Teaching in Thailand: Sports Day

Across Thailand there is a holiday of sorts called Sports Day. It is, in my schools case, two days where classes are cancelled and the entire school is divided into 4 teams: blue, pink, green and red. These teams compete in basketball, ping pong, techro, volleyball, soccer and running, playing multiple games for different age groups and genders. The day starts with singing the national anthem and praying/being thankful for sports and then the competition is underway. Andrew, Ciana and I just spent the day walking around watching our students play and cheer each other on.

Students playing Techro. It's basically like hackey sack with a slightly bigger ball over a net.

Everyone in their Sports Day shirt singing the National Anthem

The second day begins with a big parade. It is put on solely by the students with very little teacher supervision. Each color has to dress in costumes that are inspired by Thai ancient culture and convey a certain celebration. For example green was celebrating music and live performances and pink celebrated the full moon festivals. After the parade, varies groups from each color come onto the field and put on a performance. This ranged from a traditional Thai dance to a lip sync that was telling a story about a girl finding love.

Students carrying blue and yellow flags because they are the colors of the King and Queen (I like to think it's a little Michigan love)

Girls on the pink team

The green team

One of my 11th grade classes performing a traditional Thai dance

Sports Day then continues next week at a district level. Kids from different schools all over Suphanburi will put on a huge opening ceremony and then compete over the course of one day. The students and the school takes this all very seriously; I'm in my second week of teaching and still haven't met 4 of my classes because they've had practice-it trumps all classes. The first week I was a little relieved to not teach these classes because it reduced my stress level, but not seeing them this second week makes me more stressed. Now I have to cover 3 weeks worth of material in 1 class. Plus, it's just a little frustrating to know my class can be cancelled on a whim and I won't know about it. (I found out my classes were cancelled because the students never showed up.) The most interesting part about it is the teachers don't seem to mind. They just tell me it's not a big deal, the students have other things they need to practice for. It is amazing how relaxed and unorganized the school is...it is something that would never be accepted in the States. Class is cancelled? Oh well. Half your class didn't show up? That's okay. Everyone is cheating on their exam? No, they're just sharing. It really is eye opening to experience a school system and structure that is so different from our own.

Side Note: I wrote this last part of the blog after school on Wednesday when my classes had been cancelled. After seeing the parade and sports day it became very clear why the students were missing class, they were in charge of quite a production. This doesn't discredit the way I felt, but I think deserves a little disclaimer.

Some more fun photos: