Preparations

Over the past few weeks I've been chipping away at my school preparations.  I took the past few days off as the quality of my material was starting to suffer due to a bit of burn out.  Tomorrow I'll be gearing back up and sorting things out once more as school begins a week from Monday/tomorrow.  After finalizing some material and ideas I'll be planning classroom rules and other fun things (not being sarcastic) as I've been instructed to do so by Fred Jones and the Wongs. 

I'll be working with the other teachers as well to steal ideas from and bounce my own off of.

What exactly I've been chipping away at is as follows:

To make effective lessons you have to know exactly what students need to know or what you want them to know, understand, be skilled at, et cetera. The way to know what they must know means you must first create the exam that will test them on exactly what these things are.  In tandem with the creation of the exam you create a learning guide or study guide (for every exam) to give to the students.  This ensures the students know exactly what they will be expected to know and the teacher knows too.

With the exam and learning guide in hand, you are now free to create your lessons for you know exactly what must be included and what ideas, themes, skills must be incorporated and mastered prior to testing.

So you see, things are created in a backward or sideways fashion.

I've created about 60-70% of my exams and learning guides for the entire year so far.  I'll post the actual materials after the first test I give to show what I mean by everything I just said.  (Ha) Also, despite having created so much, I bear in mind the necessity, and reality of flexibility.  

I aim high so that I can wring all I can from my students.  I believe that what I lack in formal training I can make up for (a bit at least) by constantly planning and seeking help through my coworkers and the web.

Unfortunately this approach doesn't seem to be the case for all teachers in Thailand.  The other night I met a few teachers from other parts of the country at a bar and my approach isn't popular amongst my cohort.  I'm such a snowflake!  At the time I was with a coworker, Rob, who was more disappointed than I by these lackadaisical teachers.  Having been at AMEC for 5 or 6 years, Rob's seen the good, the bad, and ugly.  I presume seeing the casual teacher crowd, the conveyer-belt teachers, again and again gets a little old.  To him, and myself, a teacher isn't a freakn gig. 

You're a child's teacher, a year of their education is in your hands.  You don't take that lightly.

"You only get one 4th grade teacher"

Damn right, Rob. Damn right.