Wan Wai Kru
At the beginning of this month, I had the special opportunity to experience how Thai schools celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day, which is called Wan Wai Kru in Thai. As a student in America, I can remember writing cheesy notes to my teachers decorated with poorly drawn stick figures and sometimes attaching a box of baked goods if I (my mom) felt like going the extra mile. With this in mind, I really didn't know what to expect from Teacher Appreciation Day activities at Mae La Noi Daroonsik, but what I ended up experiencing was pretty awesome.
As with any ceremony or special occasion here, class was cancelled for the morning... surprise, surprise. All teachers, staff, and students gathered in the auditorium after morning announcements and the festivities began. Select students filed in carrying elaborate offerings (pictured below) that each class had worked hard to make the previous day. After a series of blessings and a moment of silent meditation, the teachers were then invited to sit in two rows at the front of the auditorium. For the next hour we sat in these rows as each and every one of the 1,000 students at MoDo came up to demonstrate their appreciation by wai-ing and presenting a small offering. I'll admit that at first it felt a little strange to have my students kneeling and bowing before me - it's probably the closest I have and will ever feel to being royalty - but as the ceremony continued that awkwardness was replaced with a feeling of deep gratitude. I first felt gratitude for being in a place that engrains such respect and community into the very fabric of one's being and I also felt gratitude for being welcomed into such a big and vibrant family.
Wan Wai Kru isn't just a celebration that is specific to MoDo; this tradition dates back hundreds of years and now takes place in schools all over Thailand, typically at the beginning of the new school year. The ceremonies are used to demonstrate the significant role that teachers play in students' lives and to show thanks for all the hard work that teachers do. The Thai word "kru" (teacher) actually originates from the Pali word "ka-ru" meaning "hard or stress," directly acknowledging that teaching is no easy profession. It's definitely exhausting and difficult and confusing at times, but it's also totally worth it.
Left: Me holding one of the offerings made by students; Right: Each class of students was responsible for making elaborate offerings - some even looked like the students' favorite teachers
Sunita holding several of the small offerings presented by students
Visiting Huay Puung Mai
About an hour and a half up the road from Mae La Noi lies Huay Puung Mai, a small predominantly Hmong village with only one school that provides education for children from kindergarten through Grade 9. Seven years ago, Global Playground constructed a library at the school and also provided a Teaching Fellow for one year. Being so close by, I took the opportunity to visit Huay Puung Mai with three of my fellow English teachers. The drive there was something else. The village is deep in the mountains of Mae Hong Son and much of the road leading off of the highway has become unsealed and riddled with divots from streams of water brought on by rainy season. No joke, for the last 20 kilometers of our trip I was mostly airborne in the van because the road (or lack there of) had become so bumpy and pot-holed.
Huay Puung Mai has around 200 students, about 40 of which live on campus because their homes are too far away to commute every day. The village itself does not have a high school or any other sort of education facility to provide schooling for students in Grades 10-12, but families may choose to send their children to a secondary school in a neighboring village about 10 minutes up the road. In reality, few students actually go on to complete their education through Grade 12 and even fewer end up attending university. As I found out, some families will opt to send their children to MoDo for Grades 7 through 12 as the school is known for having better resources and offering a wider variety of courses. Regardless of whether students graduate locally or in Mae La Noi, most will return to their homes after graduating and become farmers, like the majority of those living in the village.
My visit was short, but I was able to go on a thorough tour of the library and surrounding campus. One of my friends even threw me into a couple of classrooms to teach the students songs. I have to say it was a lot of fun to teach the little guys again. As much as I love my secondary students, the unlimited enthusiasm that primary students seem to have never gets old. During my tour, it became clear that Huay Puung Mai lacks many of the resources that larger schools like MoDo have, for instance, since Global Playground's fellow left there several years ago they have not had another native-English speaker in their staff and currently have only one English teacher to serve the entire student body.
In noticing these differences, I of course pondered the idea of whether a Teaching Fellow from Global Playground should potentially be placed in Huay Puung Mai again sometime in the future. Overall, it seemed that the school and its students had greater need than the community in Mae La Noi. So, it would seem almost instinctual to want to send a fellow to the area with the greatest need, but in doing that we would be making a common mistake. To send a Teaching Fellow there instead of to Mae La Noi would be ignoring the complexities of development and quantifying qualitative issues that shouldn't necessarily be quantified. Yes, the average salary in Huay Puung Mai might be lower than in Mae La Noi and yes, the students in Huay Puung Mai complete fewer years of education than students in Mae La Noi - but a native-speaking English teacher (with at best, rudimentary Thai language skills) isn't a solution to the larger issues faced by this poor farming community. This is a common problem in the development world: humanitarians with good intentions are so excited to help that they often forget to listen. And listening is the most important skill someone in the development field can have.
If Global Playground sent a Teaching Fellow to Huay Puung Pai I predict that little would change. Students' English vocabularies would increase, but this wouldn't do away with the more pressing barriers that block them from pursuing higher education and higher-paying jobs. Instead, I hope that future fellows in Mae La Noi will be able to work with the community in Huay Puung Mai to identify sustainable and feasible projects that might actually tackle these barriers and create opportunities for students and community members to achieve things they once thought to be impossible.
Students dance along to a new song
Visiting the library with three of my fellow English teachers from Mae La Noi