School

If there is one lesson that I have learned over the last three weeks, it is how to be patient.

I’ve been meaning to write a post about how school is going, but I think I’m still figuring it out myself. The third week of school is now behind me and I feel like I still have a lot to learn.

Out of 7 periods in a day, I only have 3-4 classes, and 3-4 free periods. This is a huge difference from the US and has allowed me to do all of my planning and grading at school. Awesome right? I have thirty students in each class, give or take a few, and after being told that I would probably have closer to forty, I feel lucky with that number.

The assembly ground and some classroom buildings. 

As a teacher, my first job is to get through the syllabus. Fifty percent of the students’ final grade comes from two standardized tests, the mid-term exam and the annual exam. The exam material comes directly from the class IV textbook. Going through the text prior to teaching any classes, I wondered how the students would measure up to the curriculum. I quickly found out that most of my students are far behind where the government expects them to be.

My first week of teaching was quite frustrating. I thought I was doing a good job of speaking slowly and clearly, but when I asked a student if the other kids understand me, she said “no mam” and laughed a little. Okay so I knew I had to reevaluate the way that I was speaking. Even when trying to discipline, I found that students don’t exactly understand what I am saying and that it is completely ineffective. To be fair, there are a few students in each class who are more proficient in English and help to translate for their peers.

Another frustration that I faced the first week or so of teaching is the lack of focus and attention that the students display. I would ask students to discuss questions with their partners, or jot down their own ideas on paper before sharing with the class. As soon as I stopped giving instructions, they would start talking to others around the room and playing with rubber bands or ink cartridges.

It took about a week and a half for me to realize that most of the confusion and frustration is my own fault. I walked into class expecting students to mostly understand me, follow directions, and at least try activities, even if it was an exercise that they had never done before. Well that didn’t happen, so I looked at the little things that were working. I’ve noticed that my students are engaged when we do choral or echo reading (reading together as a whole class) or when I ask them to copy off of the board. These are tasks that they are familiar with and tasks that do not require them to understand my accented English.

I may not believe that exercises such as these are the best way for me to teach, but I need to backtrack and start teaching that way if it’s the way that my students learn. I definitely plan to begin to slowly implement change in my teaching methods and begin to incorporate new strategies and exercises, but I need to be patient.

The assembly ground during a passing period. 

Has it only been three weeks that I’ve been teaching? It feels like so many more. Getting my students to where I want them to be is a process, and I need to be patient with the process – easier said than done I’ve found.

It has really surprised me that classroom management is my biggest struggle. I thought that the combination of CPS and Kellogg elementary experience would have prepared me to effectively discipline, even younger students. Today, on our walk home, I had a student tell me, “outside teachers never want to beat the students, but sometimes they need a good beating”. I couldn’t help but secretly admit that I agreed with that ;) 

But the reality is that I will never hit a student. My students know this and take advantage of it. I am working out different positive reinforcement plans and slowly trying to train my students to behave even if I don’t have a stick in my hand. Another process I will have to be patient with.

The hanging metal ring is our school bell. Someone rings it to signal the end/start of each period. 

Other than school, life here is busy! I now have jogging partners and we go at 6:00am every morning. After school, I tutor a number of kids (right now it’s four but the number continues to rise) for an hour or two, Monday-Friday. By the time we are done I have just enough time to make dinner, do some cleaning (because I’m constantly making things dirty it seems), and read or journal a little before bed.

I was slowed down a little this week with a cold that is going around school. I had to remind myself – and be reminded by more than one friend – that it’s okay to skip certain responsibilities like jogging and tutoring, and to get the rest that my body needs. As it always does, being sick brought on the craving for the comforts of home. I had my first real yearning for home food, home showers, and my home bed. Like everything though, that too has passed. 

Although I’ve found my much-anticipated routine, small things continue to change. I wonder when, or if, I’ll ever feel totally settled. But then this is a process too, isn’t it? Patience, and finding peace in the process, will help me to continue to feel happy here. That, and the occasional glass of whisky with fellow teachers after school to take the edge off J

My crazy class 4A students. 

Another One Of Dylan's Videos

Incase you missed it on Facebook, Dylan has created another video of our trip across Bhutan.

Watching it reminds me how incredible these people are and how beautiful this country is.

Enjoy :)

http://youtu.be/Vri25aQyAaY?list=UUviCJGk6cZEOp_87oitXo7g

Holidays

The past two weeks have been filled with celebrations and trips and friends and festivals and hikes and books and naps. I'm really living the good life here :) We have had such an irregular start to our school year because of holidays that happen to fall back to back here in Punakha. Frist was Losar (the New Year), followed the king’s birthday, and then a religious festival called Tshechu.

We did have two and a half days with students at school, however no classes were taught. The days were filled with organizing students into class sections, cleaning the school grounds (which the students did while I was told to “supervise”), and distributing textbooks. We also had a lot of free time and spent it having tea with my 8^th grade girls, discussing differences between life for my students here in Bhutan and students in the U.S., and many lessons for me in Dzongkha.  School was let out on Wednesday, not to resume until the 2^nd of March, which meant that I was faced with 11 days of no school and no plans.

The only time that I really socialize with others in my community is during school. So I knew I had to go out of my comfort zone and make a point to go visit people. I've had many colleagues say things such as “come over for tea sometime during the holiday”. And in my head I respond with, when is sometime? What if I come over and I’m interrupting something? What do people even do here in their free time?? In the end I did manage to get myself out of my hermit hole and was rewarded with successful social interaction! One time I tried to go help a fellow teacher from school who was moving houses. But instead of allowing me to help, she sat me down in the sun with a book and made me tea. It’s not what I intended, but it was a good start!

For the King’s birthday, I went with my principal and a busload of students from my school to a celebration and an exhibition of reading programs that schools are implementing. The celebration happens every year and our students prepared cultural dances to preform for head officials in our district and spectators. The exhibition of reading programs, however, was new. The King has declared 2015 as “Reading Year” so each school is meant to develop a new program that will foster good reading habits and a love of reading in the students. I was sent with the principal as a representative of the group of three teachers that are responsible for developing Dechentsemo’s reading program.  (If I haven’t already mentioned it, Dechentsemo is the name of my school).

Students from Dechentsemo handing the Ministry of Education officials pamphlets and explaining our reading program. 

Along with students, the celebration also had professional masked dancers. 

The boys from Dechentsemo performing their dance. 

I also got together a good amount with fellow BCF teachers over the holiday. One friend, Dylan, was in town to photograph a marathon and he took me on his borrowed motorbike to Sebastian’s place on the other side of the valley. The biggest morale booster that I've experienced sine being here is getting together with friends who are going through the same thing and with whom there is no language barrier. Sebastian and I also took a trip up to Gasa to visit the hot springs and the Gasa Dzong. Gasa is north of Punakha, and significantly colder. The hot springs were lovely, and the view of the surrounding mountains even better.

I have never been so ill prepared for a trip as I was when we left for Gasa. I naïvely assumed that the Gasa hot springs were probably a tourist destination and being such, would have accommodations that tourists would be used to. Luckily, while trying to catch a ride to meet Sebastian and leave in our arranged taxi, my principal picked me up and discovered that we had not brought bedding, food, or anything to cook our nonexistent food on. He made a couple quick calls and we found ourselves stopping on the way to pick up a rug and sleeping bags from my principal’s brother who teaches at a school that’s on the road to Gasa. Then, once there, he hooked us up with his wife and children who also happen to be vacationing in Gasa so that they could cook for us. The guest houses where vacationers stay were booked up, but by a stroke of luck, the manger had some cancellations, or a miscalculation, or maybe it was the deities of Bhutan looking out for us, but he found an empty room for us to stay in. We made friends who drove us in the back of their pickup truck to the Dzong and who cooked us lunch and dinner the second day. If it hadn’t been for the incredible hospitality of the Bhutanese, we probably would have ended up sleeping under the stars in our clothes and surviving off of crackers and oranges.

That being said, I never felt stressed during the trip. Although I’ve experienced a rollercoaster of emotions since being here, stress is not one of them. The couple of times that I have started to feel stressed or frustrated with situations, I realize that I feel even more out of place because no one around me is stressed.

For now I’m off to PunakhaTshechu and will probably have pictures from it next time I blog J

The Gasa guest houses where we stayed. 

Our room inside the guest house. Thank goodness for the borrowed run and sleeping bags! 

The man who gave us a ride back to Punakha from Gasa, me, and Sebastian in front of Gasa Dzong. Although now used for administration offices and monasteries, Dzongs were originally built as fortresses. 

My village of Thinleygang! Taken on one of my hikes. I live in the big pink building on the left. 

Kuzuzanpo!

Kuzuzanpo! Hello!

Turns out that it’s not easy to find internet in this country. I have a data stick that is supposed to connect my computer to the limited 3G network, but so far no luck with that. I’m writing this from a nearby town, Bajo, which has an internet café where I am able to connect. It's funny, when I came to Bhutan I was looking to get away from the internet, but I didn't realize at the time that it would be my only practical form of communication with anyone back home.

I am finally at my school and moved into my apartment! And even better, the students come tomorrow!! I live above a general store and a restaurant. I have one room, a bathroom and a balcony. It is the perfect amount of space for me to live alone in. Since my last blog, I have spent about ten days in Thimphu and four days traveling halfway across the country.

Does the mess surprise you? I plan to buy baskets to put some of my clothes in because right now I’m still living out of my suitcase. The bathroom is a tease in the sense that it has a showerhead and a sink but neither work. There is a spicket (just above the wet spot on the ground) that I use to fill up buckets to do all my dishes, laundry, showers, etc.

Thimphu was a fun, yet teasing way to start my time in Bhutan. The sixteen other teachers and I all bonded very quickly. Two weeks in a foreign country can be a long time – long enough for things to start to feel familiar and somewhat normal. This Bhutan that had started to feel normal was Bhutan with my 16 foreign friends. Reality came hard and fast now that I’m settled in Thinleygang and not going to see most of the teachers until July at the earliest. However, there are two teachers within 2-3 hours from me that I plan to see before then. I realize that soon enough life in Thinleygang will normalize; I’ll make friends, and I’ll find a routine. But right now everything is new and life here is somewhat intimidating.

Highlights from my time in Thimphu include playing soccer with some local Bhutanese friends, hiking up to Buddha Dordenma, taking a hike up to a monastery through a crazy awesome alpine forest, visiting the Takin reserve, and nightly discussing with the other teachers if we should go out for Indian food, Bhutanese, or pizza for dinner. Most of what I’m eating consists of rice, veggies, ema datse (the national dish made of chilies and cheese) and lots and lots of tea.

The Thimphu valley, detail of one of the buildings in Thimphu (with an adorable kid yelling out the window, “Chilip hiiiiii chilip” – chilip is the Dzongkha word for foreigner) And our three buses packed to the brim with gas cylinders, stoves, mini fridges, and more buckets than you could ever imagine.

We left Thimphu early on Thursday morning and drove to Punakha. My school was first on the way, but after dropping my stuff off, I continued on with the group to Bumthang. The roads in Bhutan are incredible. I have had my breath taken away – both from fright of falling off the road as well as from the beauty of the views and mountain passes. Within a matter of hours we travel from tropical climates with monkeys to the top of mountain passes with snow and frozen prayer flags. My village is somewhere in between these two extremes. No snow, but cold enough to need a good jacket and warm clothes in the winter. I traveled as far as Bumthang, which is in the middle of the country before turning around with two fellow teachers also heading back west.

Some views from the drive East. The Dochu La pass (both mountains and clouds are visible), the Pele La pass with icy trees and frozen prayer flags, and a shot out the window of the bus as we drove down the road.

I have completed one week of being a civil servant for the Bhutanese government, and I’m not sure that I have completed very much. This is largely due to the language barrier. The first week was filled with meetings for the teachers only. Things like who is teaching which classes, school rules and policy, figuring out roles such as matron, club leaders, staff secretary, and more were figured out during these meetings. 90% of the meetings were in Dzongkha, which meant that I sat and looked alert and interested despite the fact that I only had a vague idea of what was being talked about. The process to figure out who is teaching which class involved teachers arguing all morning and finally coming to a solution in which most of the teachers compromised and were not entirely thrilled about their assignments. This is partly due to the fact that my school has become a central school this year. This means that the primary school and secondary schools are combined under one principal. It also means that suddenly there are 45 teachers in the school (a massive number) and each teacher could potentially teach any grade pre-primary to grade 10. I believe one teacher even has one section grade 10, one section grade 3, and one section grade 1. What a handful! Anyway, throughout the process my class assignment changed many times, starting with grade 9 English and ending up with grade 4 English. I raised my concerns about the fact that I am not necessarily trained to teach grade 4 and that I have no experience there, but this did not deter the principal and other teachers from thinking it was a fine idea.

On top of grade 4 English, I am leading the literary club for the secondary students, and helping to plan and implement the school-wide and yearlong reading program for our school. This last project I am especially excited about. Two other teachers and I are working on implementing 15 min of school wide reading every Wednesday morning, competitions between classes to read and review the most books, guest readers, literary festivals, etc.

School officially starts tomorrow. I have never seen the class 4 curriculum, and I have absolutely no idea which building my rooms are in. I am not worried though; I have heard that there is a very slow start to the school year. This year will be especially slow due to the New Year holiday and the king’s birthday celebration.

I feel so privileged to be in this country.  Everyday I am more amazed by the landscape, the people, and the animals. I am also learning more and more each day. Among many other things I am learning how to put my Kira on properly, how to cook using a pressure cooker, how to hitchhike, and how to speak a little bit of Dzongkha. I’m also learning about the power of my space heater and how to avoid leaving my wool leggings to close.

The patch that I had to sew after burning a hole right on the butt cheek of my wool leggings – such an essential piece of clothing too! Actually somewhat of an ironic picture because they are right next to the space heater that is the hole-burning culprit. Although this time it was turned off! And, for your viewing pleasure, a picture of how I felt after spending 25 minuets trying to pin my Tago and Wanju (the pieces that make up the jacket) although I did get it eventually and I’m getting better every day  …living alone makes you do weird things like taking selfies at 8am.

Until next time readers –

Dylan's Video

Dylan, husband to BCF teacher Megan, is a professional photographer and made a video of our arrival in Bhutan. My hand makes a cameo at the end with the puppy :) This should give a better idea of who I'm with and what I'm experiencing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmWJKgxnZ8s&feature=youtu.be

I'm Alive And In Bhutan!

I haven’t written much here, but I want to get my first post published in the hopes that I’ll be able to begin to make a habit of blogging. Everything is different, and there is so much I could say, I’m not sure exactly what to blog about or even how to describe it. Today is my fourth fifth sixth day in Bhutan and everything still feels surreal (I wrote this a few days ago but haven't had internet to post it). Of course I must start somewhere so I’ll begin at the beginning with my flight into Bhutan. On the flight we had the most stunning view of the Himalayas, specifically Mt. Everest. 

At the time, I expected that to be somewhat of a general highlight of coming to Bhutan. I never thought I would see Mt. Everest in my life and it was a wonderful surprise. I realized pretty quickly once we landed, however, that beautiful mountains and hills would not just be a scenic view from the plane but that they would be my view for the next year. It's not often that places end up being exactly  the way you imagine them to be from pictures and internet hype, but so far Bhutan has done exactly that. 

We (the 16 fellow BCF teachers and I) are now in the capital city of Thimphu for the next 7 days while we attend an orientation with the Bhutan Canada Foundation and representatives from the Ministry of Education. The first two days have been filled with contract signing, informational sessions about school, life, and culture here in Bhutan, and shopping. I bought the material for my first kira today (the national dress that I will wear to school everyday), but I’ll have to wait for the tailor to finish with it before I can post a picture.

There are many other things that I should talk about, but at the moment, I can’t find the words. There are also still many unknowns for me. We will hope that by the end of next week I might have more of the answers. I’ll post some pictures with descriptions and hope that they will suffice for now.

This is our hotel building in Paro. All of the architecture in Bhutan mirrors this. The incredible details on the buildings are all painted by hand. There are two vocational schools in Bhutan for students to learn to paint buildings like this one. 

Hills in the Paro valley, where we spend our first two days.

Rice fields in the Paro valley. 

Some of the piles of chilies in the market. Chilies are served in one form or another with almost every meal. I avoid them :) 

Sleeping dogs - they're everywhere! And so cute, not how you would imagine wild dogs. For the most part they look healthy and happy and are nice to people.  

Puppies!!