Thailand Rural School Summer Programme

The initial thought I had in mind when I applied for this program was that I would be deployed at a school and a location that would be really rural. Like living on the countryside with barely any running water and electricity and the accommodation would be basic. But it seems like I drew the lucky number, cause the school, accommodation and location overall exceeded my expectations. I was deployed at Wangkhaem Wittayakhom. The school was quite modernised, because in some classrooms you could even give lessons with PowerPoint slides using a projector. Though I didn't opt for this because I wanted to provide a more authentic lesson experience only using the whiteboard and paper. By keeping the lessons authentic, I feel like I was able to engage in lessons with the students better. Like I would draw and write examples on the whiteboard and they would do the same to their best ability on their own sheets of paper. We would especially focus on the spelling and pronunciation of words. This made the lessons really fun for me and hopefully really fun for the students as well. The accommodation was at a former student's house. She studied at this school several years ago, she even attended the same class as two of the teachers. She herself lives in the neighbouring house with her family whilst we got a house for ourselves, the three of us. The house has a living room, two bedrooms one with air condition and one without, a bathroom and a kitchen. She expressed concerns for lending out this house to future volunteers, because she was worried that people wouldn't take care of its amenities. Like leaving the lights on and forgetting to turn off the ac while it's not in use. It's especially regarding the ac cause there's a norm to not have the ac turned on for a long period during a day. It's expected to use it sparingly cause the electricity is expensive. Another concern would be to keep the house clean in general. These expectations should be considered normal since you wouldn't want a borrowed item to be given back in a worse condition. The locals were kind to us, the great meals we ate at a local eatery across the road from the school entrance (Ba Noom), the different traveling destinations they brought us to, the house we were able to visit whilst getting to know the daughter of a teacher and eating thai barbeque together. I think it comes down to the connections you make with the people, this will greatly affect the quality of your time during deployment. I had an amazing experience, you could even say that it was too good to be true. I still cannot fathom that I went on such an adventure.