Learning Experience

One of my trainers in the program last month said something that stuck with me: “I don’t have 25 years of teaching experience, I have 25 years of learning experience.”  I love this distinction, for it scratches perfectly the surface of the subject, the fine line between teaching and learning.  They are not separate actions, they cannot be.  They are more like two sides of the same coin, or the push and pull of the same ocean wave. 

For so long I identified myself as a student, and then I went to grad school and faced the other side of that coin, recognizing the teacher I have always been inside, the fact that I was both student and teacher at the same time.  And I always will be.  Though we get older and our conscious walls and patterns become thicker and thicker, humans are animals of learning.  We simply never stop learning, and the world is never exhausted, never known – there is always something new to discover, new students, new teachers, new books, new friends, eventually it all connects, because it is all about connecting. 

My twelve and thirteen year old students make me laugh.  As always, there are some that are better than others, but I sat down with one of the weaker students and slowly tried to ask him who his favorite celebrity was.  It took a number of repetitions and he seemed to be asking everybody else around him in Thai what I wanted from him, but he finally got it.  At least I think he did; he said Justin Bieber, so I’m still not sure.  But this boy, Petch, taught me patience today.  Until today I was not sure of his level, but now I know that he needs more attention, more repetition, slower pronunciation, etc.  And he’s always smiling.  I wish I could work one on one with every student, because I feel the results would just be that much faster and stronger.  I might start offering smaller private lessons on the weekends, but I haven’t quite decided how much of my free time I want to dedicate to teaching, as I do it from 8-4pm each week day already.  And it certainly wouldn’t be for the money.  I would only make about $6-$10 dollars a lesson, depending on how many people were interested. 

Some of my older students asked me to do it, so I’m still considering.  I saw some of them in the cafeteria today when I went to return my bowl of delicious noodle and wonton soup with pork strips and fish balls.  I never tire of feeling like a special celebrity.  They yell, “Teacher, teacher! Hello, what doing, where you go?”  Then they offered me mango slices and some of their French fries.  Adorable.  There are good days and there are bad days, and the good ones make it easier to get through the bad.  Rewards come when we work for them, but here in Thailand, it’s a totally different way of “working” that I have to get used to.  For instance, classes are supposed to be 50 minutes, but students continuously arrive late, and then it takes another ten minutes to get them into the correct classes and sit down and be quiet enough to explain the day’s lesson, so that 50 minutes quickly turns in to about 30 minutes of teaching time.  Sucks for me because I want to make as much progress with them as possible and I don’t want to be mean or impatient about it.  It’s just something I have to get used to, and actually it makes my lesson planning easier because I don’t have to try to jam as much in. 

Learning another language is a slow process anyway.  I should know; I’ve been “studying” Thai on my own since February and I still don’t know more than five sentences or the Thai alphabet.  This shit is hard!