I don't know Thai, and they don't know English... what a cocktail.

Disciplining students. That seems to be the funny phrase that seems simple, but is becoming increasingly harder to do. The idea of discipline in a school stateside is a lot different for teachers. At home teachers would never hit a student. The days of rulers and beatings are over in the American public school system. Now I am not saying that Thai teachers beat children, but they will hit them upside the head if they say something wrong or act out. I, as I have stated before, do not feel comfortable with this at all. I still need to discipline my students. Now my Thai is broken, yet I am trying, so I usually cannot communicate my point to these students. The only useful terms that I know for the classroom is stop talking, and do you understand. When it comes to controlling a class of 50 unruly teenage boys who are stuck in a classroom for nearly eight hours a day, these phrases are of little use.

So what do I do? I employ physical punishment. Torture? Uh, not so muc. Jumping jacks. Why do I like jumping jacks? Be cause no one looks good doing a jumping jack, especially not in a school uniform in front of 49 other students. I also have the students just stand up. Standing there at their desks while everyone else just sits there really gets to them, they usually stop acting out pretty quickly.

If these things do not work I just take their ID card and give it to my supervising Thai teacher. She swiftly gets after them and they usually get their act together for the next class. They also tend to spread the word of their punishment to their fellow classmates. This method shows to be effective.

So as the classes go on there are three things that I need to keep doing (in specific order)-

1) I need to improve my Thai
2) I need to keep being stern
3) Teach the students that class can be fun

On a side note- Taking phones has gotten out of hand. I take on average 3-4 phones per class. I have 24 classes a week. That is 96 phones a week. I even took an iPad the other day. Kid, you can not play an iPad in class and not expect me to notice. I usually give these devices back at the end of class. It is almost a lost cause. As long as they do not use them for the 50 minutes a week that I see them I don't really care.