with more students, but also to lighten the workload of the other teachers here.

Grade Levels at MLND

MLND is a secondary school, meaning that is caters to mattayom 1-6. To better understand how these grade levels translate to the American school system I’ve created a handy table:

By the time students have reached mattayom 4 they are expected to choose a concentration to study, almost like choosing a major in college. Each concentration is then assigned a number within each grade level, leading to classes being number as such: mattayom 4/5 or mattayom 6/4. The number following the “/” indicates which program the student is in. For example, the number 4 represents the English program, so all students in mattayom 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4 are in the English program. It’s a little confusing, but you get the hang of it after awhile.

Daily School Schedule

Every morning the students and teachers gather in front of Building 3 for morning announcements at 7:50 AM. To ensure that no one is tardy, loudspeakers throughout the campus blast Thai music about five minutes before announcements begin. Students line up according to their class and teachers take attendance and sometimes inspect students’ fingernails for cleanliness. After the national anthem is sung announcements are given, led by student body leaders and teachers and administrators. These announcements can last anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. After all necessary information has been relayed the students are set free to go to their first period class. Each period is approximately 50 minutes with the ending of a period being signaled by the loudspeakers playing a short burst of Thai music again. The daily schedule is as follows:

7:50 AM: Morning Announcements

8:30 – 9:20 AM: Period 1

9:20 – 10:10 AM: Period 2

10:10 – 11:00 AM: Period 3

11:00 – 11:50 AM: Period 4

11:50 AM – 12:50 PM: Lunch

12:50 – 1:40 PM: Period 6

1:40 – 2:30 PM: Period 7

2:30 – 3:20 PM Period 8

3:20 – 4:10 PM: Activity Period

4:10-4:30 PM: Closing Announcements/Students go home

School Uniforms

Every day students and teachers are expected to wear a uniform reflective of the day of the week. For me, the enforcement of uniforms is a new experience as I have attended public school all my life and never been expected to wear a uniform (except the unflattering gym uniforms most all American public school students are subjected to wear). I must say I’m actually a big fan of how MLND alternates its uniforms for each day of the week. So far, my favorite day is when the students and teachers wear their cultural garb to represent their hill tribe or region in which they are from.

Tour of the Campus Buildings

The campus is HUGE. Kendall and I spent some time wandering around the grounds at the end of last week and I was surprised to see how extensive it really was. In the future, I’d like to make a student-led video of a tour of the full campus, but for now pictures of the buildings and facilities will have to suffice…

Top: Building 1; Middle: Building 3; Bottom Left: Building 2; Bottom Right: Students take off their shoes upon entering classrooms

The main academic buildings are located near the entrance of the school. Each building is home to different departments, for example Building 3 is where all English classes are taught. In Building 1 you can also find the Director’s Office and other administrative offices.

Top: Temporary canteen; Middle Left: Student bank; Middle Right: Student store; Bottom: Library

The main canteen (cafeteria) is currently being renovated, so a temporary canteen has been set up on the bottom floor of Building 3. Students and staff can come eat here at almost any time during the day. There’s even a man who comes and makes ice cream and slushy drinks on-site every day! Meals range from around 15-25 baht (less than 1 American dollar). The campus also has a student bank and a convenience store with super cheap snacks and other foods. And Building 3 is also home to the school’s library, located on the main floor.

Top: Information Building; Bottom: Cultural Center

The first building you see upon entering the school is the Information Building, displaying many of the school’s awards and achievements in glass cases. There is also a cultural center tucked away from the main academic buildings. The center showcases the cultures of the different hill tribes represented at MLND and the back deck has a beautiful view out into the lush valley that makes up one of the outer borders of the school’s grounds. Although this center is typically only open when visitors come to the school, I hope I get a chance to get a peek inside before my time here is done.

Top: Girls' Dormitory; Bottom: Boys' Dormitory

Dormitories for both boys and girls are located just a short distance away from the main academic buildings. Each dormitory has its own bathroom, eating area, and area for drying clothes. Teachers are given the task of supervising the dormitories every evening during the school week.

Top: Track; Middle: Gymnasium; Bottom: Soccer field by our house

The school has one large gymnasium, which hosts gym classes, performances, and morning announcements whenever it rains. There is also a soccer field located just outside our house where students can be found playing pick-up after school and on the weekends. And one of my favorite places on campus would have to be the track, which is a little less manicured than most of the campus, but still has some stunning views of the surrounding mountains.

That’s all for now! Thanks for making it through that overload of information and pictures!

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