Since Dee and the gang at Tell Tale know I love visiting schools, we scheduled two visits. Dave and I had brought some really nice art supplies and I had with me 2 interactive books for little children about 5 or 6 years old.
On the day of the visit in Bangkok, however, I was completely knackered from two nights of not sleeping ( jet lag) and Dave agreed that he didn't mind if we skipped the school. However, the next day our hosts suggested that I go next door to the nursery school to visit with 3 and 4 year old kids whose parents were wanting them to learn English.
It was so interesting to see them sitting quietly on the floor and I quickly snapped a few pictures...But then, the teacher asked me to do some songs with the kids and I launched into at least one hour of singing games, word playing and dancing all in English ( except the Thai dancing the kids taught me). We launched into "I'm a little Teapot and Twinkle , twinkle but then sped quickly into the Hokie Pokie, "I'm just a little ole pile of tin", The puffin poem with hand clapping and one of their favorites...."DOE a Deer, a female deer". They liked the part with "FA...a long, long way to run" as they took off running to to the opposite wall.
I was completely in my element. It all came back to me from my 15 years of teaching, 7 years with that age children at The Buckley School in the mornings before I crossed the street to the middle school in the afternoons. And it was a hoot. As Dave says, you have a lot of "kid" in you.
My hosts were frankly astonished and the nursery teacher asked me to come back to Thailand and that I could live with her and we could teach together. It sounded like a fun idea...I'm not counting it out.
The second effort to visit a school was at Bamboo Nests in the hill country of Thailand. Unfortunately the day we had planned was a national holiday and the schools were closed. So instead I told our hostess to give the art supplies to the school and I would take the sticker books into the village nearby to see if I could drum up any interest before our second hike with Noi.
I had about 7 kids around me on the porch of a bamboo hut and we had no common language. With a little introduction from our guide, however, they knew immediately what to do . The idea was to dress a drawing of an animal with stickers: shirts, skirts, pants, shoes, guitars, necklaces , hats etc. The little girl with the dress and hair ribbon on in the top photo, not surprisingly, chose very feminine clothes for her character.
The game was a big success but I noticed an older girl about 13 who didn't want to participate but was thoroughly fascinated. In the end I gave the unfinished books to her with the promise that she would work with the little ones. She just had that look of a teacher about her. So I got my wish, after all....about visiting schools.
The next day after visiting the little ones in Bangkok, we were off to fly to Chiang Mai for the next leg of our adventure.
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