BLOODBATH AT JIRASART SCHOOL IN AYUTTHAYA IN THAILAND

Me, a kindergarten teacher, a math teacher, and science teacher just got fired from Jirasart school in Ayutthaya. More blood will flow, lots of it. Teachers who don't have a degree in the subject they teach, regardless of their teaching quality, will be phased out. Same goes for anyone deemed not enthusiastic enough about sports events and music programs.

I'll share my story and the math teacher's story.

The Thai teachers assigned to observe my lessons did everything but. They prepared their own lessons, graded exams, or filled out paperwork; they tidied the back of the room; they chatted/consulted with other Thai teachers (sometimes 3 or 4 of them having a pow wow in the back of my classroom while I'm trying to teach a lesson); they came to the lesson late and left early. (Surprisingly, most of them didn't use their phones.) Put simply, they didn't see the interaction between me and the students. But they couldn't admit to the school principal that they played hooky instead of doing what he assigned them to do. So they put piddly, trashing comments in their reports. The principal never set foot in my classroom and didn't bother talking to me or the foreign administrators about the accuracy of these reports. Nor did he ask the foreign administrators to observe my lessons for a second opinion. Turns out he wasn't even sharing these reports with them. He was deliberately keeping them out of the loop.

Only 2 out of the 20 Thai teachers who pretended to observe my lessons are English teachers and only one of these English teachers is fluent. Most of them don't understand enough English to know what I was saying or what the students were saying. One of the Thai teachers understands so little English, she had to ask me through one of the students to explain what I was saying and writing. She spoke to the student in Thai, the student translated into English to me, I explained in English to the student, and then the student translated into Thai for her. How is this teacher or any of the other Thai teachers qualified to evaluate me if they don't understand the language and if they didn't pay attention to what was happening in my classroom?

I don't want to mention this principal's name, but his initials might be Mr. Pathampong. How is Mr. Pathampong going to fill so many vacancies resulting from mass firings and new hiring requirements? By raising salaries to international school standards or by offering airfare and housing? No, by dropping his preference for native speakers and his preference for older candidates. Does he seriously expect a native speaker with a degree in early childhood education to spend a year in Asia making $1000 a month, enduring the Thai climate and being away from their family and friends, when they can make $50,000 a year teaching kindergarten in America, where preschool teachers are in big demand? Same goes for math teachers, and America has a severe shortage of math teachers. This means the school will be flooded with teachers from Africa, India, and the Philippines, who are not native speakers; and with younger teachers, who are more interested in a day at the beach than a day in the classroom. Mr. Pathampong refuses to accept advice from 3 of the best foreign administrators in Thailand (no eggageration). He uses Thai art, social studies, and math teachers to evaluate foreign language teachers. He doesn't provide the foreigner teachers with fluent Thai team teachers - no team teachers at all actually. He doesn't visit the classrooms or solicit feedback from the teachers. He doesn't have a clue what's going on in the school, and doesn't care.

Rather than go into more of details of my situation or the kindergarten teacher's situation, I'll share what happened to the math teacher, since he had direct dealing with Mr. Pathampong and I didn't. Suffice it to say, the circumstances in all 3 of our cases - and probably the science teacher's - didn't add up. And when the official reason doesn't add up, that means someone doesn't want it to add up because they don't want to reveal the real reason.

The excuse for the math being fired was his accent. His mother was British and he has taught outside South Africa most of his career. During a very long conversation with him, I didn't fail to understand one word he said. His accent, although distinguishable as South African, isn't near as strong as other South Africans I've met and watched on TV. There were 2 Africans and a Swiss in my office and there was a Philippino upstairs. Their accents are much thicker than his and they are still there, so accent was undeniably an excuse. Granted, I'm not a 10 year old Thai student trying to adapt to a (moderate) South African accent. But when the foreign hiring manager asked the students if they wanted a new teacher or to keep him, they told him they wanted to stick with him. If they were struggling with his accent, they would have asked for a replacement. Mr. Pathampong told him his final exams were too difficult and not enough of his students could pass it. 80% of his students scored above 80 on the exam. Half his students scored 100. Any math teacher would murder for these type of test results. Next Mr. Pathampong tells him his students complained about him. The teacher asked for names. Mr. Pathampong offered 10 names. The teacher happened to run into these students in the dinning hall and asked if this story is true. They denied it. He asked them to accompany him to Mr. Pathampong's office. Mr. Pathampong spoke to the students in Thai and they left. As a result of this teacher being so confrontational with Mr. Pathampong about not having his contract renewed in spite of high test scores and popularity with the students, Mr. Pathompong declares that he has orders from the school owner that the teacher is to be dismissed immediately rather than being allowed to finish his contract. The teacher calls his bluff. Mr. Pathampong backs down. Obviously he had no such orders, or the teacher would have been gone. Well, he's gone now and Mr. Pathampong is still there.

My students have been studying grammar for 4 years, yet they consistently omit or misuse prepositions and articles, etc, don't understand the correct conjugation of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, don't know how to make effective use of conjunctions, and can't spell such basic words as breakfast, coffee, dolphin, and even the word 'study'. Only one of my 80 students can write a paragraph or carry on a conversation with complete, correct grammar. I didn't have a chance to talk to the Thai grammar teachers, so I can't tell you how well they can string an English sentence. But I did see a worksheet for one of the final exams. None of the questions on the worksheet tested the ability of the students to use sentences. None of this bothers Mr. Pathampong, assuming he's even aware.

To further illustrate how out of control Mr. Pathampong is, he threatened to sue me for publicly disapproving of the way he runs the school, claimed an arrest warrant had already been issued for me, that Immigration had already been notified and would stop me at the airport. I am happy to report that Mr. Pathampong was bluffing.