Thank You, Teacher, Part the Second

So last Thursday (June 13) was Teachers’ Day, which is celebrated across Thailand the 2^nd Thursday in June.  (Apparently whether this will shift or be cancelled next year remains uncertain since the Thai school calendar will change to align with the majority of ASEAN—Association of Southeast Asian Nations—countries, which have the month of June off because it’s rice-planting season.)  If you saw the pictures I posted on Facebook, you probably got a decent idea of what this looks like, but I’ll describe it briefly anyway.  It basically consisted of an all-morning assembly, at which all the students, grade by grade, showed their respect for their teachers by “wai”-ing them and giving them flowers.  A standard “wai” is done standing, and consists of placing the palms of the hands together and bowing the head.  The greater the social distance between the people, the higher the hands are held or the lower the bow for the lower ranking person.  The higher ranking person receives the “wai” by placing his/her palms together at chest height and/or inclining his/her head slightly.  In more formal situations such as this, the lower ranking person actually kneels in front of the higher ranking person, places his/her palms together, and bows his/her head to the ground.

In addition to the “wai”-ing, which took up the majority of the time, there were various speeches, mercifully brief (especially mine, which as usual, I was told about 5 seconds before I made it), and the students sang a couple songs, of which I comprehended approximately nil, except that one of them had to do with why they should be good students.  During the wai-ing ceremony I noticed several of the students crying (mostly 4^th graders, who were standing right in front of me), and later in the day I asked one of my co-teachers about it.  I had mistakenly thought that maybe they had been reprimanded a little too harshly for talking or not paying attention or that one of them had received bad news of some sort.  It turns out that they were actually moved to tears sheerly by their sentiments towards their teachers (at least some of them, the teachers that is), which were heightened by one of the songs that they sang.  My co-teacher told me that some students cry every year, and that she often cries as well.

During the remainder of the day, in between classes, groups of students would seek out their teachers, sit in front of them (often this turned into a group hug) and wish them good health, happiness, and that sort of thing.  The teachers would then touch the students on the head, sometimes tousle their hair, and tell them to study hard and wish them good luck.  (This made a marked contrast to the incidents of corporal punishment I have witnessed, which although technically illegal, is still routinely practiced.  Fortunately, neither of my co-teachers ever does this.)

I obviously haven’t been at the school for very long, but I can already tell that there is very genuine care and affection between teachers and students.  This is not to say that there aren’t problems on the part of both: motivational, behavioral, etc., but at least the various exchanges and interactions I witnessed that day were not pure ritual but rather actual expressions of mutual respect and appreciation.