So we're at midterm and the director of the foreign language department finally gets around to handing out the class rosters. I'm looking over the names and matching them up with the roster I made on my own. All the numbers were wrong, so I had to make a new list, but not a huge deal. That's when I came across the name "Thanut". I look up and down my list but can't find it. When class time rolls around I ask my students, "Who is Thanut?" The reply is "Absent." I pick out one of the smart girls and try to explain my confusion - 37 students, all have 6 grades, but absolutely nothing for any "Thanut". She says, "Yes, have Thanut, but absent."
Today I taught M1-3 again, and here comes the bright girl dragging a vaguely familiar-looking boy by the hand. "Teacher - he Thanut." I march him out of the room. He looks like he's about to cry. I take him to the Thai teacher's lounge, searching for a teacher who speaks passable English. I corner one and explain as best I can. They talk. She tells me he has been coming to class for two-and-a-half months. Obviously he fell through the cracks during the making of my makeshift roster and never said anything. I point to my grade book and show her the 6 grades all the other student have. More talking, then the Thai teacher tells me, "He never do your speaking tests. He want to do them today."
I wonder how many classes he has silently attended? I took roll every day but never called his name, but nah, why mention it? I gave him one speaking test today and he didn't do too badly.
"There's a beverage here man!"
this is a situation where a "mai bpen rai" attitude will lower your blood pressure.
Imodium can't stop me.
You had a new student in your class and didn't notice ?
Nuts In A Blender
You wouldn't be in a certain school in Rayong, would you?Originally Posted by The Dude
I think the thing is that he called the names at attendance but wasn't asking for raised hands....
It is all rather confusing..............
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
―
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I have taught this class twice a week for the past 2 1/2 months. I have called roll before every class and, yes, the students raise their hands when they hear their name. Thanut has flown under the radar, never questioning why his name wasn't called, never questioning why I never called on him during the speaking exercises. None of the 37 other students ever brought it to my attention that I skipped over him during roll call.
Thanut must be pretty good at blending in.
Jackie Treehorn knows which Thanut you are...Jackie Treehorn wants to see the "mystery" Thanut.
I bet Thanut owes money all over town.
explain to Thanut that Thailand is not Vietnam and there are rules.
fred
yeah, that attitude sounds good to me... "mai bpen rai"
it's also possible he only rarely showed up. i've had students who only started showing up when i asked about 'em.
^
Bingo
I have had university students who didn't attend classes til midterm and then swore they were there all along and it was MY FAULT that I didn't see them, etc , etc.
They will even maintain the lie after I look through all records and they never did one test or quiz.
Usually they have another student in the class standing beside them and supporting the lie. I always enjoyed that one.
Me speaking to absent lying student: You are a liar. You failed the class. Get out!
Me speaking to present lying student: You are a liar. You now have no participation marks for this class...
Oh, and in Thailand I had one student attend the EP program towards the end of term. I handed in the grades as they were. Of course he failed miserably. I watched my boss take the grades from my hand and change his mark to 84 or 86%!
I think he was my class valedictorian!
Gotta love Asia...
~If I go silent for a period it is either because I have been (a) abducted by aliens (not again
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) or (b) have a project that I am working on....(
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)~
Roll call and head count, its easy. if my boss ever meddled with my grades I would walk.
This is so normal it could be the archtype of the typical Thai student. Calm down and give it the laugh it deserves.
Frederick Douglass: Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
and you have found out the exact measure of injustice
and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these
will continue till they are resisted with either
words or blows, or with both.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn;
“Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask
anything of them.”
I remember a parent/teacher day when a student tried to convince me he had been attending my class. According to him, I was an inexperienced, new teacher who never took notice of him or marked him present. He approached me along with his aunt, his social worker and his parole officer. After failing to gaslight me, his parole officer and social worker marched him off. It was important that he prove to his parole officer that he was in my class because he was a suspect in several crimes. I think he went back to prison. Just another Brooklyn story ...
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