One day at RPK 50 School Khon Kaen

Students have to wake up at 5 am. Luckily the volunteers are allowed to sleep a little longer. After a little morning exercise, breakfast and some chores all the students gather at the meeting hall for the daily morning assembly at 8 a.m., in which the national anthem is played, and the students have a meditation. Furthermore, some important information is shared with the children most mornings. Lastly, every Wednesday one of the volunteers is helping the English-club with their English-quiz, by presenting two sentences containing the weekly word out loud, so one of the students can repeat them and win a price.

After the morning assembly the school day starts and the students as well as the teachers (if they have class) are walking/driving to their classrooms. The first lesson of the day starts at 8:30.

Every time I have class, I pack my teaching pens and my laptop and start my 5-minute walk to primary school, where I have all my classes. On the way I will most likely hear one or two “HELLO TEACHUH WHERE YOU GOING!!???” coming from some middle school girls and I will answer like I always do: “äääHm pRRimARy SscHoOl”. One would think that I would maybe get used to it after two months of the same question but by some miracle I am still getting caught off guard every time. After waving to some other students I meet and thinking about the weather a little (most of the time because it’s way too hot) I arrive at primary school. The first thing I do when standing in front of the building is to look around if some of my students are roaming around somewhere. Of course, I greet everyone and try to catch the ones I have class with while making my way to the classroom. Sometimes my buddy teacher P Fon is already there, so the students are already in line, sometimes I arrive earlier and then I have to do my best to get them all to sit down and be quiet (or at least something close to it). After the formal “GOOD MORNING TEACHER” – “GOOD MORNING STUDENTS. HOW ARE YOU?” “I’M FINE THAN YOU AND YOU?” – “I’M FINE TOO; THANK YOU” they get their exercise books out and we try to figure out together what day we have. I got the feeling that this works better every time.

Most of the lessons we start with vocabulary, followed by some games or activities like drawing something we learned about. I usually use my self-made power points to make the vocabulary look as *aesthetic* as possible. When the lesson is up all the students stand up again to say: “THANK YOU TEACHER” in sync. I answer: “THANK YOU STUDENTS, GOODBYE!” and leave the classroom after some mandatory high-fives and fist-bumps.

At 11:30 everyone has lunch and at 12:30 the school day resumes the only thing changing after lunch is that the usual “GOOD MORNING, TEACHER” is transformed into a “GOOD AFTERNOON, TEACHER”. The last afternoon lesson ends at 4:30pm and there is half an hour until dinner where most of students have to clean up the school.

After dinner everyone has free time, most of the students are doing activities like football or volleyball and at 8-9pm all the students go to bed to be ready for the next exiting school day…