April 21, 2004

I am working at Sacred Heart Convent School, an all girls Christian school with >4000 students. I teach for three hours/day, 5 days/week. Small classes, about 15-17 students maximum, Prathom 1-3 (ages 6-9).

I am in the regular classrooms, no lab, no equipment, but good air-con. One plus is that I have a Thai assistant teacher in every class. This is good, because I have some kids who apparently DON’T SPEAK ANY ENGLISH YET!!! And, while they are remarkably good at writing English, FOR THEIR AGES, this still means that they are virtually illiterate.

I feel that I’ve been somewhat duped. I was originally told that I would be working with Prathom 4-6 (ages 9-12) and as Mathayom class (middle school, in the States). In addition, there’s been some murmuring about my teaching an English class too.

Fortunately, yesterday, I saw an ad on Ajarn.com for a position at a good school with an excellent reputation. I fired off my CV right away and got an email back within 6 hours, asking me to come for an interview on Thursday, April 22. The per-son at the school wrote, “Please have your original documents and have a lesson plan ready for a fifty minute presentation.”

The lesson is no problem. Unfortunately, Sacred Heart Convent is holding both my passport and my sole original copy of my diploma, both of which they need in order to secure a work permit. I ask for and get my passport, but they tell me the di-ploma is already at the Ministry of Education, where I won’t be able to get it back until my license is issued. Something fishy about that- why would they send my di-ploma and not my passport? And, I need a work permit before I can have my teacher’s license; I have copies of my diploma and figure that the copies, letters of recommendation and reprints of some of my published research should establish me as a bona fide scientist/teacher.

I tell my boss that I have to do some banking matters tomorrow and that was the reason I needed both my passport and a day off from work three days after start-ing!

Head home, tell Fon all of the details. Her <non>supportive remark? “Why you al-ways want to change everything?” I guess, from a Thai perspective, where I am al-ready making five times what a Thai teacher would be making, the idea of changing jobs after two weeks, even for 25-30% more in money and benefits, is unthinkable. Many Thais seem to lock on to their job on a permanent basis. I’m thinking, “Isn’t ‘impermanence’ one of the basic tenets of Buddhism?” Anyway, I explain about the benefits of the increased compensation. I think she doesn’t believe that I can make so much money for so few hours.

Thai education system: an oxymoron