Hey! Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone

Early alarm, breakfast and onto Mr Chao’s bike for the half hour commute to school. Coffee across the road, she makes a good one, I feel it kick in, ok there’s probably some excitement in there too. I walk into school (the blue building) and get led to my room with seven children who have no idea that I have no idea! They are about nine or ten years old.

I lead with a loud bravado but have to back off pretty soon as I’ve overestimated their ability, most of them have a confused look on their face. Slower, with less words. I must also break the habit of using slang “okey dokey”  “spot on” “in the bag” “on the ball”. I force the coffee laden energy down a notch or two and quickly pick up little things like - a Homer Simpson “D’oh!” goes a long way to them relating to me and dropping the occasional Vietnamese phrase in seems to impress them, although I tell them off every time they break into it. The kids have been given English names which I am a bit conflicted about but it definitely is a time saving convenience, I manage to remember all of their names by the end of class with the aid of a cheat sheet.  All in all I’d say I did well. There was the good student who should be up a class who I thanked for her patience and the one who should be a class behind and because he has no idea what is going on would rather scribble in the wrong class book, but I’m no saviour today, I’m just trying to keep the water out of the boat! Great kids generally (and undeniably gorgeous) and they seemed to like me, after one and three quarter hours straight – omg – I break out for a cigarette feeling pretty happy with myself.

I meet Brandon out the front where we smoke and chat a bit more about teaching, I wouldn’t exactly say he’s depressing, he’s been through a lot but he is very truthful in a harsh but seemingly accurate way.

I’ve just been handed the material for the class I am about to teach in five minutes for two hours (with a 10 minute break) OMG! I picked up a few games from the course I did and from Lizzies class the other day that I think will pad the lesson out for a while and these kids are teenagers so – damn the torpedos!

They are a well behaved bunch considering I spend the first five minutes perusing the material trying to work out where the hell to start. I give up and play the “make a sentence one word at a time” game. I write “one” on the board and throw a ball of paper to a kid who comes up with “day” who then throws the ball to another kid who comes up with “I” etc. relaxing into it I peruse the main lesson objectives and as Jacinta put it “fake it until you make it” we stumbled through the lesson together and being a teenage man myself, related to them well enough to have them play along instead of crucifying me.

After class Tessie took me aside and offered me two weeks volunteer work of one or two classes 5 days a week which is exactly what I wanted ( mostly afternoons, yay no early mornings) and then offered me two weeks further of the same but paid! Her husbands company will sponsor me for a work permit which would be great, even after I told her I will be leaving for a month’s holiday after these four weeks and I don’t want to work in HCMC. She assures me that is fine and she would not obligate me to keep working for her. (Brandon said he has been in this situation before and got stuck so I must be careful what I sign) This is all very dodgy, she knows I don’t have a Uni Degree but she says all I need is a “letter from a friend” attesting that I have five years experience in the field – she will even bring me in a draft letter to copy tomorrow! You came straight to mind Michaela – anybody else interested in getting me illegal/dodgy work over here with a false letter of testament to my five years experience teaching? I joke “oh there was that two years I volunteered in Kenya” and she nods and says “yes, that kind of thing”

Mr Chao is waiting for me and we make our way back to the Blue River, it’s a pretty nice day but still no rain. It bucketed down for about three minutes late last night but that hardly counts. I’m starving so a quick shower and out for lunch and a well deserved beer. If I keep my midday beer to just one I can function quite fine for the after noon, though I am pretty tired today, the combination of an early morning and there was a fair amount of energy involved in the classes.

Those that have drunk with me know I am not a big beer drinker but I do find an icy cold one on a hot day unbeatable. You purists will shake your heads when I say this but I really like it in a glass with a big chunk of ice – don’t knock it until you’ve had it in the tropics.

                                                      Say Hi "Hi", gorgeous and sassy.

Around to Alley Booz for a juice and a chat with Doyen. Hi comes past for a chat and I knock over another chapter of “Zen”.  I go back to the room and manage to put off study for a movie but I squeeze in an hour of prep for tomorrows class after that. I even made up some flash cards (shorts, trousers, dress, socks, T-shirt) the school doesn’t have any and most of the course I attended relied on them. The course also said most lessons are 45 minutes or maybe an hour, I was not prepared for two hour lessons, that’s a long time to keep kids interested!

Night fall and I head out for dinner and a couple of beers and another early night with a movie so I’m “on the ball” for tomorrow. I go to Annes' Cafe' for something different and finish up with an awesome Crapes Suzette with orange liquor to celebrate my first day teaching.