Quiet days.... exams looming

The Geography class.
In the class there are Thais, Indian Thai, Koreans, Egyptian-Philipino,
Japanese-Thai. (The Koreans are the ones in elaborate national dress)
My national dress was wearing a sleeveless shirt which is otherwise
taboo clothing for teachers in Thailand... (not polite!).
7.5 years in Asia and I still can't do peace signs for photos...

Things have been rather quiet. Exams are next week and I have 4 exams to write. There are definite advantages of being the only teacher teaching a particular subject but at exam time it makes for a lot of work...

Wed. was International Day here. Being the geography teacher it fell to me to co-ordinate the High School assembly for it. I figured since all my students are either year 11 or 12 that they are quite capable of organising it themselves. It took a little persuading the powers that be... for some reason it seems that it's not the culture of the school to let students take responsibility and use their initiative. It puzzles me a bit that teachers complain the students want to be spoon fed and don't demonstrate initiative but at the same time don't give them opportunity to do so... hmm...

But anyway the students were sparklingly good. They allocated the roles for the assembly and planned the program mostly by themselves. The highlight was a game show style trivia quiz which was quite entertaining and very well received. (3 out of 4 teams though Melbourne is the capital of Australia!) The class felt pretty chuffed with how well it went and with a bit of luck people might see that students are far more likely to enjoy such assemblies if they are run by the students themselves rather than by the teachers, not to mention that it's great experience for them to do it.

I am tempted to post a picture of the class once I get one.... but it's not particularly ethical to put pics of people up with out their knowledge. I might put it up for a few days and take it down..


On with the exam writing.... one and 3/4 down, 2 1/4 to go....